Improving DanTDM's Prison! (Part 1) - Prison Architect Gameplay

If you're interested in architecture and design, then Prison Architect is the game for you!

Prison Architect is a game where one gets to... design your own prison. As though the title itself isn't self-explanatory already, haha!

Who introduced me to this game? My favourite Youtuber, DanTDM! I also watched other YouTubers who played this game... And something strikes me.

I played this game differently than these YouTubers, primarily because I come from an architectural background.

This includes the way we tackle the game, design concept, planning strategy, etc. So much so that I decided to pen my thoughts.

Let's improve Dantdm's prison!

This blog series will be broken down into several articles, covering some of the fundamentals of good architecture:

1. Understanding the Users

2. Economical Services and Utilities

3. Flexible Interior Design

P/S My comments will be based on DanTDM'S prison, which is an earlier version of the game.

This blog post will cover the first fundamental: designing for the users!

Understanding the various users and their relationships.

There are three distinct groups in this game: the prisoners (duh), staff and visitors. I think it's common sense to clearly segregate different user groups, if not reduce the chances of unnecessary intermingling.

An easy way to plan these is via zoning. Let's look at DanTDM's Prison, housing 500 prisoners:

screenshot of DanTDM Prison Architect Season 1, episode 10

For everyone's convenience, I've colour-coded his prison according to the aforementioned user groups:

Note: I've excluded the lower right portion of the prison in this analysis. That is because I personally preferred such design, and the game was programmed to function more effectively this way.

Is DanTDM's prison a good design? We can find out by wearing any of the user group's shoes.

Scenario 1: we as visitors

In order to access any of the Visitors Rooms, you'll be squeezing your way through pre-dominantly prisoners areas: the reception, yard, workshop, laundry, cells etc. There are too many unnecessary encounters with random inmates.

Scenario 2: we as prisoners (attending scheduled programs)

Woo, my freedom is just one jail door away!

Simply put, the circulation flow isn't ideal. To reduce the overlapping of irrelevant users, it's important to understand who will be using specific rooms. After all...

Good architecture understands the users' roles and their required spaces.

For simplicity, I've only selected a few rooms for discussion. Below are some of the spaces occupied predominantly by one group only:

1. Cells - prisoners (duh)

2. Prisoners' work areas (laundry, library etc) - prisoners

3. Staffroom - staff (players can opt whether prisoners may access this space as workers)

4. Security - staff (police officers)

And spaces shared by different groups:

1. Psychologist office - prisoner and staff (psychologist)

2. Common Room - prisoners and staff (psychologist)

3. Visitors Room - prisoners and visitors

4. Parole Room - prisoners and staff (parole officer)

If we were to represent the above relationships in a diagram:

Next, how do we improve DanTDM's prison?

Let's look at the first user group relationship: prisoners and staff (psychologists). The rooms of concern are the staffroom, psychologist's office and the Common Room.

Since we've been discussing at length the importance of zoning, it makes more sense to relocate the staffroom closer to the workplaces. Next, I'll move the psychologist's office in between the staff and prisoners' zone.

Why closer to the prisoners? Because some of their programs are run by psychologists. Even then, psychologists are still part of the staff and therefore need easy access to the staffroom.

See what I mean by researching the people? ;)

Another design tip to properly zone the users is to separate their entry points.

Moving on to our next user group relationship: prisoners and visitors. The rooms of concern are the Visitors Room. Their circulation flow would be as below:

The diagram above illustrates my favourite design solution: separate entrances for each user group! The in-game design would be as follow:

P/S Take note of the clever use of design booths to mark each user group's boundaries!

Ideally, I prefer another access point for our construction workers (for any delivery and export). The game, however, programmed the "Delivery" space as the pick-up point for both prisoners AND stock intake. So yeah, cannot fulfil my ideal here :(

Let's look at our improvised DanTDM's prison so far!

Thank you for still staying with me! What do you think of this quick guideline and improvisation so far? Let me know! Stay tuned for my next article on economical services and utilities.

Thank you once again for reading and have a great day ahead!

Disclaimer:

The original screenshot of DanTDM's prison is as displayed and credited. All media are the recreation from several screenshots. mypassion.mythoughts owns all other published media as watermarked. Kindly seek permission and credit for reposting.