I have played Prison Tycoon 3 and 4 in the past and I can say one thing: extra boring! I found myself doing completely the same things again and again, dealing with exactly the same or similar problems. Prisoners didn’t like me, didn’t like my officers and couldn’t stand each other and I was stuck with a game that wanted to offer a serious character but without the “charisma”, without the real point.
So here you have a gap in the tycoon games, one of the most addicting genres in existence. Independent games developer studio Introversion Software, that also created Uplink, Darwinia, DEFCON and Multiwinia decided to fill that gap with their new baby called Prison Architect!
Prison Architect is a less serious approach that tries to be funny and amusing, but at the same time offer all the characteristics of a tycoon game that will keep the interest high and the evolution scaling enough, that is a very important factor for such games.
The game is still in Alpha stage of development and as it already looks cool I am sure that it will become a super addicting fun to play for many hours game. Right now it has many issues and still a lot to implement so I won’t judge the current state of the game. I will completely review it when it is ready but we can buy it now and see the making happen day by day, patch to patch!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDDzSOS0vzc&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
The game costs 30 US dollars and although they may seem a lot for such a game, you should think about how much you are helping Introversion Software stay free and independent, thus offering DRM free games of real quality and for real fun. You can also go more extreme and have a character with your name or face with more money, get t-shirts or even polaroids! Are they going to add Hans Reiser? I don’t know!
