The 1001-Up.com team attended Rezzed 2013 this weekend and had a great time, but what did we enjoy the most? First up is P-Diddy with his first experience of Prison Architect.
P-Diddy says:
I was happy to finally have a go with an Oculus Rift and playing Surgeon Simulator 2013 was a great experience, but my favourite game of the event was Prison Architect. This is a title by Introversion Software, the creators of Uplink (review coming soon), DEFCON (review coming soon) and Multiwinia.
I’ve come across Prison Architect before on YouTube but never had the chance to play it until Rezzed. The developers decided to do their own crowd-sourced funding by running a version of a Kickstarter project from their website; it’s still in progress but has been extremely successful so far, raising over $3,600,000. The version I played at over the weekend was the current alpha build, which introduced visitors to the game via the introductory prison that asks players to construct a new execution block in time for its first customer.
Who said running a prison would be easy?
Prison Architect is a top-down management system for building and maintaining a maximum security prison, inspired by other games such as Theme Hospital. The opening section shows a side to it that’s different from similar titles: it has the ability to be story-driven as we build the execution block in preparation for Edward Romsey, who has been convicted of double pre-meditated murder. The game takes time to give some backstory to the inmate using flashbacks to the event itself that are well written and give a real sense of drama. While I was playing both Kimmy and W1ngman were watching and they seemed to be just as engrossed as I was in this little story, which is surprising for a simulation game such as this where spectators can get bored easily.
After leaving Rezzed 2013 and on our car journey back to London, we discussed what our favourite bits were and I couldn’t wait to get home and get my hands on a copy of the alpha to delve a little deeper into the game. I’ve since bought the ‘Name in the Game’ deal from the Prison Architect website which lets me create a prisoner named after me and I even get to write up his rap sheet.
The final moments before our new electric chair get its first use.
If you’re into simulation games such as this and are looking for a high quality alternative to all the usual industry sims with a bit of gritty storyline, then Prison Architect is for you. I’ve been building my own prison from scratch and so far, while the game isn’t finished yet, it’s quite challenging and great fun.
Watch out for Kimmy’s ‘Best of Rezzed 2013′ article tomorrow on Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey, and for W1ngman’s piece on Sneaksneak on Thursday.
