 |
|
Jan 15th, 2018 at 22:02:47 - Prison Architect (PC) |
For my first gamelog for Prison Architect, I played through the first and part of the second campaign mission. In the first mission you are tasked with preparing an execution facility for a prisoner who received the death penalty. While in the guise of a simulation game, different moral questions and ideas are brought up throughout this level. You are repeatedly told that this is just something we have to do and to let the law of the land handle the rest. However, you are given optional objectives to make the situation better for the prisoner. This includes making the waiting room cell more comfortable for the prisoner, as well as adding a path with lighting outside the facility. These little touches seem to be optional solely to force a moral choice from the player. Does this prisoner, guilty of a double murder, deserve better treatment in their last days?
Ironically, after I did implement all these extra things for the sake of the prisoner, you are greeted with a detailed description of his crime. This slaughtering of two people puts a new light on whether this mercy is deserved. The entire concept of the death penalty in general is also questioned by a priest’s character, where he notes that if the crime had occurred in a different location he would have simply received life in prison. This brings up the moral quandary of whether there is anything to be gained by utilizing the death penalty to punish someone for a crime. Does this eye for an eye approach adequately reduce the overall pain and hurt in the situation? This could be argued from a perspective of justice, for the living loved ones of the victims. However, on the flip side of this, it could be argued that killing another person just makes the situation more tragic and does nothing to rectify the crime involved.
Overall, this was a great introduction to this game and the ideas it will present. I like this style of game in general, and I enjoy the way the developers of the game attempted to tackle the subject matter with more tact than might have been expected from a prison simulator. There is definitely a lot of room for this type of game to get a lot of things wrong, in matters of simply seeming like an exploitation or utilize stereotypes when it comes to prisoners. From this brief introduction, the game appears to tackle things from a more human perspective. I look forward to experimenting more with the campaign, and attempting to build up my own prison.
add a comment  - read this GameLog  |
|
|
 |
| granto's GameLogs |
|
granto has been with GameLog for 6 years, 10 months, and 8 days |
view feed xml
|
| Entries written to date: 9 |
|
