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Introversion release Prison Architect Alpha9; make your prisoners do the laundry

PAL

Prison Architect has broken free onto Early Access; here’s our Prison Architect review.

In Alpha9 of Prison Architect, your prisoners can start repaying their debt with the new Prisoner Employment system. With the help of a few new rooms, they can now do menial jobs such as the laundry, cooking and cleaning and even make your prison some money in the workshop. Family visitation is finally here, providing your criminals with a way to see their family, or even lawyers.

Here’s a video detailing all of the biggest additions in Prison Architect Alpha9:

I can see those workshops becoming a feared place in any prison. I mean seriously, who puts a criminal and a chainsaw in the same room?

Here are the patch notes for your viewing pleasure:

= Employment

Prisoners can now perform different jobs during a new ‘Work’ regime activity

Create employment opportunities with the new ‘Jobs’ button in the Deployment screen

Prisoners not employed during the ‘Work’ regime treat it as ‘Free Time’

Currently available prisoner jobs : Laundry, Cooking, Cleaning, Workshop

Note: The rooms must be accessable, ie Prisoners can’t cook if the kitchen is Staff Only

Note: Eventually you will pick who can work, but for now every prisoner is permitted to work

= Laundry

New rooms and objects have been added to support creation of a Laundry service within your prison

Clean prisoner uniforms are distributed around the prison in Laundry Baskets

Dirty uniforms are collected up and brought back to the Laundry room, where they are washed in machines

Prisoners now get undressed in their cells before Shower Time, and return to their cell after to re-dress

They will change into a clean uniform if one is available, leaving behind their dirty uniform for laundry.

Prisoners now have a ‘Clothing’ need that reflects how clean their clothes are

Note: Clean prison uniforms will be stored on any table space, or on the floor, in the Laundry

= Workshops

You can now create workshops and use them to convert cheap raw materials into trinkets of value

Raw sheet metal will be dropped off in your workshops

Your Prisoners will use the circular saw and hydraulic press to manufacture car number plates

These will be sold at midnight for a profit

Note: Sheet metal and License plates will be stored on the floor in the workshop.

Build tables if you prefer your rooms to be tidy

= Families and Visitation

All Prisoners now have various family members, listed in their Rap Sheet. Some prisoners have no family.

Family members will want to visit an inmate from time to time

You can now create a visitation room, and visitors will start to arrive every day (8am – 8pm)

Prisoners can also take visits from their lawyer

Note: All bios from old save games will be re-generated to support this

= Cleaning

– Prisoners can now help out with the cleaning of your prison

– New room : Cleaning Cupboard. This is required to assign Prisoners to the cleaning job.

– Janitors and Prisoners will now clean inside individual jail cells, so long as the cell is open to them

– The rendering of decay has been improved – eg muddy floors, dirty shower cubicles, overgrown pathways etc

– Surfaces will now Decay 50% slower than before

– Food Ingredients will now be stored on the kitchen floor if there is no available fridge space

– Older prisoners now have older faces, and are less likely to be incarcerated for certain crimes like Joyriding etc

– Fences now visually join onto walls better

– Electrical cable and water pipes now come in stacks to prevent flooding your deliveries area

– Fixed: Workshops no longer award you money per square.

– Fixed: The deployment system would not always update correctly, leading to a single grey sector

– Fixed: Crash bug in planning mode when drawing off the edge of the map

– Fixed: Dead staff members will no longer be paid a daily wage

– Fixed: The game would not render correctly on Windows Vista or higher when non-standard desktop DPI settings were used

– Fixed: Prisoners under lockdown in their cells would sometimes leave their cell to go to lunch/yard etc, only to be chased down immediately by guards and returned