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Prison Architect was also nominated for the 2016 BAFTA award in the British Game category, which was won by Batman: Arkham Knight.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
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On April 7, 2016, Prison Architect won the 2016 BAFTA award in the Persistent Game category. IGN awarded it a score of 8.3 out of 10, saying "Prison Architect is one of the most in-depth, satisfying builder games in ages, if you can get past the initiation." Upon its full release, the game received positive reviews, scoring 83 out of 100 on review aggregator site Metacritic. The first "official" (non-beta) release introduced an expanded story mode as a tutorial as well an escape mode which casts the player as a prisoner with the goal of escaping, while causing as much trouble as possible. A player's prison is graded by an ingame report. The player can also allow additional conditions to be applied to their game (such as simulated temperature, gang activities) to increase the difficulty of the game and to simulate a prison in conditions nearer to reality. The game takes inspiration from Theme Hospital, Dungeon Keeper, and Dwarf Fortress.
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The player tells the prisoners what to do indirectly by setting their schedule. The player is also able to add workshops to the prison as well as reform programs that reduce the specific prisoner's recidivism rate. The player's role is of both architect and governor with sandbox micromanagement themes such as choosing where to put lights, drains and how they connect together. The player is also responsible for the finances of their prison, and for keeping their inmates content. The player needs to recruit staff to unlock more aspects of the game. The player is responsible for managing various aspects of their prison including building cells and facilities, planning and connecting utilities, hiring and assigning staff, including a warden, guards, workers, and more. The game is a top-down 2D (with a partially 3D mode) construction and management simulation where the player takes control of building and running a prison. On 8 January 2019, it was announced that Paradox Interactive had acquired the rights to Prison Architect for an undisclosed sum. The game was available on Steam's Early Access program, and was officially released on 6 October 2015. Prison Architect was an entrant in the 2012 Independent Games Festival. With over 2,000,000 copies sold, Prison Architect made over US$10.7 million in pre-order sales for the alpha version. It was made available as a crowdfunded paid alpha pre-order on 25 September 2012 with updates scheduled every three to four weeks. Game Review Prison Architect is a private prison construction and management simulation video game developed by Introversion Software.
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