Prison Architect just crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side

iPad, Android, PC/Mac/Linux •

When Prison Architect landed on our tablets earlier this year, it was a big deal. It not only marked another major PC title making its way to mobile, but it was also published by Paradox as part of their new focus on mobile gaming. We never got around to writing a review for Prison Architect here, mainly because it’s too damn big and I just never felt like I got deep enough to have an opinion that’s worth a damn [as opposed to your other opinions? Okay… -ed.].  The parts I did play seemed pretty polished and right in line with what I was familiar with from the desktop version. Apparently, however, the game had more bugs than an entomologist’s fever dream. Version 2.0 was just released and, judging by the patch notes, all the bugs have received a death sentence.

Version 2.0 marks the first major update for the mobile version of Prison Architect and the changelog is a doozy. I bumped into a few of these bugs while playing, but had no idea there were so many more issues waiting for me. Sometimes it’s good to be incredibly lethargic.

Here’s a short list:

TOP FIXES:

• Significantly smaller memory footprint – bigger prisons should work a lot better!
• Loading a Save File should be a lot more reliable !
• Dozens of crash fixes!

GAME NO LONGER CRASHES WHEN:

• Playing on full speed and ordering multiple movement commands for Firemen.
• Launching in Spanish
• Tapping two polaroids at the same time
• Selecting “Yes” to ‘have you played before’ with poor internet connection.
• Completing the optional sub-tasks in chapter 4 for training staff in the Workshop.
• Idling for a LONG time in Chapter 2
• Interacting with Confidential Informants

PROGRESS BLOCKERS FIXED

• Safety need no longer max out immediately, and now decreases as intended
• Auto-save files are now properly displayed in the Load Game screen.
• When showing the player the utilities mode, the murder cutscene no longer plays causing a loop.
• Deployment and Patrol assignment now working as intended.
• Turning on the electric chair with no electricity no longer blocks the campaign.
• Toolbar is no longer hidden after beginning a new game

IMPROVEMENTS

• Improved UI load times
• Improved load times
• Option to change localization Ingame
• Polaroids displayed in Chronological order
• Toolbar reworked and improved, both visually and when interacting with it.
• Draw tools now stay
• Dozens of localization fixes and improvements
• Information bubbles now work properly in Chapter 2

And that’s just a short list. There are over 100 other fixes wrapped up into this beast, so if you had been playing Prison Architect and been banging your head against the wall for any reason, now might be a good time to update and give it another go.

• Prison Architect: Mobile for iPad, free
• Prison Architect: Mobile for Android, free
• Prison Architect for PC/Mac/Linux via Steam, $30

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