Prison Architect 1.0

[Taleric]

Released this past week feels rushed and not really "complete".

The gangs concept is really neat but even at normal security I have not really had issues... Guess I will have to ramp it up to maximum or enable the random events.

Also the different "wardens" are odd because they don't have a downside unless it is hidden?

I will ping back after the maximum security prison but it has been really easy going. Maybe it is just a game you shoot more for high grade :/

[FlowerChild]

The 5 mission campaign they added was a good time, but yeah, unfortunately sandbox mode never seemed to materialize into an actual game. They kept adding new features over the past year or two, but the same problems of gameplay plateauing very early on and never really going anywhere remained.

No real challenge or difficulty in managing your prison ever emerges IMO. Going bankrupt or having enough deaths to be fired/arrested are never really a serious threat. You just keep expanding with very little in the way of resistance until you realize there's not much point to it or performance drops to uncomfortable levels. Many of the new systems introduced seem to have very little/no point, like room quality, where the optimal solution seems to be to just keep everyone in equally shitty rooms so nobody gets jealous.

I like a lot of the individual design decisions in PA a lot, but it never really seemed to come together into any kind of cohesive whole. The day it hit 1.0 I played through the campaign, started up a sandbox, and after hitting a capacity of around 100 prisoners or so, said "meh" and didn't feel compelled to keep going.

The gangs concept is really neat but even at normal security I have not really had issues... Guess I will have to ramp it up to maximum or enable the random events.

Random events don't seem to help much. Previous release where they were introduced I played quite a bit and found they weren't frequent or harsh enough to be a serious problem. With 1.0, they actually made them a bit easier.

And yeah, gangs don't seem to do much of anything. Certainly not the "they fuck your prison in a way that can't be unfucked" that was stated in the release video for them.

Also the different "wardens" are odd because they don't have a downside unless it is hidden?

I agree: they're pointless. Each of them just seems to provide bonuses with no downside, whereas I would have happily selected the "complete boob" warden with massive penalties to try and get some kind of challenge out of the game :P

[MoRmEnGiL]

I still haven't touched this game ever though I got it ages ago. Does anyone know if it is mod friendly? I'm kinda scared development will come at an abrupt halt at some point and we will be left with an unfinished game.. I mean given what you say above the official 1.0 release is anything but a polished game..

[Katalliaan]

They added mod support a while back. The scripting is done in Lua, and off the top of my head I know they have the ability to add needs, programs, objects, and materials, as well as modify the textures from the base game.