City of God - Prison Empire

Review

Who would want to be a prison warden? I guess it would depend on your circumstances. For you, the choice is quite clear. One of your military mates is killed by a local gang who operates in the city of Pompeii. Incredibly, you receive a substantial sum of money from his death and decide to take over the local prison to show all these local gangs who the new boss of Pompeii is. Welcome to the City of God - Prison Empire.

The City of God – Prison Empire is a strategy/management game, developed and published by  
Pixel Gangsta Studio and Flying Interactive.

The game offers three types of mode, which are: story, empire and custom. The differences between the story and empire modes are:  in the Story mode you start with a substantially larger sum of money but unlocking locations in Pompeii takes longer.  In the Empire mode, all locations in Pompeii are immediately available via your GPS, but you start with a lot less money.  You can also customise your warden in more detail.  For complete game customisation, choose the custom mode, where you have options to customise everything, from funds available at the start of the game, to how much tax you’ll pay, to how many reputation points you’ll receive by finishing a task, along with plenty of other options.

As you start the game, your prison will consist of three floors and be divided into two parts: one part of the building for the warden and his staff, and the other part (which is considerably bigger) for the inmates. There will be a certain number of empty spaces where you’ll be able to construct new rooms.

As you play the game, tasks or orders will be delivered in the form of an e-mail and you’ll have to successfully accomplish them to receive rewards. Rewards can come in the way of goods (socks, food, drinks etc.), reputation and prestige points, money, blueprints (by learning them, you’ll be able to produce an additional product within the prison factory), and even a building permit to add more floors to your prison.

The warden (you), will be either working on his computer collecting product, tactical and operational points, which are essential to launching new research so that the prison can produce new items, new chambers and new training facilities for the staff. Bear in might that sometimes you’ll need additional articles in order to activate the research.  It’s possible that some of these items are already being produced and stocked at the prison warehouse; otherwise the warden will need to go the city to purchase them. It’s actually pretty cool when he is in the city. He can drive through the main street, stop the car and enter businesses to purchase goods, find information or even flirt with ladies by giving them presents. Cheeky bugger!  After that, he can return to the prison and keep working. Still, he needs to be careful to keep his energy up by eating and drinking.  The other thing to look at is his emotion status. If the emotion gauge is getting low (20 out of 100), he needs to rest or just go back into town for some nightlife fun to shoot it back up!

As the game progresses, you’ll be able to upgrade rooms within the prison to offer your guests improved comfort or make your production even greater.

That brings me to the guest. Every day, a bus will bring 3 additional prisoners. You don’t have to take them all; you can choose which ones to bring into your walls. By clicking on the character of your choice, it will bring up a full description of the crime he has committed, as well as what trade he was in before becoming an acquaintance of yours. So, if you need someone with an electronic background to start producing electronic goods within your walls, this new character would be the perfect candidate. Also, you’ll need tough guys like killers and thieves to lead your local gang within the city of Pompeii. Guess what? The headquarters of your gang will be established underneath your prison. The other character you’ll be meeting every day is the guy from the black-market, where you can sell him plenty of goods, duty-free!

The interface is pretty easy to understand and is located at the bottom of your screen. On the left-hand side is the electricity gauge, which indicates whether or not you need new power stations. Next to it is the clock (the game has a 24-hour cycle), which you can pause or accelerate.   Then there is a monitor for e-mails, and in the middle of the screen it shows how much money you have in your coffins. Next to that you can see your reputation points, as well as how many inmates and employees you have at the prison.  You can find your quests by clicking on the monitor on the far right-hand side of your screen.

There is plenty of reading in this game and it will take some time to unlock new rooms. As I am writing this review, I’m just starting to get my local gang together in the prison basement; this is great fun!

Graphically, the game looks excellent, and the music is pretty good, too. It will take you some time to progress.  If you like management games, City of God - Prison Empire is a game to consider.