So it wasn’t long ago that Prison Architect made quite a splash on Steam becoming the hot-cookie so to speak. Well, a month after the last, it has just received a major new update bringing it to Alpha 18, and according to the developers they are going to be in Alpha for some time to come, still. The video is twenty-seven minutes long and allows you to see how the new feature and the updates they’ve made are slowly evolving the game.

But besides wondering if they are ever going to reach beta status (which frankly is inconsequential), the update fixes some things and adds a rather (funny?) cool (and expected) new feature for the drawing-board style Prison building sim. Mainly being Prisoner Reform. And in that classical Theme Hospital style humour, some of the things the Prisoners are being reformed for are either laugh-out loud hilarious, or just plain dumb, but don’t take my word for it, watch the video. Not only does it give you a great impression of how the game plays, but it is commented on by the developers and they seem to be having fun, and maybe, just maybe you’ll be convinced to pick up Prison Architect, and have some too (Prisoner Reform, that is). Also in the update, prisoners must take courses to work in various parts of the prison, and guards can now have tasers from the ever expanding armoury.

I’ve played the game a little and it has a lot of potential. There aren’t many games that do what games like Theme Hospital did (still does, if you count that I still play Theme Hospital), and this is quite a special one.