RPS Preview of Prison Architect

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Postby Jackdapantyrip » Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:01 pm

Jordy... wrote:
Xarlaxas wrote:Someone could make a fortune building a UI that is actually *sensible* for Dwarf Fortress, considering how much fun the utter madness that that game generates on a regular basis.


I would sure love to play dwarf fortress, but I'm way too lazy to learn all the commands or whatever and such and the UI is indeed not helping much. I don't need 3d models, but hack, give it a normal appearance for todays standards..


http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/df.php this is the one I use but I still haven't played too deeply into the game myself..
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Re: RPS Preview of Prison Architect

Postby shinygerbil » Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:49 pm

Since IV first announced it I have always seen Prison Architect as a kind of subset of Subversion, and have kind of assumed that it will use at least some of the underlying tech developed for Subversion. On that basis alone I am expecting there to be a lot more than meets the eye. Partially alluded to in the article was the fact that the same scenario can play out differently each time; I'm really hoping/expecting that this wasn't purely to do with RNG Gods, but more a butterfly effect (insert rolling of eyes at tired pop-sci metaphors here).

Really can't wait to tinker with this game and see what makes it tick. Simply from knowing that the staff at IV have been playing Dwarf Fortress, presumably for inspiration, has given me some high hopes.


Jordy... wrote:"Of course there’s also the raw prison-building aspect, and I began afresh as soon as I’d bored of tinkering with the pre-made prison."

The fact that he got bored worries me even more, tinkering with your prison is probably going to be the core gameplay, you shouldn't get bored from this, no matter who built it.
I see where you're coming from, and I really hope they can find plenty of gameplay to flesh this part out, but remember the game is called "Prison Architect" as opposed to "Prison Manager". As with Dwarf Fortress, so much is in the planning rather than the finished result - and let's not forget the influence of games like Minecraft; everyone has far more fun planning things and executing them than actually just walking around the finished product playing hide-and-seek. (Not that I didn't enjoy playing hide-and-seek in my awesome castle pre-1.2 *ahem*)
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Postby Jordy... » Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:38 am

Fair enough, but he also mentions that you really aren't much of a "prison architect" and that, or at least that's how I interpreted it, a large part of the gameplay will be managing it and seeing your prisoners hussle. He mentioned cobbling the prison together.. and in the pictures I don't see much clues in the UI for a deep well-thought trough needed plan in order to built your prison, it seems very much like touch and go.

Sure, they created a complex system, but I doubt you'll ever come to understand how all the variables come together, making it basically meaningless besides that's different every time you play and watch it.

I just don't see where this is going to go, so you'll have a campaign with increasingly more difficult challenges, which will be much like a tutorial, and then you'll end up in sandbox mode..?

I had hoped there would be some kind of multiplayer interaction where one player builds a prison and the other player is in control of the prisoners, trying to break the prison system..
Or something along those lines, sure, I'll built some prisons and I'll spent sometime watching my prisoners go about there businesses, but really for how long do you expect to enjoy that, were will the challenge come from, the fun, the emergent gameplay..?
Cuz fuck logic
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Postby Jackdapantyrip » Mon Apr 23, 2012 11:42 pm

Rt @Karamelkun

"@IVSoftware because prison is a bad thing. Yes, it's pretty controversial but people have relatives or bad memories associated with prison,"

I do agree with this.. In some aspects I don't want to play the prison part "I would enjoy the whole city though" because there is a lot of bs involved with prison..

/shower rapes are fucking lame..more lack of empathy and understanding than finance..
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Postby Jordy... » Mon Apr 23, 2012 11:56 pm

I'm not sure what you mean jack? Do you mean there shouldn't be shower rapes in prison architect?
Cuz fuck logic
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Postby Jackdapantyrip » Tue Apr 24, 2012 1:19 am

Jordy... wrote:I'm not sure what you mean jack? Do you mean there shouldn't be shower rapes in prison architect?


No.. there should.. I was saying it more towards the guards points of view.. with the lack of empathy/understanding.. some prisons are adequately financed and more rapes end up happening in them because of the lack of empathy/understanding from the guards.. I guess you could code that into the game too if you want..

The point was though that I don't really find it enjoyable or interesting to play.. You can only watch a man get raped so many times before you lose interest.

jelco wrote:I can kind of understand the idea behind an FPS-Columbine correlation of sorts


If I was introversion I would make an fps columbine over prison architect.. a lot more depth to that story..

jelco wrote:By the way, there's a structural issue with your posts: half the sentences don't make any kind of grammatical sense. What the fuck is that last sentence supposed to mean? Currently it pretty much reads like "shower rapes occur because inmates don't have any understanding of finance" which is rather retarded.


Well I just assumed that anybody reading would understand some of the functions of how prisons work and how the game correlates to spending money to build a prison.
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Postby Jordy... » Tue Apr 24, 2012 1:21 am

Playing a videogame where you shoot people on columbine doesn't encourage you to shoot people on your school either, I think it's typical bullshit to find that to be wrong and the other thing right. Just because that's how society thinks about it.

I'm pretty sure if you got raped in prison it's pretty much, if not more traumatizing then if you got shot on highschool. Either approve of both forms or neither, don't be a silly hypocrite because society expects you to be.

\What surprises me most of all is the fact people are apparently making Holocaust comparisons. When you make such a comparison I'd say that's your problem (Freudian even, perhaps) for mentally linking those images to gas chambers and concentration camps. People should stop playing the victim when no-one asks them to do so - just because you choose to get offended by stuff doesn't mean us sane people should care.

Again, you don't have to disapprove of the holocaust and place it in a different class then prison rape, stop arguing like you have the handbook of truth about what is appropriate and bad and what's not. What I've seen on TV, prisons can be basically concentration camp right up onto the fact that people get electrocuted (or even gassed before) and being innocent.

And who the fuck am I and are you to say that you cannot judge him and that you can judge his feelings?
Cuz fuck logic
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Postby Mas Tnega » Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:46 am

Jordy... wrote:Again, you don't have to disapprove of the holocaust and place it in a different class then prison rape, stop arguing like you have the handbook of truth about what is appropriate and bad and what's not. What I've seen on TV, prisons can be basically concentration camp right up onto the fact that people get electrocuted (or even gassed before) and being innocent.
And just like the Jews, the gays, the Polish the physically or intellectually impaired and so many others, rounded up and taken away for no ethically or morally valid reason and given not one legal recourse. Just like them, raw material of the industrialisation of mass murder. Just like them, a guilty party more the exception than the rule.
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Postby Jordy... » Tue Apr 24, 2012 11:38 am

People have been locked up and sentenced to death for morally and ethically impure reasons, and given something what only vaguely resembles a legal recourse.

Just because one thing happened on a grander scale doesn't mean that those people were more victims of injustices then the stand-alone cases. If anything, stand-alone cases should have had a much harder time because they were alone in there struggle and even VIEWED guilty.
Cuz fuck logic
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Postby Xocrates » Tue Apr 24, 2012 1:56 pm

We're talking about a company that made a game about nuclear warfare, where the goal was to kill as many millions as possible.

Why the fuck are prisons even an issue? It's not even like you're encouraged to make your prison as crappy a place as possible.
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Postby Jordy... » Tue Apr 24, 2012 2:32 pm

Xocrates wrote:It's not even like you're encouraged to make your prison as crappy a place as possible.


Which would be a totally fun thing to do by the way.
Cuz fuck logic
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Postby Cooper42 » Tue Apr 24, 2012 2:34 pm

Xocrates wrote:We're talking about a company that made a game about nuclear warfare, where the goal was to kill as many millions as possible.

Why the fuck are prisons even an issue? It's not even like you're encouraged to make your prison as crappy a place as possible.
Thankyou, I was just thinking the same.

Prisons leave a bad taste in your mouth, but, seriously, and for fucks sake, the last thing they did simulated the horrific annihilation of millions of civilians...

There is, quite clearly, something to be said there about the impact of the disconnect they managed thorugh the interface. Which should engender exactly the kind of fear and suspiscion of the military's ability to exist in that level of disconnect.

This aside, however, there is something political, and importantly so, by taking something such as prison management and turning it into a game.

The most obvious parallel is Littleloud's sweat shop game: http://www.playsweatshop.com/
Here you are supposed to baulk at the fact that you are trying to be as efficient as possible in your exploitation of workers. What it does is lay bare some of the underlying systems which lead to sweat shops as viable entities. It's not that you are not supposed to enjoy effectively managing a sweatshop, but that the guilt you may feel in enjoying the game is designed to trigger a deeper awareness and thoughtfulness about the situation than "sweatshops are bad mmkay".

I'm not suggesting IV have any kind of political goal at stake here, that they are trying to deconstruct the prison system. All it makes clear is that making a game out of something many of us find problematic is not a bad thing.

Making something 'fun' out of something which we might otherwise, because of distaste or repulsion, distance ourselves from brings us closer to that. Not in order to agree with it, not in order to sing the praises of efficient prison managers, but in order to think through something in a more nuanced fashion that we might otherwise just outright dismiss.



Making people think in more detail about something they would otherwise ignore, whatever the result of that thought process, is a more powerful and important political role than any shouting or banner waving could ever be. Just like Defcon, Prison architect is dealing with something many of us find repulsive. By not hammering home an agenda, by not being overtly political with a certain aim, but by simply asking us to engage in something we might otherwise simply turn away from, these games are being quietly, humbly, but importantly, political.
Whoever you vote for, the government wins.
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Postby Jordy... » Tue Apr 24, 2012 3:39 pm

There is also a game made by a Brazilian psychologist, which involves torturing your victims into the golden state of utter madness were they rather die then live on, on of the torture devices is a guy you know that will ass-rape on of your victims for you.

It's an intriguing little game, and it shows you parts of yourself I suspect most people would like to deny...
Cuz fuck logic
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Postby Jackdapantyrip » Tue Apr 24, 2012 9:40 pm

Cooper42 wrote:Making people think in more detail about something they would otherwise ignore, whatever the result of that thought process, is a more powerful and important political role than any shouting or banner waving could ever be. Just like Defcon, Prison architect is dealing with something many of us find repulsive. By not hammering home an agenda, by not being overtly political with a certain aim, but by simply asking us to engage in something we might otherwise simply turn away from, these games are being quietly, humbly, but importantly, political.


I agree with a lot of what you said Copper.

Do I think Iv could be doing something more innovative still? Yes.. but I guess I'm willing to wait and see.. I just feel like the selling point of the game is make guys get raped more or stop rape/violence.. I do however think this game looks absolutely beautiful.. the art and movement with the shadows.. I am still excited to play and I do look forward to see what else comes from it..

Maybe I'm still just disappointed that subversion has been shelved.. :/ .. A crew game where you manipulate and steal shit from other players..



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