Social times like dinner, meanwhile, offer a chance to chat with other prisoners, recruit assistance, and collect mini-quests like retrieving someone’s stolen DVD or causing a scene during the next roll-call. Soon I realized it’s also a great time to sneak into other prisoners’ cells and carefully pocket anything good from their stash. Morning roll-call is time for everyone to gather and be told the business of the day, including whose cells are about to be inspected for contraband.

It’s a game that looks like Prison Architect’s black-sheep brother, but plays about as a regimented sandbox to first be controlled by, and then to subvert.