Warden Tycoon

You run a prison. The building is yours to design, the staff yours to hire, the policies yours to set. But once the doors close, what happens inside is mostly out of your hands. You set the conditions. The prisoners and the prison decide the rest.

Some walk out reformed. Some come back within a year. The ones you never see do their business in the corners your cameras don't reach. Every prison reflects the warden who built it.

Build It Your Way

Draw walls, doors, fences and windows, lay floors over several storeys and dig out a basement. Stamp whole rows of cells in one drag, then furnish every room object by object: beds, toilets, canteen tables, stoves, showers, workbenches. Mark what each room is for, and the game tells you what it still needs. Your builders put up every blueprint on site, brick by brick.

Keep Them Fed, Busy and Calm

Every inmate has needs, a mood and a daily schedule. Run kitchens and canteens, showers, yards and gyms. Give them jobs in the kitchen, the laundry and the workshops. Let families visit, call and write. Schedules can differ per cell block. A prison that works is quiet. A prison that doesn't will let you know.

See What Your Guards See

A literal fog of war hides everything your staff can't see. Fights break out in unwatched corridors. Tunnels get dug in cells nobody checked. Patrol routes, cameras, watchtowers, floodlights and dogs cost money. So does ignorance.

When It Goes Wrong

Tension builds room by room. Fights spread into riots, and riots wreck what you built. Lock down a block, send in the guards or call the riot team. Inmates plan escapes over fences, through tunnels and in stolen uniforms, smuggle contraband through visits and deliveries, form gangs and fight over turf. They learn where you aren't looking, so the security that worked last month may not work next month.

Information Is a Resource

Recruit informants. Identify gang members. Read incident reports that trace a riot back to its causes. Search cells, test for drugs, keep a watch list. The more you know about your prisoners, the better your decisions, and every piece of information costs something to get and risks something to use.

Run It as a Business, or Don't

The state pays per housed inmate. Take on contracts, sell what your workshops produce, and pass the inspector's visits to build your reputation. Classes, therapy programmes and parole hearings cost more up front, but every former inmate who stays out pays off. Warehousing pays the bills. Rehabilitation pays better. How you balance the two is up to you.

Decide What Kind of Warden You Are

Run a strict facility with zero tolerance, or a rehabilitation-focused one with classes and family visits, or a mix, and live with the contradictions. There is no philosophy screen. Your prison becomes what you build. And there are no pipes to lay and no electricity to wire: you manage what matters.

Grow

Start with an empty plot, a few builders and a handful of cells. Unlock new rooms and systems as your prison grows, take on the state's orders and compete in the annual prison awards. The simulation runs well beyond a thousand inmates. Whether you can run it at that scale is up to you.

Run your prison your way. Pay for what you control, accept what you don't, and find out what kind of warden you are.