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In this episode of Show and Cell, we take a peek into Minisville Penitentiary, created by Sensational TKO. Have you ever heard about tiny living? At Minisville, he took that philosophy and built a prison with just the most essentials and as small as possible! "There's no room for solitary inside the main building. So naughty cons have to stay outside in the cold." - The Warden.
We had the opportunity to ask Sensational TKO a few questions. How long did it take to create Minisville Penitentiary? It didn't take very long to build Minisville Penitentiary. But as always, things had to be adjusted a bit due to realising that there were some things I hadn't planned on adding when I planned it out. What was your goal when you started creating Minisville Penitentiary? The goal was to create the smallest working prison I could, while still making it look and work ok. How did you come up with the name? Most of my prison names kinda end up with a '-ville' at the end. And it's a mini prison. So Minisville. Anything you want to mention about the prison? It is not very secure - it would be very easy to escape from it in escape mode as it only has five guards. Any more than that would be overkill for the small number of prisoners. Although it might be possible to research smaller cells to cram in two prisoners into each cell? Did you plan the layout of the prison before you built it? Yes. I always plan everything out first. This does kinda make things less enjoyable. Now I got into the habit of it, and it's hard to stop. How long have you been playing Prison Architect? I've been playing Prison Architect for many years. It's one of my top three games. What made you start playing Prison Architect? I like sim games. And Prison Architect not only has a simple concept behind it but unlike a lot of building games, there is more to it than just building things. This means that even when you have finished building, there is an actual point to keep playing. Escape mode also adds to this (although I feel it should be harder). Any tips for someone new to the game how to get better on planning and building their prison? I would say always build around open spaces. Use windows. Try to limit the area where prisoners are allowed to go as much as possible. And think about the placement of rooms like the canteen (it is always better to have it near the yard so you can have prisoners move from yard time to eat time quickly, so no one starves because they didn't have time to get to the canteen), and visitation (don't have visitors mingling with prisoners in corridors). Also, use guard deployment to station guards in areas at different times of the day. You can then get away with having fewer guards. Try not to play the game at a fast speed as you miss a lot of what is going on. And check each prisoner that comes into your prison. You need to know who is who, how dangerous they are, and where they are likely to be in your prison during the day. Finally, try to make your max block more secure, don't just have them mixing with lower sec inmates or working in areas where they can get knives and power tools. Do you want to try this prison? Then you can get it here! Minisville Penitentiary Thank you for this time, and see you for the next Show and Cell! The Prison Architect Team