Prison Architect - formerly from Introversion, acquired by Paradox

[Jaedar]

Gotta check out the random elements option, in a regular game it's a bit too easy to keep the prison stable. That's what it lacks from DF - hundreds of ways to fail hilariously.

Yeah, that's my biggest issue with it. It's pretty easy to build a prison where all the prisoners are relatively happy and that is making money.

 

[Metro]

Apparently Introversion has paid a bunch of regular streamers/YouTubers to do playthroughs with the release. Pretty funny, thought only AAA companies did that. I've seen at least a dozen people with 'sponsored' videos of it.

 

[potatojohn]

Nowhere is the cost of Prison Architect’s exclusions more palpable than in the game’s treatment, or lack thereof, of race. It’s hardly controversial to say that racism is inseparable from the prison industrial complex, which makes race’s near-total absence from Prison Architect both bewildering and insidious. In a recent article for The Atlantic, Ta Nehisi Coates persuasively argues that the American prison industrial complex constitutes the latest technology in a long history of structuralist white supremacy. “Peril,” Coates writes, “is generational for black people in America—and incarceration is [America’s] mechanism for maintaining that peril.” Although mass incarceration has touched virtually every community in the United States (if our prison population were counted as a single city, it would be the fourth largest in the country), its worst injustices have been disproportionately borne by black Americans: one in four black men born since 1970 has experienced prison firsthand, a rate that is roughly 10 times that of white men. Black murderers whose victims were white are ten times more likely to receive the death penalty than white murderers whose victims were black.

Someone should tell him that Introversion software is English...

 

[Metro]

Doesn't make a difference. Just replace American with English and Black with Muslim.

 

[cvv]

Installed yesterday after lunch, just to check out what exactly I bought in the Summer sale, just for a couple of minutes. It's probably shit. Next thing I know it's after midnight.

Game's a lot of fun. Two complaints - all those years of development and beta testing and nobody is pissed off with the scroll speed? In large prisons to get from one end to the other (which you do ALL THE TIME) it takes forever. The absence of minimap sucks so much enjoyment from this game, goddamn.

Also, the tutorial is not very good. Everything seems to be piss easy but when the training wheels are taken off your prison quickly descends into chaos, anarchy and bloodbath. The basic systems are overexplained, the more advanced ones poorly or not at all.

Overall though there's a lot of depth and potential. Definitely one of the best theme simulators ever created.

 

[Ulminati]

Also, the tutorial is not very good. Everything seems to be piss easy but when the training wheels are taken off your prison quickly descends into chaos, anarchy and bloodbath. The basic systems are overexplained, the more advanced ones poorly or not at all.

Had the same experience. I don't mind it overmuch because Prison Architecht is sort of like Dwarf Fortress with less psychopaths. So I take the prison descending into chaos as part of the ride. I think the problem with the tutorials stem from them being made/iterated on when the game was simpler. As new systems were introduced to the game, the tutorials didn't get updated to reflect them.

I think it will suffer from the dwarf fortress issue that eventually you'll know how to build a functioning prison and the game loses all challenge after that breakpoint. But judging from the sorry state i left Prosperland Penitentiary in, it's going to take a loooong while for me to get there.

 

[cvv]

Had the same experience. I don't mind it overmuch because Prison Architecht is sort of like Dwarf Fortress with less psychopaths. So I take the prison descending into chaos as part of the ride. I think the problem with the tutorials stem from them being made/iterated on when the game was simpler. As new systems were introduced to the game, the tutorials didn't get updated to reflect them.

I think it will suffer from the dwarf fortress issue that eventually you'll know how to build a functioning prison and the game loses all challenge after that breakpoint. But judging from the sorry state i left Prosperland Penitentiary in, it's going to take a loooong while for me to get there.

Well eventually you'll figure everything out...after 2 or 3 restarts. Plus there's Youtube.

As for the challenge, I see the game suffering from a slightly different fault, common for many of those indie games built gradually through regular updates - the basic content is mastered fairly quickly and everything else feels like an additional, optional challenge. Case in point, I've managed to build a medium sized, well run and prosperous prison on my third attempt. Everthing works, I'm making a ton of money so it seems that's it, I've won. Ofc I could go on with increasing its size significantly and start taking only max-sec or supermax-sec prisoners but it'd feel like an additional, optional challenge instead a integral part of the game.

I feel like it's not a good design. The game should push you into higher, more advanced gameplay, it shouldn't give you the option to run a medium basic prison forever.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah, it irks me when games do that sort of thing. I mean, sure, I can impose the challenge on myself... but would it have been so difficult to implement something challenging as a default and leave the sandbox gameplay to a sandbox mode? Just make refusing prisoners an 'unofficial' playthrough feature or something, and bam, game instantly becomes difficult as you get swamped with violent bastards while you're still building shit.

 

[sser]

I actually think the game is pretty easy. Make sure you're regulating your intake so you're not automatically receiving prisoners every day. Only thing I can't make sense of is the patrol mechanic. No idea what the hell is going on there.

 

[Matalarata]

patrol

Patrols are just lines/shapes you draw and that your guards will follow (click drag to draw, click again on a drawn line to add one guard, repeat if needed) probably your problems arise because the micromanagement (or prison policy?) tech unlocks daily schedules. In that case, in your deployment screen you'll have a ruler with numbers (Time of the day) and a blank square underneat each. Leaving them blank means "standard" schedule. But if you right click on those squares you change them to coloured numbers. You can use this to divide up the daily schedule and assign guards where you need them (eg. add some guards to the canteen during lunchtime/ remove dogs from visitors/infirmary and use them to patrol your walls at night, those pesky tunnels...).

 

[Havoc]

A can of worms was opened.

 

[Perkel]

Prisoner: A. S.
Crime: Being nazi idiot
sentence: cell without twitter

 

[Kjaska]

Update 2 is so good, that it makes me wish Orange is the new Black was a good show.

 

[sser]

Talk about walking on eggshells. Every statement preempted with some qualifier or another.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Yeah, I couldn't watch that video - 25% of talk about features and 75% of trying not to insult any poor sjws.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Makabb]

wow the indie devs of today will catch up soon to 1997

 

[Burning Bridges]

Yeah, I couldn't watch that video - 25% of talk about features and 75% of trying not to insult any poor sjws.

Yes but why not have a little fun. The game is really good and the videos are usually too.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-10-07-prison-architect-review

Prison Architect review
Shawshank retention.

Emerging from Early Access lean and focused, Prison Architect is one of the best management games in a long time.

Editor's note: Prison Architect releases on consoles this week, and to mark the occasion we're returning to our original review of the game, first published last October. Double Eleven has handled the console versions, introducing a new introductory Prison Warden mode with ready-made prisons, as well as featuring a mode that lets you share and play other people's prisons.

If I have one tip for you, it's that you should get dogs.

Dogs are wonderfully versatile. They do an excellent job of sniffing out contraband hidden in whatever crevices prisoners hide contraband in, they quickly find the tunnels inmates have been slowly scratching out and they chase down escapees like furry homing missiles.

But in discovering all those smuggled drugs, in revealing those hidden tunnels, those dogs also make your life more complicated. In Introversion's prison management game, which has just emerged from a long spell in Early Access, the more you know about what goes on in your prison the more unhappy you'll be - and, likely, the more unhappy your inmates will be. Before I started revealing their secret vices, before I was able to clamp down on their bad behaviour, running my prison wasn't too difficult. Now, inmates riot. They fight in the shower. A man overdosed in his cell. I was a happier warden when I was an ignorant one.

Prison Architect's greatest strength is the freedom it gives you in denying others theirs. While there is an entertaining campaign to play through, which will teach you first the basics and later the nuances of prison administration, the real soul of this game is found in the blank canvas of correction it lays out for you. If your vision of a prison is a vast, brutalist hellscape that occupies every inch of available land, you can make that happen. If you'd prefer a modest and manicured minimum-security facility, somewhere where things never get nasty, drag a few sliders to keep out undesirables and hire a gardener. The world is your oyster and it's up to you how cruelly and tightly it closes.

The fundamentals are simple: your prison is compulsory lodging. None of your guests want to be there and some distant authority is paying their rent. The more you accommodate, the more money you make. Dangerous lodgers are more valuable but, as you might imagine, more inclined to disrupt or attempt escape from the confines of the Hotel California you have created. You may or may not be be concerned with comfort levels, re-education programmes or cleanliness but, first and foremost, you care about profit.

For posterity: Here's a picture of the worst inmate I've ever had. A disaster on legs.

Your most basic employees are guards and construction staff, the former shuttling prisoners to and fro or providing pugilist persuasion to anyone who has delusions of liberty. The latter are your worker ants, scurrying about your compound as you demand more fences, plan out new a new wing or decide that, yes, your inmates really do deserve a common room with all the luxury of a pool table and television set.

You'll need to watch those folks carefully, as they have a curious habit of performing their tasks in unusual orders. This can include building every segment of a sewage pipe bar one before moving onto a completely different task, or pathing slowly and clumsily around a building to try to finish the last section of a security fence. Most of the time, they can be relied upon, but occasionally they need a firm hand, not least because their work is as critical as anyone else's.

So much of Prison Architect is about construction. It's about planning, about environment and about layout, all of which affect safety, security and reliability. Every prisoner may have their personality, but the prison itself is always the central character, the locus around and through which everything else happens.

This is because every construction choice matters. This isn't Sim City, where some neighbourhoods end up trashier than others, or where a quick bulldozing fixes an infrastructure imperfection. Prison Architect's ecosystem is far tighter, far more sensitive, with budgets that aren't sympathetic to constant demolition or rearrangement, and then there are the penalties for incompetence. Poor judgement calls can have you face a fine or, depending on your difficulty level, a firing.

Feel you've fashioned the perfect prison? You can test its limits in the escape mode, though prison life is certainly routine.

Prisoners are canny, too. They dig. They demand visitors, then ask relatives to smuggle items in. They find just the right moment to attack a rival gang member. They find the path of least resistance and exploit it constantly, doing something you might not realise for hours, even days of game time. It's all that you can do to gradually unlock and employ an ever-growing team of experts who will give you greater insight into their criminal minds, greater control over the deployment of a growing roster of guards and, sometimes, greater possibilities for the redemption of at least a few of these reprobates.

If my admiration isn't yet clear, Prison Architect is marvellous. It's one of the best management games in a long time, lean and focused. It's one in which, even with so many moving parts, everything that happens originates from a choice you made, a decision about layout or about policy. It's also one of the most stylish, most idiosyncratic games in its genre. The flat, cartoonish design, with its bold lines and broad caricatures, is a disarming facade behind which so many cogs turn. These flat characters are enough to make you forget the two-dimensional projection of your world: you will never build upwards.

A devil chuckles within the details, too. Little things, such as the buzz of a dot matrix printer as you issue patrol orders, or the endless moping of a handler who has lost their dog, add tiny touches of humour. Prison Architect doesn't reach for the big laughs, but the subtle smirks, another hint of the depths within.

I'm going to unlock surveillance next. Be seeing you

And it takes time to reveal those depths. Getting your first functional prison up and running reliably may take you a couple of goes and some generous grants (extra funds which, thankfully, also provide direction for new players), but getting a really good prison going demands a very particular kind of diligence.

Unlocking staff like security chiefs and psychologists also unlocks more of the game's layers, revealing inmates' hidden desires, allowing for elaborate CCTV systems or presenting possibilities like prison labour programmes. This new information inevitably reveals new ways in which you're doing your job wrong, new ways in which you're falling short or failing those within your care. Again, your attitude to this will reflect just how much of that care you have, and the remarkable thing about Prison Architect is how it doesn't push you toward any sort of glamorous ideal, it doesn't reward any particular sort of prison or approach to play.

No, it simply presents a collection of agents acting within a series of systems and lets you frame, manipulate and exploit these however you choose. If you can make a lot of money running a grotty, cynical institution where riots are contained and beatings are commonplace, why strive for better? If your shining chapel and stuffed classrooms give you a sanctimonious sense of self-satisfaction, so be it.

Similarly, it's your choice if you wish to micromanage such details as your inmates' meal times, remote-controlled security doors or cell allocation. You certainly can - and I found it practical to carefully separate the times at which different prisoners ate - but this is a game that, to its credit, can be thoroughly enjoyed without peering too closely at the fine print.

More research reveals greater depths, including all sorts of stats and overlays.

In the far longer term, Prison Architect loses a little of its edge. The staff technology tree means prisons tend to evolve in a similar fashion and, after assembling a couple of capable prisons, you will have seen most of what the game has to offer. However, the ability to sell a prison and put its funds toward another, effectively approaching a new game with a substantial head start, is a fine idea. It means you can immediately begin again on a greater scale, rushing through the rudiments toward greater things, the game eating yet more and more of your hours (and so many of mine have slid down into its ever-growing stomach).

A little more disappointing is how the game's depths are not always apparent. These prisoners really are pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered, dehumanised by the systems they find themselves inside, but the finer details or their character or motivations are not always as obvious as they could and should be. There's an argument for this being perfectly reasonable, since any diligent warden should be proactive in investigating and understanding their clientele, but in a thronging prison of so much cause and consequence, this is a lot to ask. The whys and the wherefores could be clearer and a few more tooltips or reports wouldn't go amiss.

But I have few complaints. So few complaints. For years now, players have watched Prison Architect mature through a sometimes very bumpy Early Access evolution and now it has come of age, blossoming into a beautiful new management game marred only by what are, at their very worst, a mere scattering of pimples. It's smart, it's challenging, it's even a commentary on incarceration and reform in a capitalist culture. Go on. Get some dogs.

 

[LESS T_T]

http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=92bdc42550e7f2323d1a4bde9&id=0876588eee

Prison Architect sells 2M units

This year's Steam sale was the biggest ever for us and we're astonished to be able to announce that we've sold over 2M units of Prison Architect on PC/Mac/Linux and generated a little over $25M.

This amazing milestone comes hot on the heels of our PS4 and Xbox One launches last week and we can't wait to find out how many console gamers are going to be bitten by the PA bug.

Not bad for four mates from uni who made a little game about hacking.....

 

[LESS T_T]

https://www.paradoxplaza.com/news?aid=Prison-Architect-Paradox

Paradox Interactive Acquires Prison Architect from Introversion Software

STOCKHOLM - Jan. 8, 2019 - Paradox Interactive, a publisher and developer of games for the general population, today announced the purchase of all rights and assets for the Prison Architect IP, a BAFTA award-winning management simulation game developed by Introversion Software. Paradox will take ownership of Prison Architect on all current and any future platforms, including Windows, MacOS, and Linux PCs, and Switch, Xbox and PlayStation consoles, in addition to their ongoing publishing of Prison Architect: Mobile on iOS and Android tablets. This acquisition also allows Paradox to continue development of Prison Architect going forward, and to explore opportunities with the wider “Architect” IP in the future.

In Prison Architect, players are tasked with the construction and maintenance of a maximum security prison, from laying out cell blocks and inmate facilities to managing staff pay and prisoner morale. Prison designs will include basic necessities like cells, canteens, guard rooms, and infrastructure, but players can also include features like solitary confinement, workout areas, and even an execution chamber. Inspired by management simulators like Theme Hospital, Dwarf Fortress, and Dungeon Keeper, the game has won a BAFTA award for the “Persistent Game” category and has sold over two million copies across PC and console platforms.

“Ever since our partnership with Introversion in 2017, the Paradox team has felt that Prison Architect is a natural fit for our catalogue,” said Ebba Ljungerud, CEO of Paradox Interactive. “Just as we’ve done for other management-strategy games like Cities: Skylines and Surviving Mars, I believe the considerable player base of Prison Architect will be excited to see where we can take the game next, and we’re eager to explore development of potential new games based off of the ‘Architect’ IP. We promise to exercise good behavior with this cherished title going forward.”

“Prison Architect has been an intensely rewarding project for us,” said Mark Morris, Co-founder of Introversion Software. “Every developer loves seeing their creations come to life, but through Early Access, launch on multiple platforms and over a dozen post-launch content updates, we’ve been building and managing this building-and-management game for nearly a decade. I think we’ve taken Prison Architect just about as far as we can, and we’re all eager to see where a team like Paradox can take it next! This also gives Introversion the chance to work on what we’ve got coming up next -- more on that soon.”

For more information about Paradox Interactive, visit https://www.paradoxinteractive.com.

 

[Berekän]

Let the milking begin

 

[Infinitron]

This was Introversion's main (only) cash cow, wasn't it? Makes me wonder how badly they're doing.

 

[LESS T_T]

Interview-thingy: https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/08/...res-prison-architect-from-introversion-games/

Paradox Interactive acquires Prison Architect from Introversion Games

It’s time for Prison Architect to go to college at Paradox University.

Paradox Interactive announced today that it’s acquiring the Prison Architect intellectual property from Introversion Games. The Swedish publisher of grand strategy games such as Europa Universalis and Stellaris didn’t disclose how much it paid Introversion.

“We’ve worked with Introversion for quite a while. It’s nice to take this to the next level on our end,” said CEO Ebba Ljungerud in an interview with GamesBeat on why Paradox wanted Prison Architect. “For us, it fits so perfectly into our management segment, if you will. We have quite a few games … in that style. … It’s a bit quirky and has a few fun surprises. It just takes us a bit further on in that category, which we love.”

Prison Architect debuted on PC in 2015, selling 1.25 copies and making $19 million through Steam’s Early Access program. It came to consoles in 2016 and mobile in 2017, and it’s now sold over 2 million copies, Paradox said in a release. The Swedish company published Prison Architect on mobile, with Tag Games helping with the port.

Moving on

Above: Paradox Interactive CEO Ebba Ljungerud

Image Credit: Paradox Interactive


Introversion will no longer support the series. Paradox said it would handle any updates and other patches for Prison Architect, and Introversion cofounder Mark Morris said that his studio wouldn’t make any sequel, though they’d be happy to advise Paradox.

“We’re not doing it for you,” Morris said. “It’s time for us to move on to things, new Introversion things. Small indie development things that, hopefully, blow up to become massive successes.”

For Introversion, it comes on determining what their studio’s future looks like.

“There’s still so much stuff we haven’t gotten around to putting in,” Morris said. “We had to make a decision, and the decision was do we want to be the Architect guys, do we want to keep working on Prison Architect. Do we want to start looking at other Architect games, or do we want to return to our core belief, which is looking at independent, innovative, risk-taking new IP? At our core, that’s what we’ve always done. We’re always the people trying to put out something new and different.”

Morris said Introversion wants to stay small and work on those ideas, which have led to the likes of Darwinia, Defcon, and Scanner Sombre, all games that garnered critical acclaim.

“There isn’t a publisher that we would’ve rather done this deal with, because it just fits so naturally and snuggly into the Paradox portfolio,” said Morris. “It almost feels like it could’ve been a Paradox game from the start.”

A cozy fit

Above: Cities: Skylines is one of Paradox Interactive’s best management games.

Image Credit: Paradox Interactive

Yet Prison Architect stands apart from City: Skylines and Surviving Mars, two of Paradox’s building sims. Prison Architect is sim game about running a maximum-security lockup. You can create all sorts of scenarios, and you can decide to run your jail in a variety of ways — be like Andy Griffith and use kindness, or become a tinpot despot like Joe Arpaio. Or, you know, find some place in between those poles.

“For us, it’s about broadening the scope in that area,” Ljungerud said. “If you look at how we work with most of our games, we work with them for a very long time. Prison Architect has done this already, but there’s still more to give on this game. It’s a way to be in our niche and expand.”

In a release announcing the acquisition, Paradox noted that it would now have the flexibility to create more “Architect” games. Ljungerud noted, in jest, that Paradox could make a “Heaven Architect.”

“[Architect] is such a compelling name in this builder environment, so of course you can see a lot of [possibilities],” she said. “I see a lot of potential within and around the IP.]

Like a child

Above: Prison Architect brings all the boys to the yard.

Image Credit: Introversion Software

Mobile factors into this deal as well — Ljungerud said it’s hard to convert Paradox’s complicated strategy games to that platform, so it’s good to have an IP such as Prison Architect.

“We don’t see [mobile] as something standalone so much as complement to the niche we are already active in,” she said.

Morris believes that Paradox is the right place for Prison Architect, likening it to watching a kid move into the next phase of their life.

“It’s like a child going off to university,” he said. “That’s how I’ve come to think about it. You love it to pieces, and it’s always going to be your child, but there comes a point when you ahve to say, ‘It’s time for you to go to university and get taught by someone else. Come back at Christmas.”

It’s time for Prison Architect to learn the Paradox alma mater.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Fuck Prison Architect. it became same-same years ago, and I haven't played it since 2014

Introversion announced some new base building game on the Moon some time ago, I hope they are still committed to doing this cause they seem to no longer need money.