The next level is safety, the next is social, and each level is harder to get to, especially in a prison where you don't have freedom of movement. "If these are not satisfied they override all the other needs above. "It's like a pyramid that starts with food and sleep," says Delay. The gameplay structure is based around Maslow's hierarchy of needs – prisoners need basic care to begin with but will become more demanding as standards increase. I felt that I wanted to make a game based on prisons that had really elaborate mechanics and complex AI - very much presented in the style of classic Bullfrog management games like Dungeon Keeper with a British sense of humour to it". I was really geeking out over this stuff. It's all pre-electronics, it's a purely mechanical, gear-based system and it gives it this amazing sound. There was also a guide demonstrating the doors - cranking these enormous levers. "We were going around Alcatraz, and it had a really nice audio guide with all these atmospheric stories.
"The idea came from a holiday in California with my wife," explains designer and programmer Chris Delay. And these look like they're going to be pretty dark. There's a sandbox mode where the aim is simply to keep constructing and modifying the facility, but in the campaign mode, there's a series of story-driven chapters where you have specific objectives based around a range of characters. Cells, canteens, exercise areas and even morgues all have to be constructed to keep the ever-growing inmate population healthy, if not exactly happy. That something is Prison Architect and it may just be the most fascinating and troubling management title ever devised.ĭeveloped by UK studio Introversion, the game challenges players to build their own functioning jails, from a variety of components. But right now, there is something very different out there, something intriguing enough to attract over 10,000 players into its paid online alpha test. Theme parks, railroads, game development studios, farms – all have featured in this popular genre since it flourished in the '90s. Think of computer game management simulations, and you usually think of aspirational jobs - or at least the things we dreamed of doing as kids.
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