Space Prison was released last week on PC, presumably for good behaviour and time served in development. After picking it out of a line-up, I spent some of my weekend playing this new sci-fi tactics RPG, undoubtedly as part of my own community service.
What is Space Prison?
Developed by Wooden Alien, and assisted by publisher Firesquid, Space Prison is a blunt name for a game about a prison that is indeed floating in space. It’s location in the stars ensures that your new home is full of unsurprisingly grumpy aliens, all manner of space rats, and a dingy warren of interconnecting rooms and corridors that you’ll have to fight your way through.
The tactical combat is what first caught my eye and drew me to the game. Its grid-based system has you and your allies scrapping with fellow inmates and strange alien rat things, with a front line that shifts with the tide of battle. The combat felt somewhat attritional at first and in the end I sacrificed a bunch of untrained rat companions just to mostly survive the earliest combat encounters, but it does get better as new elements are layered in.
There’s a lot of resource gathering, and you’ve got to manage your inventory as you move about the prison. Progress forward means sending you and your companions through a series of interlinked encounters, violent or otherwise. You have some autonomy in terms of direction, but sooner or later you’ll have to engage in combat.
Fighting for survival on arrival
As mentioned, the battles take place on a grid system, kinda like XCOM but also not like that at all. There are puddles of poison and traps to utilise and/or avoid, but you can move your units and those of your opponent onto different tiles, changing the dynamic and dealing extra damage. Getting better weapons will also open up new tactical options to experiment with.
Death is part of the gameplay loop, and in Space Prison, when you die you are reincarnated into a new body, somehow complete with your old memories and sleeping in the same cell. Even death won’t save you from your sentence, it would seem. On your rebirth you can go and get your belongings from your former self, but otherwise you pick up where you left off, just with a new sleeve.
The combat is frequent and dangerous, and I perished more times than I care to admit. I thought the constant reincarnation created a bit of narrative dissonance in a world that was otherwise very narrative driven. There are static characters all over the place just waiting for the right moment to talk to you, a couple of factions to choose from and then rise up the ranks of, and some side quests get through, too.
Sentenced to adventure
The way it’s all laid out meant that at times it felt like I was walking back and forth around an old-school point and click adventure, albeit with much nicer graphics and a lot more potential variety thanks to the daily refresh of encounters.
The adventure game vibes are reinforced by the focus on inventory management, which then feeds into the fact that there are crafting and survival elements to manage; to stay alive you’ve got to balance your health with hope and hunger. Every action or movement has a cost, either in terms of damage taken or time spent.
Space Prison is a game about spinning plates and exploration, and the pacing was slow and thoughtful as a result. It’s somewhat static but it also looks good thanks to the art direction, and there is an interesting blend of mechanical elements working together, particularly the social elements and how they develop.
There is a lot to dig into here, but much like an adventure game of old, you’ve got to be willing to take your time, plan your moves, and rummage through every bin you find if you’re going to make the most of your time in Space Prison.
Space Prison is out now on Steam PC. I played the game via access shared by the developer via PR – thanks for that!
