Current Suggestions Compilation List

[starfog]

If Introversion can make all of this suggestions, PA will be the better game of all the times !

[SimonDKiller]

My ask is only that: An option for widescreen.

[Matic3d]

Hi guys. Long time gamer and fan of introversion games, first time player of the Prison Architect alpha, starting with V5. In "RL" I'm a VFX artist in the film industry so much of the work I do is with procedural systems and emergent behavior, so games like this are right up my alley.

In my younger days I was a paramedic and spent considerable amount of time responding to prisons, both min and max security as well as several "high security mental institutions."

By way of giving back here are my first impressions and feedback, in no particular order.

- The game as it stands right now has that addictive draw to it which is so important, I think it will be a success as it matures.

- The economic simulation doesn't really work yet. Once you spend the original grant $$, income is painfully slow. IE the "early" game is a blast, lots of challenge and things to do, but the mid-to-end game stalls (for me at least) with a slowly deteriorating situation you can't do anything about as costs to fix things and try to expand outpace income many times over.

- The meta-game of the "research tree" shows a lot of potential for differentiation between games, in an ideal world one game's prison would be of completely different character from another based on the choices made here. I'd love it if it was also tied in with prisoner types, ie invest in high security and you create a supermax with violent criminals and terrorists. Invest in rehabilitation and you create a low security prision, invest in medical and you create arkham asylum, invest in creature comforts and you end up building a white collar minimum security facility... and appropriate grants are unlocked as you go down these trees.

- There are periods of time where the player just has to let the sim "cook" a bit (let workers build or wait for income). This is a fun time to watch prisoners and the flow of the game evolve, but it would also be nice to use this time to plan ahead. I found myself wanting something like a blueprint manager or the "whiteboard" layer of defcon - an overlay where I could put down my plans for the prison's future (ie - "hmmm, I'll put another cell block here...")

- The behavior of the prisoners sometimes doen't make sense... like a bunch of prisoners in the middle of a cafeteria with food waiting complaining about being hungry and then leaving, only to come back, complain, and leave, over and over. Is this a bug in their logic or a problem with my setup - need feedback if the latter.

- Prioritizing jobs for the workmen may need to be implemented, it's strange to have them choose something trivial to focus on when the power is out and things are falling apart because of it.

- Night is awfully dark, and those little post lights are kind of useless... Love the flashlights, though.

- A "deployment" which would be nice would be to search all prisoners for contraband.

- The semi-nudity in the early cutscenes might want to be rethought, didn't bug me but wasn't really necessary and would be a problem with some parents (who could shove it if it was an integral part of the game but is isn't.) If you want to go a more adult route, go all in and let me choose how harsh the guards are in mistreatment ("Hey you, what was that look? >Whack< Take him to the cooler boys!")

- In RL prisoners make demands as individuals and prison admins spend lots of time ruling on these. For instance prisoner "B" wants a transfer to another facility so offers up information on how prisoner "A" is planning an escape or prisoner "C" is hiding contraband. You could spice up the 'emergent behavior' simulation with old-fashioned random-event circumstances like these, they have their place in helping simulate the richness and complexity of RL. Trying to force everything to emerge as a consequence instead of a roll of the dice is limiting.

- On the "emergent behavior" side of things, prisoner factions or social networks could result in some pretty cool situations. Example: "pro" and "anti" guard/establishment prisoner factions might make riots more or less likely, or be a source of fights between the two (and give the player a reason to build a cellblock for the troublemakers.)

- "Harshness" could not only determine amount of guard abusiveness but also be reflected in meals etc. And it could be determined in part on how well the prison is decorated - invest in nice floors and walls, and the harshness is lowered, and prisoners are more docile. Skimp on money and build a grim, bare-bones prison and expect more violence and difficulty as a result. This is basically extending already-existing aspects of the game, like windows for cells - that kind of choice adds a lot to the game, the player can end up with entirely different results from game to game based on a myriad of choices like these - the more, the better and more varied the gameplay.

Summary - definitely a great start, lots to do sure but the model allows there to be time, keep adding and layering complexity, and thanks for staying independent and true to the spirit of artistry and craftmanship that makes introversion stand out.

[Iopsis]

Matic3d has some awesome ideas, and shouldnt be ovelooked.

[111none]

Hi guys. Long time gamer and fan of introversion games, first time player of the Prison Architect alpha, starting with V5. In "RL" I'm a VFX artist in the film industry so much of the work I do is with procedural systems and emergent behavior, so games like this are right up my alley.

In my younger days I was a paramedic and spent considerable amount of time responding to prisons, both min and max security as well as several "high security mental institutions."

By way of giving back here are my first impressions and feedback, in no particular order.

- The game as it stands right now has that addictive draw to it which is so important, I think it will be a success as it matures.

- The economic simulation doesn't really work yet. Once you spend the original grant $$, income is painfully slow. IE the "early" game is a blast, lots of challenge and things to do, but the mid-to-end game stalls (for me at least) with a slowly deteriorating situation you can't do anything about as costs to fix things and try to expand outpace income many times over.

- The meta-game of the "research tree" shows a lot of potential for differentiation between games, in an ideal world one game's prison would be of completely different character from another based on the choices made here. I'd love it if it was also tied in with prisoner types, ie invest in high security and you create a supermax with violent criminals and terrorists. Invest in rehabilitation and you create a low security prision, invest in medical and you create arkham asylum, invest in creature comforts and you end up building a white collar minimum security facility... and appropriate grants are unlocked as you go down these trees.

- There are periods of time where the player just has to let the sim "cook" a bit (let workers build or wait for income). This is a fun time to watch prisoners and the flow of the game evolve, but it would also be nice to use this time to plan ahead. I found myself wanting something like a blueprint manager or the "whiteboard" layer of defcon - an overlay where I could put down my plans for the prison's future (ie - "hmmm, I'll put another cell block here...")

- The behavior of the prisoners sometimes doen't make sense... like a bunch of prisoners in the middle of a cafeteria with food waiting complaining about being hungry and then leaving, only to come back, complain, and leave, over and over. Is this a bug in their logic or a problem with my setup - need feedback if the latter.

- Prioritizing jobs for the workmen may need to be implemented, it's strange to have them choose something trivial to focus on when the power is out and things are falling apart because of it.

- Night is awfully dark, and those little post lights are kind of useless... Love the flashlights, though.

- A "deployment" which would be nice would be to search all prisoners for contraband.

- The semi-nudity in the early cutscenes might want to be rethought, didn't bug me but wasn't really necessary and would be a problem with some parents (who could shove it if it was an integral part of the game but is isn't.) If you want to go a more adult route, go all in and let me choose how harsh the guards are in mistreatment ("Hey you, what was that look? >Whack< Take him to the cooler boys!")

- In RL prisoners make demands as individuals and prison admins spend lots of time ruling on these. For instance prisoner "B" wants a transfer to another facility so offers up information on how prisoner "A" is planning an escape or prisoner "C" is hiding contraband. You could spice up the 'emergent behavior' simulation with old-fashioned random-event circumstances like these, they have their place in helping simulate the richness and complexity of RL. Trying to force everything to emerge as a consequence instead of a roll of the dice is limiting.

- On the "emergent behavior" side of things, prisoner factions or social networks could result in some pretty cool situations. Example: "pro" and "anti" guard/establishment prisoner factions might make riots more or less likely, or be a source of fights between the two (and give the player a reason to build a cellblock for the troublemakers.)

- "Harshness" could not only determine amount of guard abusiveness but also be reflected in meals etc. And it could be determined in part on how well the prison is decorated - invest in nice floors and walls, and the harshness is lowered, and prisoners are more docile. Skimp on money and build a grim, bare-bones prison and expect more violence and difficulty as a result. This is basically extending already-existing aspects of the game, like windows for cells - that kind of choice adds a lot to the game, the player can end up with entirely different results from game to game based on a myriad of choices like these - the more, the better and more varied the gameplay.

Summary - definitely a great start, lots to do sure but the model allows there to be time, keep adding and layering complexity, and thanks for staying independent and true to the spirit of artistry and craftmanship that makes introversion stand out.

bump

[paktsardines]

First post:

Please don't use this thread as a place to put new ideas, continue to do that on the forums as per normal otherwise they'll just get lost and not discussed properly, which would be a shame.

[danbeneton]

This is truly awesome.
I've just completed my purchase of the Alpha and I've already been having a very good time with the game.
I remember I used to love games such as Theme Hospital, so this is just perfect.

As far as the compiled suggestions go, I do find most of them quite pertinent to the game. I do hope some of the proposed changes/innovations get implemented so that more and more can be made out of Prison Architect.

Congratulations to the forum and to the developers. Keep up the good work.

[thegeekful]

So many awesome ideas I hope they are able to introduce most of them into the game.

[Necs]

I'm wondering if it would be nice to change the game so that it is not necessary to build all/most of the rooms right from the start, but that you gradually will need more different types of rooms while your prison grows. Compared to Theme Hospital, it is possible to have a running hospital without all the different types of rooms, but I get the idea that it is not possible to run even a small prison without all types of rooms.

This way one would really get the feeling that a small prison is slowly expanding and growing, and one doesn't need to build so many rooms right at the start of the game, which I find a quite time consuming.

[troe2339]

I´ed love to get an E-Mail wen a new version i released as long as there is no auto updater (which i guess will be a while, if ever). I can imagine people stop plaing the alpha (game crashes, lack of balance) and just will forget checking the wiki/forum if there is a new download.

I would too like to get an e-mail, but until then you can subscribe Introversion's Youtube channel, and under manage subscriptions you can check the box that says: "Email with new uploads".

[paktsardines]

As of alpha 6 there is an in-game MOTD (message of the day). If you fire up the game and a new version's been released, it'll tell you on the title screen.

[BL4DE]

If you are connected to the internet and your firewall allows PA to access that is.

[Seigaku]

There should be guards that cost less money per day but that are just for opening doors, and be able to allocate which doors they will open, because is a little uncomfortable as it is now with normal guards to open doors, it becomes a little slower and "jerky" unless you contract a lot of them, which becomes expensive.

[SpeedDaemon]

I think some tweaks need to be made to the cooks' behavior. Right now, they do two things that are really annoying:
- I've seen up to THREE cooks go after one box of ingredients in the delivery area. There's no reason the entire cooking staff needs to leave (when they should be cooking) in order to carry one box in.
- They seem to insist on grabbing every box of ingredients in the delivery or storage area, even if there are enough ingredients in the kitchen fridges to complete the current meal.

It would be nice if only one cook per box would leave the kitchen, and maybe make it so that they only retrieve ingredients from delivery or storage when there's nothing else to do, or they're short for the current meal. They have plenty of time during the "Eat" time when they stand around doing nothing to make trips to the delivery area. Perhaps they could also stack several smaller boxes of ingredients before they bring them in, if the total is <20.

Also, it would be nice if prisoners prioritized items in their own cells or rooms in the same sector as their cells to satisfy needs. Right now, they can be standing next to the toilet or bed in their own cell, and will trek across the entire prison to the holding cell to sleep or wee for some reason.

[Seigaku]

I think some tweaks need to be made to the cooks' behavior. Right now, they do two things that are really annoying:
- I've seen up to THREE cooks go after one box of ingredients in the delivery area. There's no reason the entire cooking staff needs to leave (when they should be cooking) in order to carry one box in.
- They seem to insist on grabbing every box of ingredients in the delivery or storage area, even if there are enough ingredients in the kitchen fridges to complete the current meal.

It would be nice if only one cook per box would leave the kitchen, and maybe make it so that they only retrieve ingredients from delivery or storage when there's nothing else to do, or they're short for the current meal. They have plenty of time during the "Eat" time when they stand around doing nothing to make trips to the delivery area. Perhaps they could also stack several smaller boxes of ingredients before they bring them in, if the total is <20.

Also, it would be nice if prisoners prioritized items in their own cells or rooms in the same sector as their cells to satisfy needs. Right now, they can be standing next to the toilet or bed in their own cell, and will trek across the entire prison to the holding cell to sleep or wee for some reason.

Those little things will be fixed for sure, wait till is BETA, and if they didn't fix it for BETA, then complain