We met up with Introversion at A Bit of Alright last week to talk about how development is going on their new project, Prison Architect . Creative director, Chris Delay and managing director Mark Morris told us about their plans for a "paid alpha" later this year.

The alpha could be released "maybe half way through/two thirds through of this year, so maybe September time," says Chris. The paid alpha will give players the opportunity to pay for a pre-order to get immediate access to the build that Introversion are currently working on.

"We'll do regular updates, and every three or four weeks they'll get an update" Chris explains. "This is the plan."

Other indie projects like Minecraft and Project Zomboid have followed a similar system. Introversion say they're doing it to "get it out there a little earlier than we would normally." Mark says that version "1.0" could follow at the start of 2013. We've played an early version of the prison building sim. Find out more in our Prison Architect preview .