A prison is being evacuated, and all prisoners are being relocated to another location due to strange occurrences, including disappearances. One inmate, however, decides this is a good opportunity to escape and bribes a guard to let him stay behind, so he can make his attempt when no one is around. He forgot to factor in the fact that there was a reason for the relocation of inmates, and he will learn this the hard way, alone by himself. Now he must escape more than a prison, but a spooky, horrific environment filled with locked doors and dark areas. He may be alone as the only human, but what about the nightmares that linger in the shadows?

Here’s what I liked:

Prison Premise — There isn’t much of a story; you’re left alone in a prison and trying to escape. You must find codes left behind by guards that couldn’t remember a four digit code, so they had to write it on a sticky note and carry it around with them. Included in the poor decisions is leaving behind keys. At first, you may think it’s dumb that these items are just left around in random spots. However, you can find the realistic side if you think that the whole place was being abandoned, and scary things were happening. They thought they had all the prisoners and likely were not following the same safety routines as before. There are many horror games out there, and this isn’t doing anything new, though it points out that there are no jump scares. I beg to differ, at least once I was startled, and other times I can see other people jumping. But it really isn’t “in your face loud noise” kind of jump scares, just little random things. I like that you can’t die or fail. It’s almost like a walking simulator with puzzle elements.

No One to Talk To — You know what? I am not always a fan of having to read so much text in a game. There are a few notes and documents set up as collectibles, but you can easily skip them. The NPCs are more of a background thing (and they aren’t human). So there is no one that you have to report to, talk to, or do quests for, nothing. It’s just you in a prison with a flashlight looking around. I can be onboard with that.

Chapters — This game is super short and even has an achievement for beating it in less than thirty minutes (and if you know what you’re doing, this is extremely forgiving). What takes a long time is looking through all the cells and trying to find the documents. Even with it being so short, time was taken to create not only a chapter select, but also there is also an indicator of how many documents are in the sections and how many you have obtained. While these items can be randomized, it does this in a way that makes revisiting chapters a breeze.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

Horror Fans May Disapprove — When a game is labeled as horror, it takes the chance of not being scary enough for the average horror fan. I’ve played tons of games in this genre, and this one is definitely one of the least heart rate inducing ones that I have played. It’s just not scary. This makes it more of a walking sim where you may feel uneasy at times. The scariest thing is first seeing the creatures banging their heads on the cells. This is because at first you aren’t really sure if you can die or not. Once you realize it’s all for show, you walk around without a worry in the world. And while I don’t mind this myself, I know it really will strike a bad chord with the normal fans of this genre. They will get bored quick.

Ghosts and Goblins — What is going on in the prison? Is it haunted by ghosts? Is there an evil entity of ugly beasts lurking around that kills people? I really don’t know what’s going on. You see creatures walking around or banging their heads inside a cell. But then objects float around as well in some areas that make it seem like it’s just a haunted prison. There was a bit of “overdoing it” going on. One example is trash cans. Suddenly, there are tons of them, and it creates a little maze. Another is when several wet floor signs are floating in the air.

Wrap-up

This is a short, easy, almost mindless game. If you’re an achievement hunter, you will enjoy it more than the average player. The graphics aren’t bad, and neither are the sound effects. But without being able to run, backtracking or looking for notes with codes can be a little tedious. The puzzles are incredibly easy, using a trial-and-error method to figure them out. This is your average game, not attempting to pull out any surprises. It has a decent story premise, but doesn’t force you to live in it. You’re just visiting briefly. Some people will enjoy searching around the prison, while others will feel the game is missing more than just other people.

Score: Reader’s Choice

Prison Alone was published QUByte Interactive and developed by Gaister Studios on Xbox One. It was released on August 15 2023, for $9.99. A copy was provided for review