Prison Tycoon, like all tycoon titles, is a management sim. In the game you take control of various prisons, inmates and guards. Your task? Reform the offenders, grow the business and of course turn a profit. Because isn’t that truly the reason people run prisons? To make a profit?

The game’s setup and graphics remind me a lot of a dozen Gameloft titles that hit the mobile phone scene over the past couple years. That means neither is astounding or even up to full iPhone standards. In fact, the sound reminds me of those older games as well and is a lame, bland midi version of some blues or something. Plus it’s ultra-repetitive.

The game has a simple mechanic - keep inmates too busy, happy or tired to fight and cause problems for you. That means constantly rotating the inmates from station to station where they can work, exercise or sleep. Sometimes, when the inmates are in bright spirits they’ll even hang out and do their own thing. But being criminals this could rapidly turn for the worse and I always felt it was best to keep them as busy as possible.

As you progress you get increasingly more complex prisons, more aggressive inmates and have to tackle bigger problems like fights, riots and escapes. each year you are given specific goals to achieve but often have no idea how to go about doing that as there is little help on how to play and no tutorials

The game isn’t all that exciting but I’m sure that’s just a personal preference as there’s nothing actually wrong with the game. There is a lot of sitting about watching or waiting during the lower, easier levels but you’ll be much busier when you have more inmates with more tendencies to get into trouble.

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