A free mystery game will be unwrapped on Dec. 16, and a new leak is pointing to Ryo Hazuki

Epic has posted its usual weekly freebies �in today's case, it's the trimmed-down Godfall Challenger Edition and the old reliable Prison Architect �but there's also a festive teaser for a "mystery game" dropping on December 16. The gift-wrapped imagery jogged my memory and reminded me that, oh yeah, the Epic Games Store usually hosts ??a big holida?y giveaway. As fate would have it, there's a corresponding leak.

According to yet another leak out of Dealabs, the game scheduled for a free giveaway on December 16 is none other than Shenmue III (take it or leave it!) and it'll be followed by a bunch of one-day-only giveaways to close out 202??1 al?ongside the store's holiday sale.

Aside from the daily game? giveaways that are expected to run from December 16 through December 29, the Epic? Games Store will reportedly also host a final week-long holiday freebie that can be claimed from December 30 until January 6, 2022.

As a point of comparison, courtesy of the record keepers at Fanbyte, the Epic Games Store ran 12 days of free games in 2019 (including Into the Breach and Celeste) and 15 days of free games in 2020 (with titles like Inside, The Long Dark, and Jurassic World: Evolution).

When there are so many ways to build out your library without spending a cent, it's tricky to navigate "I'?ve been meaning to get that" game purchases �especially if we're talking PC indie gaming. And with the Epic Store, it feels like almost anything could show up. Potentially add in Games with Gold, Xbox Game Pass, and PlayStation Plus, and the freebies just keep flowing. Thank goodness backlogs don't work like Tamagotchis.

Assuming Epic's big holiday bash returns for 2021, we'll do our best to post daily reminders on the site (when we aren??????????????????????????'t chilling with the fam).

In related news, the Epic Games Store now has a shopping cart.

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Jailhouse Docked

I like computer books. I have a shelf packed with programming textbooks, stories about the industry, and a library of eBooks on various languages I learn and work with. I also have one oddity published by O'Reily called Getting Started With Dwarf Fortress.   

Of course Dwarf Fortress is not a programming language, but a game. An in?famous game known for an incredible depth of complexity and one of the worst user interfaces ever built. Aside the fact that the game is comprised entirely of ASCII characters, it is difficult enough to p??arse that it has its own sizeable text box. A shame considering it is one of the most unique and wonderful games around.

I never mastered Dwarf Fortress, but it stoked the fires of my interest in the simulation genre and as the years have gone by there have been plenty of interesting clones of the game. Prison Architect is one such game, and while it chooses to ditch the mind boggling scope of Dwarf Fortress and focus the player on a singular task, it is not any worse off or lacking in depth because of this. After hanging around on PC, it has made its way to the Nintendo Switch, making it (for now...Rimworld, anyone?) the only? notabl??e title like it on the console.

Prison Architect (Switch [Reviewed] PS4, Xbox One, PC)
Developer: Introversion Software/Double Eleven Limited
Publisher: Double Eleven
MSRP: $29.99
Released: Aug 16, 2018

Prison Architect starts off in a fairly innocuous way, with a series of playable tutorial levels focusing the player on a single overarching task broken down into micro tasks and meticulously laid out to ??slowly introduce the player to new concepts along the way. The basic game flow is simple enough: you build a prison. It might start off as simple as a single cell, an office and a warden, a power plant and some other facilities, but like most simulations of this kind you will eventually?? have a bustling infrastructure with a thousand things going on that you have to manage, with hiccups such as fires and riots along the way to keep you on your toes.

The tutorials are necessarily strict in how you should proceed because Prison Architect despite not being comprised of ASCII, and actually having a wonderfully convenient, usable, and snappy interface on the Switch, is complicated. Apart from being helpful they act as their own cool little story vignettes, with very mature themes narrated in a stylistic comic book presentation -- put the kids to bed for this one. This is more Sin City than SimCity.

The real appeal for most simulation enthusiasts is going to be the sandbox mode where you have access to a hefty bank account and a large collection if tools for maintaining your prison. You will have to zone infirmaries, cafeterias, prison cells, waste disposal areas, set up security cameras and patrol routes, and make sure your prisons are adequately staffed to keep order. There is a deep level of micro management involved here, but a ton of freedom to make sure that you can plan for the future, with the ability to pause, slow down, or speed up game play anytime.

Because of the deep micro management required of you, including making sure your prisoners are kept happy and have their mental and health care needs taken care of, it is not a question of if thing will go wrong but rather of when and how they will go wrong. This means that there is always a new surprise and challenge waiting just around the bend. With available DLC including a new Escape Mode which allows you to play as a prisoner trying to make a great escape in several different scenarios, there is a lot to do in Prison Architect.

Focusing on a singular element of simulation in the way that Prison Architect does it is an intriguing way to approach the genre. Initially I was not very interested in the general theme, but before long I was viewing myself as a sort of hard nosed warden attempting to be strict but fair in the hopes that I might be able to turn some of these bad boys around. I was mostly wrong. I never felt entirely comfortable that I had a well oiled machine, and this is a compliment to the simulation. In other titles, like SimCity, once you ?have a functioning metropolis, you are basically done unless you trigger a few natural disasters and try to clean up the mess. Here, with so many moving parts, each session is a new set of potentially major problems.

I have not played Prison Architect on the PC so can't speak to how the controls translated over. But personally speaking, although it does take advantage of damn near every controller button and is ungodly in scope for consoles, I thought it was handled wonderfully. The game performs very well too, in case anyone was worried this might be a potential Cities Skylines waiting to happen.

Prison Architect is a blast. It offers an interesting thematic take on a bizarre sub genre of simulations, and while it retains the general complexity and what made that other game so good, it strips away all the fat, keeps it laser focused, and wraps it all up in a lovely usable user interface. It can be a hard knock life, and even with the tutorials you will still learn best by diving in and exploring, but Prison Architect is well worth the time investment required.

_{[This review is base??d ??on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Monster World is clearly the standout

It has been a long while since Microsoft's "Games with Gold" problem had such a lackluster month. While I wouldn't single out any game in this selection as bad, you likely already own each of these titles. What are the chances that there is anyone on this planet that hasn't already played LEGO Star Wars III, for instance?

If you haven't, though, you'll be happy to know that 2011's LEGO Star Wars entry is up for grabs this month. Sega's Monster World compilation is also a huge standout, seeing as how the Wonder Boy series is damn good. The Xbox One titles, while not bad, have been available on the cheap numerous ?times for the past few years.

I think that is the real issue: everything on offer is multiple years old. Nothing wrong with giving out underrated classics, but I definitely miss when Microsoft and Sony were giving out overlooked gam??es instead of seven-year-old sequels.

• Prison Architect (Xbox One) - Available September 1 - 30
• Livelock (Xbox One) - Available September 16 - October 15
• LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (Xbox 360) - Available September 1 - 15
• Sega Vintage Collection: Monster World (Xbox 360) - Available September 16 - 30

New Games with Gold for September 2018 [Xbox Wire]

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Time to jailbreak your console

After a long stint in Early Access, Prison Architect finally saw its full PC release late last year. Wasting litt?le?? time, developer Double Eleven is now porting it to consoles. It should release in spring on PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. No firm date was given.

Strangely, PlayStation 3 is left off that list. I mean, it wouldn't be strange for a video game releasing in the year 2016 to snub a console that debuted more than nine years ago, except that it's showing up on one that debuted more than ten years ago instead. PlayStation users can still get in on the slightly morbid sim, so long as they are hip with the ?times.

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And you've got TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME

Prison Architect is bloody brilliant, and it isn’t even done yet. It’s a Tycoon-style management sim with a firmly tongue-in-cheek sense of humour, and it’s been in ea??rly access for almost three whole years now.

Since 2012, the game’s gone from totally playable to possibly one of the best management sims to come ou?t this decade, and now the long journey of development is almost at an end.

Developer Introversion have announced the game will ?be hitting full release this October in a video for the latest update, Alpha #35. It’s a bit weird it skipping the entire be??ta phase of development, but then again it’s not like those words have meant anything for a long time now.

Alongside the announcement of the release date, the video also shows more immediate improvements to the game su?ch as a refined gang system. Mainly it's two guys talking absolute bollocks to each other, but that's just par for the course with Introversion. It's worth watching, ??nonetheless.

Look, I like Prison Architect a lot, if you hadn’t noticed.

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Tunnelling prisoners, oh my!

The latest Prison Architect update sees some significant additions infiltrating your lovely prisons. Alpha 13 gives prisoners the ability to dig tunnels, giving guards more things to worry about. Introversion's Mark Morris explains that it's a feature that has been ready for a while, but the studio wasn't ready to release it until they ha??d put together a better detection mechanism.

Less noticeable, but arguably more important, is the new punishment table, which gives players the ability to decide how to punish infractions. According to Morris, Prison Architect has focused more on? looking after the needs of prisoners, but with the new punishment table, you can rule your prison with an iron fist. 

If this all sounds like a good lark to you, Prison Architect is 40 percent off on Steam as part of the weekend deal. Note that it's still an Early Acc??es?s title, so expect some kinks and frequent updates. 

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In charge of an empty, rundown prison

I've been designing some prisons recently. Well, I can scratch another item of my list of sentences I never expected to utter. I've been running them, too. Act?ually, facilitating the running of them, more often than not. I suspect that actual prison architects have a lot l?ess hands-on time with functioning penitentiaries, but I don't know any to ask. 

I'm not sure why, but I thought it might be a good laugh, this whole Prison Architect lark. It's probably rather telling about my lack of experien?ce with the prison system that I actually expected whimsy. I feel a bit foolish now. Like someone drinkin?g toilet wine. 

Prison Architect (Mac, PC)
Developer: Introversion Software
Publisher: Introversion Software
Released: TBD

I started my first day of work with the best of intentions. I'm going to make the best darned prison in all the land, I thought to myself. I was looking forward to getting stuck in. Contrary to my real-life proclivities, I'm rather fond of management, and, indeed, micro-management in these here videogames. It is, as they say, my bag.

I had buckets of cash, a huge plot of land, and eight inmates arriving in a day. Luckily, construction workers are rather diligent in Prison Architect, so that left me???? with more than enough time to create the bare essentials. 

I??n a letter from some Prison CEO chap -- he had a mustache and thus appeared legit -- I was advised to construct a large communal holding cell instead of individual cells. The goal was to save money and time as I was just starting up. Sound advice, I thought, and I took it to heart. I was quite literally whistling as I worked, and things were coming to?gether rather nicely.

I built the walls (always a good place to begin), then assigned a room (my first holding cell), and added in some final, but necessary, touches, like beds and loos. I didn't want the prisoners crapping on the floor, after all. I had some space left over, so I built some showers at the end of the block. I was going for an e?n-suite feel, but it ended up being a little less luxurious, with all these facilities crammed into a small block.

I didn't want the prisoners to starve, so I constructed a canteen, and of course that m??eant I also had to build a kitchen, and each of those rooms needed the relevant objects like tables, service areas, an oven, a fridge -- it was a long list. Things were starting to come together nicely, but I was becoming increasingly aware that the arrival of my first inmates was sneaking up on me.

All of these facilities were effectively useless without water and p??ower, so I built yet another room to house my utilities. After another job well done, I perused my burgeoning jail, but something was amiss. I still didn't have power or water. Of course this was entirely my fault, as I still needed to hook everything up to the electricity and water mains.

The whole time, my stocky construction worker chums were running around, grabbing supplies from the depot, hammering away at walls, screwing in light bulbs, carrying toilets and beds, and generally doing a really good job. They worked hard and never complained. I like to think that during their lunch break they told bawdy jokes, read The Sun, and told?? each other that despite my ??crisp, immaculate suit and perfectly coiffed hair, I wasn't such a bad bloke.

Building one thing invariably leads to the construction or addition of something else. Even though my inmates had yet to arrive, I was already attempting to anticipate their routine and their needs. Routine is important in Prison Architect, as the convicts are kept to a pretty tight schedule, everything happening at the same time every single day. With that in mind I tried to build my prison in a logical manner, taking into account in which order they would use each facility. One can even place different materials on the ground to speed up or slow down foot traffic, manipulating the movements? of staff and felons to a significant degree.

One couldn't exactly call my prison finished, lacking administrative buildings, communal areas, or any medical facilities, but it was good enough to open. I quickly added a?? fenced in yard with some weights and even telephones just before the prisoners arrived. I was feeling confident nothing would go wrong. I may have been running low on funds, but government grants were on their way. When the gates finally opened and my recently hired guards started to ?bring in the first batch of "residents," things changed immediately.

I saw my prison in a new light. It was covered in muck and filth, cracks cobwebbed throughout the buildings, green slime clung to the surface of the shower area -- it was generally disgusting. I had no money or time to hire maintenance workers or janitors, so the prisoners would hav?e to make do. They weren't too happy about this.

My biggest mistake was not paying enough? attention. I had set up metal detectors at all entrances, ensuring that no shivs or deadly spoons would end up stuck in backs or guts, but I confess that I just sort of forgot all about them. When an armed prisoner walks through one, it makes a wee beep, but it was up to me to find the fella and have a guard search him. That was where I ?dropped the ball.

I also hadn't taken into account that, while many of the doors could only be accessed by staff, prisoners could slip through? right after them, just before the door closed. These two oversights led to my peaceful little prison becoming Hell on Earth.

It all start??ed during lunch. There wasn't enough food to go around, so my new jailbirds started to get antsy. Antsy and armed is a dangerous combination. The first vic?tim was one of my construction buddies, just minding his own business, carrying a box of light fixtures. He got stabbed in the stomach and fell to the ground. There were no guards to come to his rescue, as a small riot had broken out in the holding cell. Two of my guards were defending themselves against six prisoners, while the other was off in the canteen beating the crap out of a skinny, bespectacled con. I''m not sure what he had done.

Within mere minutes, the injured and dead lay everywhere. One cook lay bleeding next to the oven, the other was limping to the front gate. My last active guard was being savagely attacked by a small group of prisoners, and all of my construction workers were freaking the hell out. That's when I noticed that I?? couldn't see many orange jump suits. Most of the inmates had followed a fleeing construction worker out of the locked side entrance, and were now almost at the edge of the map. And then they were gone.

In less than half a day, I'd witnessed murder, beatings, and at least six criminals esca?ping. My warden had locked himself inside the office I had just built before lunch, and may have been crying. It was a ??hell of a first day on the job.

Despite the tutorial, I wasn't really prepared for this. It teaches players how to use the basic tools, but doesn't really throw any curve-balls at you. Considering that Prison Architect is still in alpha, I'm surprised it has a tutorial at all, to be honest. My first, terrible failure taught me a lot more, however, and I was on? the ball the next time -- or at least I didn't end up having everyone die or escape on my watch in a matter of minutes. I took grants for missions so I had more cash to fully kit out the facility, I halted the introduction of inmates until it was all built, and I hired three times as many guards. I'd become a little paranoid, but it paid off. 

Even at this early stage, with features still to be implemented and some only half finished, Prison Architect seem??s rather content rich. It has a research tree which can be used to unlock new staff members and extra rooms (allowing players t??o implement such things as CCTV or hire accountants), and while the only mode available is strictly sandbox, there are plenty of clear objectives which help to drive the game forward and inspire the construction of new rooms and general expansion.

Most impressive was the way it had me getting wrapped up in moral quandaries without being too heavy handed. The tutorial has a narrative about a murderer on death row, and there's some dialogue between a preacher and a guard that might be a little on the nose, though more than anything, I found the whole scenario rather disturbi??ng, as I was tasked with sending a man to his death for a crime I was forced to witness via static, hand-drawn images -- quite graphic images, honestly. It was? unexpected, but really set the scene.

The sandbox mode is not as direct, but I still found myself questioning my actions. It's even easier to dehumanize criminals in a videogame than it is in real life, and there's no doubt about it -- I was doing that. But stepping back for a moment, I found myself a little bit horrified with myself. My treatment of the prisoners was defined by my budget, and I only rea?lly cared about their well-being if it meant they weren't g?oing to start a riot.

It may "only be a game," but it attempts to?? simulate real scenarios and possibly e??ven inspire attitudes in its players that are shared by those who actually run these large, privatized penitentiaries in the US, and, indeed, the UK. It's a bit chilling.

Introversion make fascinating games as rule, and I think that Prison Architect has the potential to be their most compelling experien??ce to date. It's still got a long way to go, however, but it definitely feels like it's on the? right track.

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Over 30,000 copies sold

Prison Architect, one of our top 30 indies to look forward to this year, has recently sold $1 million in pre-orders. $1,023,040 to be exact, totaling 30,466 copies sold according to the website. The game is only in its alp?ha stage, but pre-ordering a copy now gets you immediate access to the current build of ?the game.

??You can pre-order the game now from the official website for $30, or you can chip in more for better rewards. Sort of like Kickstarter's tiered rewards, except this game is already going ahead and obviously doing quite well.

Prison Architect ??acquires o??ver $1 million in pre-orders [Eurogamer]

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