Objection! The Goofy Fun of Being a Video Game Lawyer

The Steam Winter sale has officially begun and it's the perfect time to be snatching up those hot deals!  As usual, I've grabbed a few (very different) titles that have been parked on my wishlist for awhile.  I've been looking for some light, fun games that I can hop into when I feel like it and I've been bouncing between three different games:  Prison Architect, Celeste, and Phoenix Wright:  Ace Attorney Trilogy.

I've spent the most time lawyering about in Phoenix Wright:  Ace Attorney.  In Phoenix Wright you play as Phoenix Wright, a fresh-out-of-law-school lawyer who is trying to earn his stripes in the court of law.  The story plays out in a series of chapters that start with a random crime and then Phoenix choosing to defend the accused criminal(s).  The gameplay involves point-and-click investigating and plays out in a visual novel format.  The entire goal is to find clues, interrogate witnesses to get them to cough up the truth, and to use your powers of attention and deduction to help get your clients exonerated.

Since Phoenix Wright:  Ace Attorney is a trilogy, there's plenty of crime to investigate and trials to be won.  The crimes and stories can be very far-fetched and mostly are pretty silly, but it's still fun to feel like a Sherlock Holmes/Clarence Darrow level genius.  If you're looking for a light, fun, and silly game to play, look no further than Phoenix Wright:  Ace Attorney.

Pretend lawyering is fun and all, but I've also spent a bit of time managing my long-forgotten lady prison #2 in Prison Architect.  Since the game was bought up by Paradox Interactive a series of updates and a new DLC have been rolled out.  I decided to check out the new(ish) changes to the game.

The biggest changes that I noted was the fact that there are a ton of new items--namely a crap ton of new floor types, wall types, and objects.  Many of the new items are much-needed additions--there's a shower pillar that lets you build shower heads on all sides (yesssssssss!)--but others are merely cosmetic add-ons to give your prison its own unique look.  If you haven't played in awhile, check it out.

The biggest Prison Architect news is that a new DLC, Psych Ward, was recently released.  Psych Ward presents a new form of prison to manage--a psych prison that manages the criminally insane.  These special prisons require a different management style and introduce even more unique items.  I briefly considered purchasing this DLC, but after reading numerous complaints of bugs and issues I decided to give it a pass (for now).

Another game that I've spent a bit of time tinkering with is Celeste.  I have read many great things about it, but find that I have to be in just the right mood to want to play platformers.  At first I wasn't sure that I would be able to get into it, but after clearing the first and second levels (with an insane number of deaths) I found that I was enjoying it and am curious about the story.  Over my holiday break I hope to spend some more time scaling the mountain (and dying a jillion times).

Happy holidays everyone!  May your gaming days be bright!

Failure and OST's from Weird Games I Like

Sadly I have to report that my efforts to "git gud" at the ARPG Grim Dawn have failed.  I resigned myself to failure in the last couple of days.  It's kind of weird because when I played Diablo III things usually went pretty well.  I wasn't playing on Torment 89 or anything, but I wasn't getting constantly one-shot by every heroic mob that I met.  I am trying to figure out where I went wrong--is it my gear?  Unlike D3, Grim Dawn doesn't have a system that gears loot drops toward the class you are playing.  I've had a really difficult time getting armor drops for my class.  I've gotten a literal crap-ton of caster stuff...a billion pieces of plate armor...but almost no good demolitionist items.  I've questioned if I should spend more time grinding out faction rep to unlock some items.  The answer to that is "probably."  The other possibility leading to my failure is the allocation of my talent points.  I have no idea if I am putting them in the right place.  I feel sad and pitiful when I look up builds on the interwebs, but it would undoubtedly help.  So, for now at least, I'm taking a little break from the frustrations in the land of Cairn.

My demolitionist...is now retired.

Much of my struggle now involves trying to figure out what I want to play.  I'm bouncing back and forth between a bunch of games and feeling listless about what exactly I want to do.  I started a men's prison in Prison Architect and have been spending some time trying to make it into a rehabilitation paradise.  I learned much from my first sandbox prison and things have gone relatively smoothly.  Not as smoothly as I would like as my report card shows an 8 for punishment and a 5 for rehabilitation..oh, and a -2 for health.  This time around I decided to up the difficulty and add in random events and guard needs.  Random events can vary from a burst water pipe, to random fires, or to my personal favorite, neighboring prison overload.  When other prisons are overloaded they will send you a large contingent of new prisoners--and, for some diabolical reason, they are always maximum security.  It was in one of the two times I pulled this event that I landed a legendary prisoner who enjoyed riling up everyone in max. sec. and liked to attack and slaughter my guards.  He was good at attacking and overpowering the armed guards that I set up on constant patrol around him and then using their own shotguns to kill them and any prisoners around.  I moved him into his own "supermax" wing and set up guard towers, armed patrols, and multiple guards around him.  That slightly helped...  The story ended when he somehow ended up being temporarily stored in the holding cell and then managed to escape.  I actually cheered when he was gone even though it was a failure.

Apparently you do poop and eat in the same room.

Guard needs also adds in a new twist if you choose to go that route.  Like the prisoners, the guards also have specific food and bathroom needs.  When building a breakroom it should now include serving stations for staff meals and toilets so that your guards have a place to take care of their bathroom business.  If you don't meet the needs of your staff they will perform their duties in a less than satisfactory manner--they move cripplingly slowly while performing their tasks--and if they are angry for long enough they will eventually demand a pay raise.  If you don't meet their pay demands they will go on strike.  This means no guards, no cooks...no staff in your prison--a catastrophe in the making.  I would recommend that more experienced players turn on this option as it does add some challenge.

Part visual novel, part drink mixing simulation.  100% awesome.

One of my favorite things to do while playing certain games is to listen to music.  Generally the music I prefer to listen to is music from other games.  Ironic, yes?  I very much enjoyed the quirky game VA-11 HALL-A:  Cyberpunk Bartender Action and was floored when I discovered the soundtrack available for purchase.  All those sweet, sweet, electronic hits from the jukebox are available to download on Bandcamp.  Just listening to the music has gotten me in the mood for another round of dishing up drinks to the assorted characters in Valhalla.  I really hope another game is in the works!

Mission(s) Accomplished!

Last week I posted about some silly goals that I made up for myself in a couple of casual games.  I was much closer to completing those goals than I had initially thought.  After a little concentrated effort I managed to finish both of them.  It feels stupidly good to have finished something in a game.

Goal #1--Pimp out my slime ranch in Slime Rancher.
My slime ranch was full to bursting with every variety of slime to be found scattered across the many zones...and yet it still felt oddly empty and unfinished.  I worked on keeping my slimes producing plentiful plorts and managed to produce enough items to unlock the MKIII treasure cracker.  This meant I was free to search for and open the coveted dark purple treasure pods.  Some of the treasure pods contained some great decorative items and curios.  Others...just contained crafting items...which just isn't as exciting as getting a new type of tree.  After locating many of the purple pods I decided I had enough decorative items to finally start setting aside more plorts for those exact purposes.

Look at my beautiful trees!  Not to mention the gorgeous, golden slime lamp.

I hadn't really paid much attention to how many items you can plop down around the ranch...but there are a lot!  Feeding the science hopper became a high priority as I amassed the numerous different plorts required to make a wide array of grasses, trees, ruins, and other random decorations.  Now my ranch feels like a unique atmosphere and a fabulous place for a novice slime rancher to call home.

Special curios let you give your slimes costumes.  Look at my cute Pink Tabby Largos.

My efforts to beautify my ranch were almost quashed by disaster due to some unruly tarrs forming while I was off exploring.  I returned to my ranch to find ALL of my main ranch corrals completely empty.  I had to head back out and wrangle up some more slimes to re-fill my empty pens.  Luckily this was fairly simple due to my extensive system of teleporters.

Right now I feel satisfied with my Slime Rancher efforts.  The ranch is pretty; I've found and pillaged all three of Hobson's vaults...it just doesn't feel like there's much else to do.  I haven't found all the hidden treasure pods yet.  I guess that's something.

Goal #2--Make a sandbox prison that has 1,000 prisoners in Prison Architect.
My Prison Architect lady prison had slowly been creeping toward the coveted 1,000 prisoner mark since I initially started it up this summer.  I finally hit that mark earlier this week.  Getting to 1,000 wasn't easy and I definitely made some mistakes and learned some things along the way.

My stats when I hit 1,000 prisoners.  Nothing to brag about.

You'll notice from my grading that my security rating and health ratings are both on the low side.  I don't fully understand how the security rating works.  I know that I did have some issues with escapees early in the game (13 people escaped in one tunnel that my dog patrols kept missing).  My health rating was low because I completely failed at keeping my prisoners from obtaining contraband like drugs, alcohol, and cell phones.  Even with metal detectors and multiple dog patrols it seemed like I couldn't stem the tide of illicit items getting into my prison.

My worst stat is the sheer number of deaths that happened.  Almost every day someone was getting shanked to death.  My snitches had a low chance of surviving to their parole date.  Towards the end I finally decided that they would be safer in lockup rather than trying to safely work or attend reform sessions.  The number of deaths was reduced...but it still never failed that someone was where they weren't supposed to be and was killed.  I also made the mistake of making one large building to handle almost twenty parole hearings a day.  Then I didn't assign a guard to EACH parole room because I felt like that was excessive.  As a result of that bad decision a large number of parole lawyers met an untimely end at the hands of angry parole denied inmates.

My next prison is going to be for male prisoners.  I think I have some ideas about how to make my prison better.  We'll see if it actually pans out.

Goals

Oddly enough I've firmly entrenched myself in a circular rut involving two games--Slime Rancher and Prison Architect.  The main reason why I've found myself switching back and forth between the two is because I have made my own mental long term goals.  One of them is actually mildly achievement based and the other is purely for my own sense of achievement.  I've been spending what little time I usually have to play switching back and forth between the two and chipping tiny little pieces of rock away with the hope of completing my masterpiece.

Lately I have found myself pulled back into the grindiness of Slime Rancher.  I've discovered all the zones, wrangled all the slimes, finished the "adventure mode" that leads to the final credits...but I'm still not satisfied.  My ranch is a flat, boring collection of corrals and fields.  There is an entire list of purely cosmetic item which I could use to make my slime ranch into something beautiful.  My ultimate goal is to pimp out my ranch and make it into something genuinely awesome.  This has become quite time consuming because of my own weird self-imposed strategy--items which I consider vital are the first priority while cosmetic items should be the absolutely last priority.  All they do is make things look pretty...they don't contribute anything else.

A shiny slime lamp and my one awesome tree.

I also found that after I had completed the adventure mode that three hidden "vaults" were scattered across the world.  I've managed to find two but am lacking the slime keys to open them.  Oh, and I don't have the treasure cracker that is required to open the numerous treasure pods that are piled up in these vaults.  The vaults are on hold right now while I grind out the necessary plorts to build the one hundred items required to unlock the mega-treasure cracker.  I think I'm getting close, but really have no idea.

For now, I'm content just running around my ranch trying to keep my slimes fed and producing.  I have amassed a network of teleporters that are saving much time and effort in running around.  I even managed to place a few cosmetic items (slime lamps and one tree...one measly tree!).  It's a work in progress, but I am determined.

Another of my self-imposed mental grinds is taking place in my long running women's prison in Prison Architect.  My little sandbox prison has grown into a sprawling complex of almost 900 prisoners.  I've purchased land and attempted to work through the hiccups that come with managing a large number of prisoners.  These hiccups include the following enjoyably frustrating scenarios:

--Daily shankings.  I still haven't figured out a good way to keep my snitches safe.  They have their own wing that is located away from the rest of the prison population.  Most of the deaths seem to occur when they are travelling to different locations around the prison for work or reform programs.  The best solution would be to put all protective custody prisoners on lockdown.  I've been hesitant to do so because I want them to have the opportunity to attend reform programs.  I suppose having to be cooped up in a cell is a better alternative to getting stabbed to death while trying to make it to the alcoholics anonymous meeting.

--This yard ain't big enough!  As my population has burgeoned my small normal security yard just wasn't doing it any more.  I attempted to create a new, larger yard on a piece of land I purchased toward the upper corner of my prison.  The main problem--its location is too far away from almost anywhere that prisoners were coming from--they spent the one hour a day that I designated for yard time simply trying to get to the yard.  I had to move some things around (a big pain in the buttocks) but now I have one large yard and one smaller yard conveniently located near larger cell blocks.

Look at all these slacker cooks who are doing nothing!

--Why aren't the cooks cooking?!!!!  Another major struggle has been trying to keep my kitchens cranking out enough food to feed a prison population of almost 900.  I've built additional canteens but have run into a weird possible bug.  For a brief amount of time I watched as the army of cooks that I had hired milled around...not cooking...in the kitchen that prepares food for a large number of prisoners.  I checked the kitchen distribution logistics and everything looked fine.  After a few days of my prisoners getting maybe one meal a day (and getting volatile in the process) I finally decided to try de-zoning the room and re-zoning it.  That seemed to mostly do the trick.  Recently I built another kitchen/canteen to facilitate a new set of cell blocks and I am seeing almost the same thing.  Cooks are standing around...not cooking, not washing dishes...I don't really know what is going on.  One aspect of the game that I wish could be improved is the ability to assign cooks to specific kitchens.  I'm seeing a bunch of cooks standing around in one kitchen while I can barely get any to report to a different kitchen!  It's frustrating.

I don't know if anyone else makes weird mental goals like this, but I am bound and determined to see mine out until the gory end.

Snitches Get Stitches...or Mostly Dead. A Tale of Prison Architect Failure.

As I write this I'm sitting and waiting for day 2 of the Steam Summer Sale to start.  This morning I got a notification that every item currently on my wishlist is on sale!  Oh, the joyous glee!  Before I bust out the ol' card and start chalking up some purchases I'm trying to strategically plan where my money will be best spent.  Do I go for NIER:  Automata, a game I mostly put onto my list because of how much I enjoyed the bizarre Bayonetta?  Or Shadow Tactics:  Blades of the Shogun?  Or do I cave and finally buy Dishonored 2 which I haven't purchased because of all the negative reviews I've read about performance issues?  Decisions, decisions.

But, I didn't really want to write about the Steam Sale.  So enough about that!  Before the sale started I decided that I should look back into Prison Architect.  I had purchased it when it was in early access and, honestly, wasn't that impressed--at the time there wasn't a lot of content--there was one campaign mission that served as a very brief tutorial and then there was sandbox mode where you build your own prison from the ground up.  I messed around and clocked a few hours, but then shelved it and didn't really give it much thought.  I didn't pay attention to major updates and didn't even really see when it finally came out as a full release.

Now....40 hours of play later, I can highly recommend that anyone who might have a copy of Prison Architect hanging out in their library should give it another chance.  There has been oodles of content added and it has become a fabulous management game.  Not that I have necessarily mastered it...hahahahahaha...NO.

Since it had been quite a long time since my initial forays into building and managing a prison, I decided that the best place to start was with the campaign missions.  The campaign has been beefed up to include five scenarios that cover different aspects of prison management and also tell stories about the prisoners themselves.  From these campaign scenarios I learned valuable skills like how to extinguish fires (first lesson--make sure you don't command the firefighters to stand directly in the fire...I made this mistake and they all died) and how to effectively put down a riot.  If it has been awhile since you've played, you definitely want to check out these handy tutorials/stories.

After satisfactorily completing the campaign scenarios I decided that I was ready to manage my own prison.  Before you even start there are a number of decisions to be made...firstly, what kind of manager do you want to be?  The iron-fisted, punishment oriented warden--the kind who strictly enforces the rules and makes prison a miserable place to be?  Or, the kinder, gentler warden who seeks to rehabilitate your prisoners so they can re-enter society and be successful?  I decided to go with rehabilitation--what can I say, I like being the good guy.

Once I had settled on my play style I had another big decision to make, something that was also added after I had previously stopped playing.  Did I want my prison to be for male or female prisoners?  I had been watching the newest season of Orange is the New Black and felt inspired to make a lady prison.  I quickly learned that female prisoners have different needs than male prisoners and that some of them who have babies require special "family cells."  Family cells must be built larger than traditional cells and require their own special dining area called a "nursery."  Managing family cells can be a bit of a pain--they take up a lot of space and you have to make sure that they are connected to a kitchen so that food is delivered.

This is my faux-Litchfield--daily shankings included.

The big decisions had been made and it was time to start--I set my intake at a conservative 5 prisoners per day and got to working planning out my new faux-Litchfield.  Another new feature is the ability to accept grants--these grants are aimed towards expanding your prison and reward you for successfully adding new features--they pay an initial bonus upon acceptance and then an additional bonus upon completion.  Some grants are easy to fulfill, for example, one of the first grants you accept is to build the basics your prison will need to operate--a holding cell, kitchen and canteen, as well as administrative offices for your staff.  As you progress grants expand to include things like increasing the capacity of your prison or adding specific staff.  The most difficult grant to complete so far has been related to education.  Having one prisoner pass the general education test is very difficult...at least it has been for me.

My prison hiccupped along and continued to grow to a respectable size of about 100 prisoners.  I established a laundry and workshop, classrooms for education, drug treatment, and behavioral and alcoholics counseling.  My re-offending rate was fairly low and I felt semi-successful.  It's when you start to feel comfortable that things really start to go wrong.  All of a sudden I had 14 escapees!  14!  A group of prisoners had managed to dig an escape tunnel under my fences (yes, I had fences because perimeter fence is super expensive...that was a mistake).  As I scrambled my workmen to fill in those tunnels I received an angry phone call from the CEO threatening to shut down the prison if anyone else escaped.  All my hard work was going down the drain!  I increased the number of patrolling guards and managed to avoid losing by the skin of my teeth.

Faux-Litchfield has continued to grow and I am now managing over 200 prisoners.  This hasn't come without complications.  It is essential that you make sure that your prison has room to grow.  My one kitchen and canteen were swamped and feeding the entire population had become almost impossible.  I had to build another kitchen and canteen to feed the masses.  Somehow, the prisoners who were automatically assigned to each canteen got screwed up--my family cells were no longer receiving food and some of my prisoners were starving.  This is when I discovered the food distribution setting that can be unlocked once you've researched logistics.  (Remember that right clicking a kitchen will erase all its connections to any attached canteens--this was my mistake)

Once the kitchen fiasco was finally cleared up I ran into another major difficulty--my prison was experiencing a number of deaths on an almost daily basis.  After some Googling about why this was happening I learned that any prisoner who is identified as a "snitch" has a VERY GOOD (like almost 100%) chance of getting shanked.  To protect these highly susceptible prisoners meant that they had to be identified and then placed into protective custody.  This meant I had to design a special wing for them and try to re-arrange the already complicated regime so that they could remain safe.  I still haven't completely figured this out and my snitches are still getting iced on a regular basis.  I've tried finessing the schedule so that maximum security prisoners and protective custody never cross paths....but for some reason they seem to always wind up together somehow.  My spiritual guidance classes have become a popular place for offing the snitches....sheesh.

The full release of Prison Architect has seen it grow from a simple management game into something much more complicated and even more challenging.  It's definitely worth your time to re-boot it and check out the new features.  I'm going to be heading back to the drawing board to try to solve some of the more pressing issues in my prison.