Would you rather become a dedicated prison warden or a legendary escapee among the convicts?
Our battle between Prison Architect and The Escapists is on to help you make up your mind! Today we take a look into two independent video games about prisons – it would be criminal not to know them!
Gameplay mechanics
Prison Architect is a facility management simulator. Its gameplay heavily focuses on building and maintaining a prison – including resource and crisis management, ensuring security, and meeting the prisoners’ needs.
It’s worth mentioning that PA features Escape Mode, but it’s not the main or the most developed part of the game.
The Escapists can be placed on the other end of the prison strategy games spectrum as it is focused on stealthy escape from the facility.
Gameplay elements include pretty much everything that can be done to fully prepare your big escape, from exploring the environment, through stealing and crafting various tools, all the way to interacting with NPCs.
Graphics
Prison Architect features an isometric view, while The Escapists is presented from a top-down perspective. Both games have their unique 2D visual style with humorous undertones.
As The Escapists’ graphics are pixelated, Prison Architect’s style looks more detailed in comparison, especially with its usage of hand-drawn elements such as characters’ portraits and various comic-inspired illustrations.
Player objectives
Of course, the objectives of both of these prison-themed games are the opposite, with Prison Architect focusing on creating and managing a perfect facility, and The Escapists’ main goal is escaping from such an institution.
Facility-centered Prison Architect focuses on constructing and managing the prison to ensure it’s operating smoothly even in sudden moments of crisis, with additional objectives appearing during various missions and scenarios.
Escape-centered The Escapists puts the player first and emphasizes stealth, planning, and trying out different prison break strategies. With the main objective being obviously the big escape, the players need to set their own, smaller goals in order to reach it.
Complexity
Prison Architect can surely be considered an advanced strategy game, with multiple matters to take care of and complex facility management elements testing out its player’s skills all the time.
It’s certainly not a game that is easy to master as it definitely requires some time and practice to fully grasp its complexity; once you get to know it though, you will surely find out it was worth it, especially with its huge replayability value, dynamic challenges, and many DLCs available.
The Escapists may be less complex in terms of subjects to look after as it doesn’t involve managing a larger system, but it’s a great example of a solid video game complex in its own right.
With an extensive crafting system, multiple paths to victory to discover, and various maps to escape from, the game definitely encourages experimentation and thinking ahead.
Target audience
As mentioned before, both games feature some humour and are a perfect choice for every player enjoying management and strategy games with a bit of comedy thrown into the mix from time to time.
As Prison Architect features themes such as murder, violence, and other adult content, as well as offers more complex and management-focused gameplay, it is safe to say its target audience is more mature (PEGI-16) than the one of the family-friendly The Escapists.
Conclusion
While both Prison Architect and The Escapists offer hours and hours of strategy-focused fun, they cater to slightly different gameplay preferences.
Prison Architect is a more mature production focused on management skills, and The Escapists is a family-friendly game perfect for those looking for more individual challenge.
One thing is for sure though – no matter if you like escape plotting or facility management more, they both provide an amazingly engaging experience!