Introversion

[Chris]

Today we have released Alpha4 of Prison Architect for Pc and Mac, and Alpha customers can download and play it immediately. Go to our PA wiki and download the file in the usual way. Not signed up yet? Join us now at www.prison-architect.com

We’ve made a video demonstrating the key new features - take a look:





The key change in this version is an overhaul of the Fog Of War system, in response to community feedback. Almost immediately after launching Alpha3 we began to hear from alpha users that the rooftop style fog-of-war (which blocks out the view of the insides of your prison unless you have Guards watching the area) was annoying because it stopped you from building things - you just couldn’t see what you were doing. This was a particular problem in the early phase of a prison when you don’t have many guards and haven’t yet researched cctv systems. Prison Architect’s core gameplay is about building things and this needs to be super-satisfying at all times, so we realised we had accidentally spoilt one of the main parts of the game in order to add a new feature. Nobody’s perfect!

So we went back to the drawing board, and redesigned the look of the fog-of-war. We now darken the hidden areas and render them greyscale, and you lose vis of any entities in those zones. Static objects like furniture and walls remain visible but greyed out, so you can continue to build as normal, but it’s clear you have no visibility of the prisoners in that zone.

This is why we are in alpha! We put out an update, we get feedback direct from the community (by forums and twitter), and we respond to that feedback in the very next update. We hope you like the new version of fog-of-war, but we can’t be certain until you give us your feedback once again when you’ve tried it.

Sales Update

Our Prison Architect Alpha has been an incredible success, more successful than any of our previous games already. This fills us with joy! We think this method of paid alpha crossed with Kickstarter tiers is a very good way for Indies to do business right now, and we’ve decided to make our ongoing sales figures public. If you take a look at www.prison-architect.com right now you’ll see live sales data for each tier as well as the overall sales of the alpha!

Join the Prison Architect alpha now at www.prison-architect.com


Full change list

Code:

= Fog-of-war overhaul in response to community feedback     - Areas hidden by fog-of-war are now rendered in darkened greyscale instead the solid roof effect     - Walls, floors and Static objects under fog-of-war remain visible but greyed out.     - Guards and Cctv now have a longer view range     - The Chief has a long view range     - Workmen, Cooks and Doctors have a short view range     - The game is now more permissive when loading corrupted saved games. It will no longer crash.     Errors in the save file will be reported to debug.txt.

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[koshensky]

This look awesome, thanks Chris

I love the new FoW - especially the update to allow workers to remove it as they run through the building to do a job. Glad to see that the community is having such a positive impact on the game!

Really liking the way that the fog slowly creeps in from the shadows and the corners to gradually fill up the room. Also noticed that the staff are somewhat limited in what they can see if there's a door on a room, so they can't just "see" through walls. Although once they're inside an adjacent room, they can... Still, I see where you're going with it, and it's awesome

On a release-note, might it be more logical to release both the full game, as well as more patch-like updates, to reduce the load on the server. Most of the size of the game so far is taken up by the assets, such as the sound files. I just did a diff on Alpha3 and Alpha4 and there's only a handful of files that have actually been changed between the two. Given that over 60mb of the game is the soundfiles, it would drastically reduce the load if we didn't need to download them each time.

[Gutworm]

Awesome! I like it alot more then the last one. Good job!

[Yakousei]

SWEET!

[Hells Rejection]

i have my prison as one building but when i try to get a guard to patrol the corridors it can not be programmed (set) and a stationary guard can only go in a few places not where you want them

[koshensky]

Patrols work just fine for me - you need to make sure you've Deployed a guard in that room before you set a Patrol route - otherwise they won't know which Guards are supposed to patrol...

[Gemberkoekje]

It's little inferno just for me~!

Oh, wait, wrong forum.

AWESOME~! Now if only the Wiki hasn't died in a ~Little Inferno~, I could actually download it. hee hee.

[linkrhiblg0r]

Thanks Your Good Work!

Eagerly awaiting emergency services.... ( firefighters! )

[VampireBadger]

Good game guys, good game. really love it. only i've found that when i'm playing without continuous intake, prisoners never arrive. even when there are designated cells for them. i'm making a really pretty prison but the prisoners never come. am i doing something wrong or have you/can you fix that

[Hells Rejection]

koshensky wrote:

Patrols work just fine for me - you need to make sure you've Deployed a guard in that room before you set a Patrol route - otherwise they won't know which Guards are supposed to patrol...

still cant get my guard to deploy in the spot i want him (right near my metal detectors) is shifts about 3-4 Meters to the right to the middle of the cells

[Frede1012]

Nice!
What are you gonna work on for the next update?

[koshensky]

Hells Rejection wrote:

koshensky wrote: Patrols work just fine for me - you need to make sure you've Deployed a guard in that room before you set a Patrol route - otherwise they won't know which Guards are supposed to patrol... still cant get my guard to deploy in the spot i want him (right near my metal detectors) is shifts about 3-4 Meters to the right to the middle of the cells

Go to Deployment - and left click to add a guard into the cell block. They will station themselves in the centre of the room until you tell them otherwise.

Next to the Deployment button is a Patrols button. Select that, and then left click-drag a patrol route next to your metal detectors. This will assign all the guards in that room to walk along the red-route.

[GetUpKidAK]

Regarding the future of fog of war and what was mentioned in the video, wouldn't it be possible to have a snapshot of the building's last state (in greyscale) instead of the rooftops or just the greyed out layout?

That way, you can still see your layout inside the building, but without revealing any details about what's happening inside until someone has entered again. It'd make quite a nice effect to see it change if that particular building had been trashed or something.

[Lemming]

Chris wrote:

Today we have released Alpha4 of Prison Architect

*wakes up*

Quote:

for Pc and Mac

*goes back to sleep*

So are we EVER going to get a Linux version or did I utterly waste my money?

[Illanair]

Lemming wrote:

So are we EVER going to get a Linux version or did I utterly waste my money?

Now now - This is still alpha. If you're that desperate to play it, I seem to recall Wine working fine. See threads on forum.