Prison Architect (PC) Review

In 1971 a daring experiment was carried out, with several people volunteering to serve as guards and others as prisoners, in an attempt to see how exactly they would change when the dynamic of power was altered. Despite fully aware of this being an experiment, the whole thing had to stop after a mere six days due to how badly the guards treated the prisoners. This became known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Why bring this up? Because playing Prison Architect can end up as a serious test of mental mettle when the one's in control are given absolute control over a prison.

The concept behind this isn't anything really that unique. A plot of land is provided, and a successful and functioning prison must be built on it; a prison where convicts are shuffled in to be kept in return for cash. The player is not the arbiter of justice, the one who decides who lives or dies, or even the cop who hunts down criminal scum; he/she is just the one trying to run the "show," and boy, can it get interesting!

On the surface, gameplay is fairly simple: keep the cash flowing, build an assortment of buildings and rooms to house and manage the prisoners, guards, and the like via designating certain areas and watching people get to work, and manage the site on a management level. This sort of game needs a proper genre title, like 'Management simulator,' for example. Regardless, while the gameplay in on itself isn't deep, things can quickly end up getting very exciting.

It's relatively easy to make even simple mistakes, such as focusing heavily on proper containment and buildings, and forgetting about posting guards on patrol routes leading to multiple escape attempts and resulting in a massive fire and riot as a result. Things can get surprisingly deep and involved while trying to maintain and maximize profit while keeping the prisoners alive to continue raking in the profit, and here is where the best part of the game lies.

Just like with the Stanford Experiment, it is incredibly easy for the perception of the prisoners to change. While many players will likely think themselves the hero of justice whom would never treat someone as less than a person, it becomes all too easy to slide into the big trap. Is it worthwhile to build a classroom or church to help keep the prisoners happy and under control? Is it right to give some prisoners nice cells or to provide the bare minimum in order to attempt to maximize profit regulating them to being little more than cash income bundles? Maybe not even see them as 'beings,' but instead as mere creatures that need to suffer and treat them harsh and cruelly using prison guards to beat down any resulting riots made by the criminal scum?

It can all turn into a very slippery slope, indeed, but that's also the most interesting part; the test of the player's mettle - and whether this was the developer's intent or not, it's, most certainly, a huge part of this title. Are the prisoners simply people who got a bad lot in life, criminals who are in need of rehabilitation, sources of income, sub-human scum who should be grateful that the judge hasn't ordered the electric chair yet? It's all in the hands of the beholder for the most part.

That isn't to say that there isn't more to the game than allowing gamers to see how well they would handle themselves in this the Stanford-like experiment. On a technical level things are mostly intuitive and well-handled, with solid mechanics and easy to learn designs. It can end up daunting at first with so many options, and yet, upon learning the basics, it all becomes quite interesting to see how things turn out.

Needless to say, the game isn't without flaws. For one it is entirely possible for a situation to spiral out of someone's hands, which can result in some pretty nasty outcomes. In Dwarf Fortress the motto may be 'losing is fun,' but watching hours of work fall apart because a prisoner managed to start a riot at just the wrong time, and burn down the kitchen, prompting the situation to get out of control, simply isn't the same as what happens there. The endgame, once things get figured out, though, is simply underwhelming on the whole, and can easily end up well-managed and running fairly smoothly.