Introversion

Alpha 20 has been released! Steam users will be automatically updated. Non-steam users can download the latest version from the builds page here:
http://www.prison-architect.com/builds.html

You need an active forum account to access the builds from our website. If you haven’t already done so, please register your game here to gain access to the builds, the private forums, the bug database and the wiki.
http://www.prison-architect.com/register

Here is our video demonstrating the new features:


Prisoner Grading
All prisoners have a new 'Grading' tab in their rap sheet, in which they are scored on four key metrics:

- PUNISHMENT To what extent has this prisoner been punished? Long jail terms and solitary increase this.
- REFORM How successful have your reform attempts been? Passing reform programs and working increases this
- SECURITY Was the prisoner kept safely locked away? Fights and escapes detract from this, armed lockdown counts towards it
- HEALTH A measure of the welfare of your prisoner. Keeping them well fed and exercised will increase this.

These factors are combined, together with their age, number of prior convictions etc, to produce an estimate of their Re-offending chance.



There is a new overall grading 'score' screen, available from the build toolbar
The gradings for all your released prisoners are combined together and shown
This screen shows what type of prison you have produced, and how successful you have been.



Failure conditions
It is now possible to fail when building your prison, in certain circumstances. This constitutes a game over event. All failure conditions come with a verbal warning from the CEO, giving you chance to avert the failure.

Note : Failure conditions are turned off for existing prisons. This is to avoid any nasty bugs in the new failure system destroying peoples prisons immediately on load. Failure conditions default to ON for all new prisons.

There are currently four failure conditions:

RIOT
If you let a riot run for too long, the government will be forced to step in and take over your prison. In this event you will be sacked, and the National Guard will be deployed to retake your prison by force.



BANKRUPTCY
If you have a negative bank balance and a negative cashflow, you are bankrupt. You will have 24 hours to put in place a financial rescue package before being sacked.

ESCAPES
Too many escapes in a single day is a PR disaster waiting to happen. If more escapes occur the next day you will be sacked.

DEATHS
Too many deaths in a single day will trigger a warning. If more deaths occur the next day you will be sacked. You will then be convicted of Criminal Negligence, and will spend time within your own jail as a prisoner.



Wandering around your own prison is a really interesting experience, and turns the game on its head. The fog-of-war changes to reflect the fact you can only see things directly within your line of sight.




Full change list



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nice - i like it

Thanks for the new alpha!
Have you ever consider to release alphas more frequently (weekly, for example)?
(with less content/stuff, obviously)

I love it. You should make it so you can actaully decide to be a prisoner to begin with, You gotta work, eat etc. and you should be able to for example join or lead a gang, make fights, sell drugs or just do normal and serve your time ^^ But Really add gangs! btw the game rocks ^^

Nice. That new fog of war is pure win!

Chris wrote:...You will then be convicted of Criminal Negligence, and will spend time within your own jail as a prisoner.

Wandering around your own prison is a really interesting experience, and turns the game on its head. The fog-of-war changes to reflect the fact you can only see things directly within your line of sight.
...

Mind.


Blown.

Yay! Thanks! Great update pals!

I'm getting this bug now where I con't start any program. None of them are working at the moment. It was working fine yesterday

Thanks for the update Chris.

Nice update, looking forward to the next one!

Nice update! The National Guards are cool with their assault rifles.

Btw, there is a bug where PA crashes on Ubuntu linux when it autosaves or if you manually save since alpha 19 and now it's in 20. Can you guys fix it? It has already been reported.

sutieday wrote:Nice update! The National Guards are cool with their assault rifles.

Btw, there is a bug where PA crashes on Ubuntu linux when it autosaves or if you manually save since alpha 19 and now it's in 20. Can you guys fix it? It has already been reported.

Turn off autosave, the bugs been there since alpha 2

i can still open doors with the notepad thingy and control guards but, it's still in alpha

I love the fact that you can walk around in your own prison. I can even imagine this becoming a part of the game, busting out of my friends place downloaded from the workshop. Abusing the power of insight to cut certain power lines and thus opening doors and the like.

As a prisoner, I escaped my prison... Only to find I can't actually "escape"! (Leave the map.) So I was just left to run around the prison... Also while I'm a prisoner I can sack the staff, control the "Always open / Always closed" stuff on doors and dismantle objects. As well as running the same speed on all game speeds... Although the rest of the stuff is mind blowing... Maybe this can be fixed in Alpha 21. A lot of potential with the new (and awesome) "Failure" stuff... As always, amazing update adding much more factors in containing prisoners and trying to not kill everyone during a riot... It's hard... Keep the awesomeness coming