I've been playing since mid alpha.

Yeah, it's pretty good! It's at least fun for a little while. It's an interesting series of puzzles to build an efficient system, and the flavor of the game is fantastic - every now and then you sit back and think a bit about prisons in general.

But for the most part, it goes for gonzo silliness. Which is a good thing! It's a game, and it's mostly pretty fun.

I'd recommend it. I think you'd probably play it about 15 or 20 hours and then wouldn't touch it for a while.

There are still annoying bugs as of last week, but the game has a lot more polish than it did in alpha. I think Prison Architect is the sort of game that's worth persevering with, particularly for younger players, because the interdependent requirements of the facility, budget, staff and inmates provide a good backdrop upon which to pose ethical questions about incarceration in general that cannot be matched by other genres of media.

I played this game a lot when it was still early access. I thought it was pretty fun but there were some bugs at the time that messed up several prisons i had built. I gave up playing shortly after that.

I assume those bugs have been fixed though! I should give this game another go.

Absolutely phenomenal. Reminds me a lot of the older Maxis games like SimTower. Simplistic yet complex at the same time. The recent addition of escape mode adds some much needed flavor and the campaign is a perfect way to learn how to play.