Upon loading up The Escapists, you are presented with two options on the title screen. Play the game, or build a prison. Today I will tell you what makes a good prison, what makes a bad prison, and how you can create an awesome prison!

To start your epic journey in prison building, you need to click the project button in the top left hand corner. Once you have done that, a drop down screen will appear. You’ll want to click the button that says ‘new’. From there, you can name your prison and choose your tile set! It is best if you choose the perks tile set.

To start building your prison you will need to know what the different blocks do. The confusing grid below will tell you where the most useful blocks are. I’ll do it based on where it is on the tab menu along the bottom A-H Up and down 1-1.

A-1 t section left                     A-7 vertical straight

A-2 t section down                 A-6 horizontal straight

A-3 corner bottom right        E-13 t section up

A-4 corner bottom left           E-12 t section right

A-5 corner top right                E-11 cross section

A-6 corner top left                  C-13 wooden floor

To set areas like cells or the shower, you need to go to the top just like you did to open the editor. This time, you must click on the layers button, then click on the zones button which just appeared below the layers button. This will give your screen a grey tint, where you then need to highlight the cells/area you want to edit. A block will appear with a dropdown box. Click on this and select what area you want it to become. All done!

Still confused? You can find a video tutorial here, here and here, but not here. That’s just a cat being silly.