Like many strategy games, Prison Architect can be hard to get into, and can often be very difficult. To help you on your way. To creating a successful prison, I have gathered some tips and tricks I have learned thus far. Feel free to comment with your own tips and tricks!

Use the planning tool wisely. As soon as you start a new map, pause it and begin planning!

Metal Detectors are a great way to find hidden items on your prisoners. Put a few in a place where prisoners have to pass by every now and then, and if the metal detector catches an item, it will tag the prisoner to be searched by a guard.

Unless you have the More Grants mod, you’re likely going to run out of grants. The only other way to make a large amount of cash is by building a workshop! Use them to your advantage, and make them early in the game to maximize cash flow.

Fences are free, which makes them great to use for containing prisoners.

Modify your time schedule so that the prisoners take shower right before bed, and right after they wake up. Then construct your prison so that you have to pass through the showers to get to the cells. This will make the shower process much easier!

You can open any door by right clicking on it!

If someone is injured and you don’t have any doctors, call in paramedics in the emergency option.

If your struggling with being able to cater to the ‘family’ needs of your prisoners, put a few telephones in the yard.

If you have the fog of war option on, make sure to install security cameras or set patrol paths for your guards.

Grants are the easiest ways to make money, but be sure to complete all of them!

Build enough sinks in your kitchen, otherwise your cooks will buy new food trays!

You can change some settings including the number of prisoners on intake by going into your save file, opening it with a text editor, and changing the values.

If you want to completely disable prisoner intake, go to your reports tab, clock on prisoners, and click on the word ‘open’, so it will change to ‘closed’, which closes prisoner intake. From this menu you can also enable low and high risk prisoner intake.

Make only one entrance to your jail. Eventually your jail will become very large, so it will be hard to keep watch over multiple doors

Hopefully some of these tips and tricks will help you out! I will add more as the day progresses. Thanks.