Prison Architect | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Introversion Software Double Eleven (2019−present) |
Publisher(s) | Introversion Software [lower-alpha 1] Paradox Interactive (2019−present) |
Producer(s) | Mark Morris |
Designer(s) | Chris Delay |
Platform(s) | |
Release | |
Genre(s) | Construction and management simulation |
Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Prison Architect is a private prison construction and management simulation video game developed and published by Introversion Software. [1] It was made available as a crowdfunded paid alpha pre-order on September 25, 2012 with updates that were scheduled every three to four weeks until 2023. [2] With over 2,000,000 copies sold, Prison Architect made over US$10.7 million in pre-order sales for the alpha version. [3] Prison Architect was an entrant in the 2012 Independent Games Festival. [4] The game was available on Steam's Early Access program, and was officially released on October 6, 2015.
In 2019, Paradox Interactive acquired the rights to Prison Architect for an undisclosed sum. [5] A sequel, Prison Architect 2 , is set to be released on May 7th, 2024.
The game is a top-down 2D, with a partially 3D mode, [6] construction and management simulation, where the player has been hired by the CEO of a for-profit prison company to take control of building and running a prison. The player's role is of both architect and governor with sandbox micromanagement themes, responsible for managing various aspects of the prison, including building facilities, connecting utilities, and managing staff. The player needs to recruit specific staff to unlock some aspects of the game, e.g., information about the prison's finances is unavailable without an accountant. [7]
The player is responsible for the finances of their prison, and for meeting the needs of their prisoners, e.g., sanitation. The player is able to implement various reform and labour programmes that reduce the specific prisoner's recidivism rate. The player tells the prisoners what to do indirectly by setting their schedule. [8] The game takes inspiration from Theme Hospital , Dungeon Keeper , and Dwarf Fortress . [9]
The player can allow additional conditions to be applied to their game, such as simulated temperature, gang activities and more extreme weather conditions, to increase the difficulty of the game and to simulate a prison in conditions nearer to reality. Players may opt to build a female prison, which necessitates the construction of nursing and childcare facilities for female inmates that are accompanying an infant. A player's prison is graded by an in-game report according to various factors including recidivism rate of prisoners that have left the prison, overall happiness and violence levels within the prison.
Prisoners are ranked according to five different classes, which correspond to a different temperament and length of sentence. Prisoners may be motivated to behave well to be given a lower security rating. Prisoners with poor behaviour may be given a higher security rating as punishment. Death Row prisoners arrive with a 'clemency' gauge, expressed as a percentage. This percentage can be lowered with successive failed Death Row Appeal sessions. Below a certain percentage, the prisoner can be executed without legal backlash to the facility regardless of the innocence of the prisoner. Should the Death Row prisoner pass an appeal, he may be released from the prison or transferred into the general prison population. There is also a Protective Custody class that players can assign prisoners as.
Players can be 'fired' by the CEO by reaching a failure conditions, and the player is then prevented from further managing that prison.
The first "official" non-beta release introduced an expanded story mode as a tutorial as well as an escape mode which casts the player as a prisoner with the goal of escaping, while causing as much trouble as possible. [10]
With the addition of the Psych Ward DLC, players are given the option to house criminally insane prisoners, and build relevant facilities to meet their needs, such as padded cells, and hire additional personnel needed to keep them in check, such as orderlies and psychiatrists. Regular prisoners may become criminally insane when they experience excessive punishment or when their needs are not regularly met, such as lack of access to food or sanitation.
Prison Architect was developed by British video game studio Introversion Software. The game was announced in October 2011, shortly after Introversion postponed the development of their bank heist simulator game Subversion . [11] The game was first made available on September 25, 2012 as an Alpha version. [2] The game was then crowdfunded with pre-orders, making over US$270,000 in two weeks with close to 8,000 sales. [12] Developer's co-founder Mark Morris explains that independent crowd-funding has allowed them to have no time limit on the Alpha version, as well as no fees associated with crowd-funding platforms. [12] As of December 2013, the developers have raised over US$9 million. [13]
Introversion Software announced that a mobile version of the game was in development [14] and the PC version of the game officially launched on October 6, 2015. [15] [16] In Introversion's alpha 30 video, [17] they confirmed Prison Architect was coming to iOS and Android in October 2015 with the game's official release. The developers posted a tweet on March 21, 2013, that "I guess Prison Architect won't be coming to iPad then! Your loss Apple", with a link to a Pocket Gamer article. [18] [19] It was later revealed by the developer that the original direct port did not impress Apple. Due to the concern of it might not be featured on App Store's front page the project was set aside for a while. [20]
The effort to bring Prison Architect to mobile devices was resumed by Paradox Interactive as the publisher and co-developed with Tag Games. The tablet version for iPad and Android tablets was launched on May 25, 2017. [21] Introversion announced on January 20, 2016 that Double Eleven would be bringing the game to Xbox 360, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 platforms. The console versions were released on June 28, 2016. [22] The Xbox edition of the game was released to subscribers to Xbox Live under the Games With Gold program in September 2018. [23]
On June 6, 2017, Double Eleven released a trailer for an expansion pack to the game, named Psych Ward, on their YouTube channel. [24] Psych Ward was later released on Steam on November 21, 2019. [25]
Update 16, which officially introduced multiplayer mode to the game, was released on September 4, 2018. [26] The new mode allows up to 8 players to cooperatively build and manage a prison. This was later reduced to 4 players in a December 2018 update.
On May 16, 2023, Paradox Interactive released The Sunset Update, the final update for the game. [27]
Name | Release Date |
---|---|
Psych Ward | 21 November 2019 [25] |
Cleared for Transfer | 14 May 2020 [28] |
Island Bound | 11 June 2020 [29] |
Going Green | 28 January 2021 [30] |
Second Chances | 16 June 2021 [31] |
Perfect Storm | 27 January 2022 [32] |
Gangs | 14 June 2022 [33] |
Undead | 11 October 2022 [34] |
Future Tech Pack | 22 November 2022 [35] |
Jungle Pack | 7 February 2023 [36] |
Aggregator | Score |
---|---|
Metacritic | PC: 83/100 [37] PS4: 80/100 [38] XONE: 75/100 [39] NS: 83/100 [40] |
Publication | Score |
---|---|
GameSpot | 7/10 [41] |
IGN | 8.3/10 [42] |
TouchArcade | [43] |
Upon its full release, the game received positive reviews, scoring 83 out of 100 on review aggregator site Metacritic. [37] IGN awarded it a score of 8.3 out of 10, saying "Prison Architect is one of the most in-depth, satisfying builder games in ages, if you can get past the initiation." [42] On April 7, 2016, Prison Architect won the 2016 BAFTA award in the Persistent Game category. [44] Prison Architect was also nominated for the 2016 BAFTA award in the British Game category, which was won by Batman: Arkham Knight . [44]
As of September 26, 2015, Prison Architect had grossed over $19 million in sales, and over 1.25 million units of the game had been sold. [45] By the end of August 2016 when the final version '2.0' of Prison Architect was released, the number of individual players was given as two million. [46] In June 2019, it was announced that the game had been downloaded over 4 million times across PC, console and mobile. [47]
A sequel, Prison Architect 2 , is set to be released on September 3, 2024, for Windows PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S by Double Eleven and publisher Paradox Interactive. [48] Unlike the first game, Prison Architect 2 is fully 3D and allows players to construct prisons over multiple floors. [49]
Uplink is a simulation video game released in 2001 by the British company Introversion Software. The player takes charge of a freelance computer hacker in a fictional futuristic 2010, and must break into foreign computers, complete contracts and purchase new hardware to hack into increasingly harder computer systems.
Beyond Good & Evil is a 2003 action-adventure game developed and published by Ubisoft for PlayStation 2, Windows, Xbox and GameCube. The story follows the adventures of Jade, an investigative reporter, martial artist, and spy hitwoman working with a resistance movement to reveal a sinister alien conspiracy. Players control Jade and other allies, solving puzzles, fighting enemies, obtaining photographic evidence and, later in the game, travelling to space.
Introversion Software Limited is a British video game developer based in Walton-on-Thames, England.
Obsidian Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Irvine, California. It was founded in June 2003, shortly before the closure of Black Isle Studios, by ex-Black Isle employees Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, Chris Parker, Darren Monahan, and Chris Jones.
Darwinia is a 2005 real-time tactics and real-time strategy video game for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It is the second game developed by Introversion Software, and is set within a computer environment that simulates artificial intelligence. It received favourable reviews and won three awards at the 2006 Independent Games Festival. A multiplayer sequel, Multiwinia, was released for Windows in 2008. Darwinia and Multiwinia were released together as Darwinia+ for the Xbox 360 in 2010.
Paradox Interactive AB is a video game publisher based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company started out as the video game division of Target Games and then Paradox Entertainment before being spun out into an independent company in 2004. Through a combination of expanding internal studios, founding new studios and purchasing independent developers, the company has grown to comprise nine first-party development studios, including their flagship Paradox Development Studio, and acts as publisher for games from other developers.
TimeShift is a first-person shooter developed by Saber Interactive and published by Vivendi Games for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 in late 2007. It was developed using the Saber3D Engine.
Mount & Blade is a 2008 medieval strategy action role-playing game for Microsoft Windows, developed by Turkish company TaleWorlds Entertainment, and published by Swedish company Paradox Interactive. In the game, the player controls a customized character to battle, trade, and manage a fief in the medieval land of Calradia. The game was developed by Armağan Yavuz and his wife İpek Yavuz, the founders of TaleWorlds Entertainment. The game was fully released on September 16, 2008, though alpha versions of the game were available prior to the full release.
Vietcong is a 2003 tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Pterodon in cooperation with Illusion Softworks and published by Gathering for Microsoft Windows. It is set during the Vietnam War in 1967.
Double Eleven Limited is a British video game developer and publisher based in Middlesbrough.
Pillars of Eternity is a role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Paradox Interactive. It was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux on March 26, 2015. The game is a spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series, along with Planescape: Torment. Obsidian started a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for it in September 2012. The campaign raised over US$4 million, which was the highest funded video game at the time. The game uses the Unity engine.
DayZ is a multiplayer only survival video game developed and published by Bohemia Interactive. It is the standalone game based on the mod of the same name for Arma 2. Following a five-year-long early access period for Windows, the game was officially released in December 2018, and was released for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2019.
Goat Simulator is an action video game developed and published by Coffee Stain Studios. It was released for Microsoft Windows in April 2014, and ports for Linux and OS X were released in June 2014. Mobile versions for Android and iOS were released in September 2014. Versions for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One were released in April 2015, and for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in August 2015; these ports were developed by Double Eleven. A Nintendo Switch version containing the game and downloadable content was released in January 2019.
Cities: Skylines is a 2015 city-building game developed by Colossal Order and published by Paradox Interactive. The game is a single-player open-ended city-building simulation. Players engage in urban planning by controlling zoning, road placement, taxation, public services, and public transportation of an area. They also work to manage various elements of the city, including its budget, health, employment, traffic, and pollution levels. It is also possible to maintain a city in a sandbox mode, which provides more creative freedom for the player.
Minecraft: Story Mode is an episodic point-and-click video game developed and published by Telltale Games, based on Mojang Studios' sandbox video game Minecraft. The first five episodes were released between October 2015 through March 2016 and an additional three episodes were released as downloadable content (DLC) in mid-2016. A second season consisting of five episodes was released in 2017.
The Escapists is a strategy game played from a top-down perspective. The game was developed by Mouldy Toof Studios and following a Steam Early Access release in 2014, was released in 2015 for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. It was released on iOS and Android in 2017. A Nintendo Switch version of the game containing all downloadable content was released in 2018. The game was launched on the Epic Games Store on 23 September 2021, with the weekly free game campaign of Epic Games. Players assume the role of an inmate and must escape from prisons of increasing difficulty.
Stellaris is a 4X grand strategy video game developed by Paradox Development Studio and published by Paradox Interactive. In Stellaris, players take control of an interstellar civilization on the galactic stage and are tasked with exploring, colonizing, and managing their region of the galaxy, encountering other civilizations that they can then engage in diplomacy, trade, or warfare with. A large part of the game involves dealing with both scripted and emergent events, through which new empires alter the balance of power, powerful crises threaten the galaxy, or event chains tell the story of forgotten empires. It was released worldwide for Windows, macOS, and Linux on May 9, 2016 and for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as Stellaris: Console Edition on February 26, 2019.
Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine is a 2013 stealth video game developed by Pocketwatch Games in which players, alone or cooperatively, perform heists and robberies. Players choose from eight characters, each of whom has a unique and beneficial skill, such as the ability to change appearance or tunnel through walls. Monaco's single-player story is told in four acts from perspectives of different characters. The cooperative mode lets up to four players play together in different locations.
Prison Architect 2 is an upcoming private prison construction and management simulation video game developed by Double Eleven and published by Paradox Interactive. It is a sequel to Prison Architect, and will feature full 3D gameplay. The game is scheduled to be released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S on the 3rd, of September, 2024.