On Prison Architect

Hi! I wrote about Prison Architect for VICE. 

My piece is called A Little Window of Light: How Mechanics Make Meaning in Prison Architect. It is an honest account of my time talking with two of the game’s developers, and playing some of the game on my own afterwards, and if you read it, I hope you enjoy it.

If you are interested in reading about Prison Architect, I encourage you to also read this review of the game by Will Partin for Kill Screen. His piece is a review and mine is not, and I think that is an important distinction, but his piece also engages with an essential issue with Prison Architect that my piece does not: the issue of race. 

All of this reminds me why Cart Life, for all of its technical problems, is my favorite game about social systems: because you play as an individual struggling within dehumanizing systems, rather than as an entity looking down on those who exist within such systems. 

It doesn’t have to be this way.