Originally published at: http://statelyplay.com/2017/04/25/prison-architect-has-arrived-if-youre-dutch/
iPad, Android Tablets •
One of Owen’s ongoing lamentations about the App Store involved the absolute dearth of good city-building sims, and sims in general. Properties like Roller Coaster Tycoon, SimCity, and Dungeon Keeper were all available, but saddled with free-to-play shenanigans that robbed them off their joy. [For the record, a proper port of RCT was eventually released -ed.] A couple years ago we were told that our suffering was near an end because Introversion Software was bringing their funny, deep, and horrifying prison sim, Prison Architect, to mobile. While news has been slow since those initial announcements, Paradox (yes, Paradox…they’re publishing the mobile version) came forward last week and announced that Prison Architect has been released…in the Netherlands.
I’m going to assume you can figure out what Prison Architect is all about from the title, so I’m not going to go into the nuts and bolts. I will tell you that I’ve been playing it on my laptop for over a year now and it’s absolutely fantastic. The launch in the Netherlands is considered a “soft launch”, which is usually done to test online functionality and servers before a wide release. Is a worldwide release imminent? Paradox isn’t talking, but we can assume that it will be out for the non-Dutch in the next few weeks (or months if things don’t go well…let’s not think about that).
The mobile version of Prison Architect will be for both iPad and Android tablets and is free-to-download. Unlike those crappy F2P titles I mentioned in the intro, however, the full game will be unlockable via IAP. So, it’s kind of like a premium title in F2P clothing. Why do it this way? Who knows.
We’ll stay on top of this and let you know when the game lands on other shores. For that one reader we have in the Netherlands, these links are for you:
https://youtu.be/fBCW8svKOgE