Cast your mind back to the sim games of the late 90s. Classics like Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park and Theme Hospital. Their influence is clearly visible in Introversion’s Prison Architect – an unashamedly old school prison simulator. Prison Architect tasks the player with overseeing every aspect of running a prison from ensuring the inmates have all their basic need met to arming your facility with enough guards to put down any trouble the more violent inmates might cause.
It’s a neat concept, and it’s executed well. The game feels very polished, with none of the ridiculous glitches that have plagued similar Early Access titles. Prison Architect’s weighty story mode is an ideal way to ease people into what could be a daunting game with its missions giving you an increasing set of responsibilities to master.
It’s also remarkable how much replay value the developer has built into the game. Once you have beaten the story and played around with the sandbox mode, you just might start to get bored. But then there is Escape mode, which flips the whole experience on its head by tasking you with escaping from the very prisons you designed! In addition, mechanics such as gangs and random events make sure that no two sandbox games will ever truly be the same.
All together this adds up to a thoroughly interesting and engaging little prison sim. For £20 I’d say it’s well worth taking a look at. And while it doesn’t quite replicate the humour and style of those early classics, it certainly captures their essence.