Prison Architect reaches 'Alpha 5' featuring "totally new cool stuff"

Introversion has just released their Alpha 5 update to Prison Architect for those who’ve already splashed cash on the indie studio’s latest project. We now get Firemen so we don’t watch our prisons burn down.

Also, wardens can now designate ‘Staff Only’ zones. They’ve also ”massively improved” the Foundations tool so building our prison isn’t as gruelling. Of course there are bug fixes too.

Introversion has published a changelog for Alpha 5 and also released a video highlighting the latest update. You can download the new alpha build via the official website.

Alpha 5 highlights:

= Staff Only sectors

You can now create Staff Only Sectors from the Deployment screen. They will show up Red.

Inmates will avoid these completely (unless misbehaving) 

= You can now call in Firemen to put out your prison fires. Use the new 911 Emergencies menu.

Firemen are a special controllable unit with its own icons on the right of the screen.

Firemen will automatically spray nearby fire, or you can press H to aim their hoses manually.
To dismiss firemen, send them all back to their fire engine. 

= The Foundations tool has been much improved. It is now much easier to expand existing buildings,

and the door/entrance detection is much better at spotting valid entrances to new buildings.

- You can now cancel foundations by right clicking on them, or right-click-dragging a box around them. 

• All construction tools now continue to work correctly even when the game is paused

• There is a new tool in the Materials menu for demolishing walls (indoor and outdoor)

  • Localisation improvements:

  All object/material/room/equipment/research names are now included in the language file (english.txt)

  Lots of other hardcoded english has been moved into the language file for easy translation

  • You will no longer lose visibility of your indoor areas until your first Prisoners arrive

• Main build toolbar tweeked to scale/layout better on higher resolutions

• The Medical Ward has been renamed to the Infirmary

• Fixed: You sometimes had to wait a very long time for prisoners to arrive when Continuous Intake was disabled

• Fixed: Firing someone who occupies an office now vacates the office

• Fixed: If an Administrator dies his office will now be released

• Fixed: When a prisoner dies or escapes, his cell will now be released for re-use

• Fixed a massive performance bug affecting the Intel HD graphics 4000 chipset