My time playing the iPad version (first impression)
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 7:44 pm
I have played this game for around 30 minutes so far. This may not seem like a lot, but right now this is more of a 'first impression thing' rather than a full-scale review.
There are multiple problems with it, the most obvious one being that the intake doesn't work. You can't change it, so every day you will get all prisoners in the prisoner pool. For some people, this might not be a problem. For people like me, however, this is a game breaking issue. I usually play for multiple days until I have everything the way I want it, with most of the bureaucracy tree fully done. I just left the prisoners out on the street. I honestly didn't care for them and I wouldn't speed up my building simply because of a silly bug that will probably be resolved within the next few days (hopefully).
Speaking of the bureaucracy screen, the lawyer section is bugged as well. It was stuffed in the top, most of the research options (lawyer, death row, etc.) overlapping eachother, making it impossible to research it (I presume so anyway, I didn't test it out). The rest of the screen appeared to be fine, however.
The game itself runs smoother than I expected on my about-to-explode-iPad 2. When making a map, you can't select a map size. Note that this is not a bug, but an intended feature. If I understood correctly, the map size is selected on what iPad version you have. For my iPad, I believe this would be about the size of a small map on the PC version (possibly smaller). The zooming and the scrolling appears to be very sensitive and takes some time getting used to. If possible, it would be nice to be able to select the speed in the options menu. Also annoying, is the fact you can't move while using many of the features in the game. You have to be in 'default mode' to be able to move around. This means that when you're putting down objects or selecting rooms, you can't move (you can still zoom in and out, however). I found that the easiest way to get back to 'default mode' is to press the select button twice. Even though it would be nice to be able to move around without going into default mode, I think this really is just something that you can get used to.
The options menu is... lacking, to say the least. Of course, Prison Architect never had a 'booming' options menu, but they honestly could have spent a little more time looking through it. The time lapse option flicks in and out of reality, appearing when you click one of the other options and dissapearing when you click one again. If you click the time lapse option while it is 'excisting', it just closes the options menu. My game has also crashed once for no real reason while going through the options. Luckily, my game autosaved a mere few seconds before, so I didn't lose any progress. The option menu also has an option such as 'windowed mode'. What? I didn't try it out, but I would love to see how something like that could work on a tablet. Please, do show me.
I also found that where I thought I was tapping the screen wasn't where I was actually tapping it. They did talk about this on one of their Alpha videos and claimed to have fixed this. I'm not sure if this is just a personal problem, however, or if it is the case for everyone. I do have to say that it wasn't off by a lot, just enough to be fairly annoying. When building some foundations, it tended to select a block to the right of where I thought my finger actually was. Talking about foundations, there isn't a real 'cancel foundations' button. You can use the cancel job feature from one of the other screens, but then you have to select a different screen first. I found that by that time on 3x speed, the workers had already started.
All in all, my first thirty minutes weren't 'amazing'. It wasn't terrible either and it did feel like I was playing Prison Architect (so the experience didn't feel any different). Of course, this is a good thing because this means that the game is really just what the creators tried to make: PA on the tablet. I think that, with some more work done and some of the annoying bugs fixed, this could actually be a lot of fun. But as it is right now, I recommend to just stick to the PC version. Perhaps this would be fun to play on the plane or in the car, but not if there is a working computer nearby.
I'll play more of this tommorow. If I see anything new then, I might make another post (or just reply to this one)
There are multiple problems with it, the most obvious one being that the intake doesn't work. You can't change it, so every day you will get all prisoners in the prisoner pool. For some people, this might not be a problem. For people like me, however, this is a game breaking issue. I usually play for multiple days until I have everything the way I want it, with most of the bureaucracy tree fully done. I just left the prisoners out on the street. I honestly didn't care for them and I wouldn't speed up my building simply because of a silly bug that will probably be resolved within the next few days (hopefully).
Speaking of the bureaucracy screen, the lawyer section is bugged as well. It was stuffed in the top, most of the research options (lawyer, death row, etc.) overlapping eachother, making it impossible to research it (I presume so anyway, I didn't test it out). The rest of the screen appeared to be fine, however.
The game itself runs smoother than I expected on my about-to-explode-iPad 2. When making a map, you can't select a map size. Note that this is not a bug, but an intended feature. If I understood correctly, the map size is selected on what iPad version you have. For my iPad, I believe this would be about the size of a small map on the PC version (possibly smaller). The zooming and the scrolling appears to be very sensitive and takes some time getting used to. If possible, it would be nice to be able to select the speed in the options menu. Also annoying, is the fact you can't move while using many of the features in the game. You have to be in 'default mode' to be able to move around. This means that when you're putting down objects or selecting rooms, you can't move (you can still zoom in and out, however). I found that the easiest way to get back to 'default mode' is to press the select button twice. Even though it would be nice to be able to move around without going into default mode, I think this really is just something that you can get used to.
The options menu is... lacking, to say the least. Of course, Prison Architect never had a 'booming' options menu, but they honestly could have spent a little more time looking through it. The time lapse option flicks in and out of reality, appearing when you click one of the other options and dissapearing when you click one again. If you click the time lapse option while it is 'excisting', it just closes the options menu. My game has also crashed once for no real reason while going through the options. Luckily, my game autosaved a mere few seconds before, so I didn't lose any progress. The option menu also has an option such as 'windowed mode'. What? I didn't try it out, but I would love to see how something like that could work on a tablet. Please, do show me.
I also found that where I thought I was tapping the screen wasn't where I was actually tapping it. They did talk about this on one of their Alpha videos and claimed to have fixed this. I'm not sure if this is just a personal problem, however, or if it is the case for everyone. I do have to say that it wasn't off by a lot, just enough to be fairly annoying. When building some foundations, it tended to select a block to the right of where I thought my finger actually was. Talking about foundations, there isn't a real 'cancel foundations' button. You can use the cancel job feature from one of the other screens, but then you have to select a different screen first. I found that by that time on 3x speed, the workers had already started.
All in all, my first thirty minutes weren't 'amazing'. It wasn't terrible either and it did feel like I was playing Prison Architect (so the experience didn't feel any different). Of course, this is a good thing because this means that the game is really just what the creators tried to make: PA on the tablet. I think that, with some more work done and some of the annoying bugs fixed, this could actually be a lot of fun. But as it is right now, I recommend to just stick to the PC version. Perhaps this would be fun to play on the plane or in the car, but not if there is a working computer nearby.
I'll play more of this tommorow. If I see anything new then, I might make another post (or just reply to this one)
