I've played PA quite a lot back when it was in development, but started to become disappointed with the way it was panning out. After a break of a year or so I thought I would give it another shot and see if it had improved. I played with a new prison for a few hours to see if my original issues with the game still held.
Below is what I added to my negative steam review. I doubt many people will see it there however, so I'll post it here. I wonder if anybody else has found ways to make the game challenging?
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Unfortunately it was much as I expected. While there are a bunch of nice new features, the core of the game remains an unchallenging sandbox where it is almost impossible to reach any kind of fail state.
Seeking a challenge, I tried the following setup and house rules.
1. Small map. No trees for selling.
2. No grants. No workshops. The only money I would have is what I started with, and what I would be paid for looking after prisoners.
3. Permanent intake. As per intial settings, that means mostly medium sec, a few min sec. Inevitably you end up with a few people reclassed as max sec after they turn out to be crazed murders. So basically a nice mixture. 10-16 or so per day.
I hoped that at least with these conditions, I could force myself into enough of a challenge that my puzzle solving brain could have some fun. At the very least, when it all went down in flames it would be fun to watch....
Well, that was the idea. 18 days in, I've hit a population of nearly 200, and have a daily income of 11 thousand. Then I also have an extra 5-8k per day bonus when the next batch of prisoners come. It looks likely I could easily continue on in this fashion indefinitely, so I quit in disappointment. No challenge here, even using harsh house rules.
What happened? Basically, I kept the prisoners indefinitely in holding cells. You stuff a few dozen bunk beds in a single room, add some toilets and showers, and voila, you can stuff a hundred prisoners in there, no problem. As the prisoners can sleep when tired in their free time, it doesn't really matter even if you are hot-seating them. The prisoner to bed ratio was maybe 4 to 1. The shower and toilet ratios far worse. Without the need to build cells for your prisoners, you really don't have much in the way of expenses. You just hire a new guard every day, a new cook ever other day, and here and there build extra beds and stoves. Now and then you make a new room to house more people, or you expand on the canteen. It was mind numbingly simple.
Through it all I never had a single real riot. Snitchers were getting killed at a rate of one per day or so, but that had no real negative repercussions, so I didn't mind.
Two things were very clear.
1. The game remains easy to exploit. And without even trying very hard. Prisoners simply shouldn't accept me keeping them in holding cells indefinitely without getting very angry. However they just don't care. This means the game is fundamentally broken, as it makes many other features redundant. Cells? Not needed. Hence money, abundant. And workshops? Also not needed at all. Grants? Unnecessary.
2. Most other game features are also entirely unnecessary as far as keeping your prison going is concerned. Prisoners didn't care that I give them pretty much nothing in terms of services/education/family acces etc. etc. etc. You just put them in a box, give them food, beds, some clothing, heat, etc. and thats it. The only reason to have half of the features of the game (libraries, stores, classrooms, etc. etc. etc.) is for the heck of it. Because you want a better score etc.
So, my original problem with Prison Architect remains. It's fine as a sandbox to mess around in, I guess. But it isn't much of a game. You can't really lose unless you massively screw things up, and over half the features aren't technically necessary. By comparison, you can't finish a map in Theme Hospital without carefully and judiciously using all the rooms avaliable to you. You have to be clever to win at Theme Hospital. Prison Architect is maybe more like keeping some gerbils, and giving them some wheels to run in, and little plastic houses, and other fun little decorations for your own amusement. That's fine I guess, but it's not a game.
Losing is fun, as they say at Bay12. But the opposite is also true.
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Topic: Prison Architect - Version 2.0 Release | It's over! *weeping* (Read 236505 times)