Prison Alone

Few things are scarier than going to prison. But what if you were suddenly left all by youself, because all of the guards and prisoners were mysteriously (and brutally) killed? How scary would that be? And what if I told you that garbage cans could move around the room on their own? Okay, maybe that’s not as scary, but it’s just one of the things we need to talk about when I review Prison Alone by QuByte Interactive.

There’s not a whole lot of set-up to Prison Alone. Like the title suggests, you start the game stuck in a prison, alone. Thankfully you aren’t confined to a single cell, so you’ll want to walk around the cell block and explore your creepy surroundings. It’s not exactly clear what happened in this prison, but whatever it was, it was certainly brutal. There’s blood splattered everywhere and signs that the other prisoners have been dragged away by ... something.

Equipped with nothing more than a flashlight, our hero will spend around an hour looking for a way to escape lock-up. In that time, he’ll read a bunch of notes and official documents that will shed light into the mystery, all while solving extremely simple puzzles and trying not to laugh out loud at the pathetic attempts at jump scares. Once you find the exit, the game will immediately end and you’ll never think about this game ever again.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, because I have to admit that I actually really like the prison setting. It’s one of those locations that is rife with possibilities; filled with a certain level of danger and dread, even without the supernatural creepiness added in. It’s the kind of setting that inherently comes with a tortured history, and once you turn the lights off and take away the guards and prisoners, it becomes the perfect place to set a horror game.

To this game’s credit, the prison setting looks great. Although the game mostly takes place in a small space, the developer does a good job of making each cell block look a little different. And it’s not just what goes bump in the dark that is effectively spooky, but also the bits where we’re investigating offices and medical areas where everything is drenched in the obnoxiously bright florescent lighting. As a horror fan, I appreciate that we’re stuck in something other than a haunted mansion.

Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot to do in this prison. Aside from reading the letters left around, the game is split up into two types of puzzles. The first will have you searching for Post-It notes revealing four-digit passwords that can be used to open up locked doors. The other puzzle is a series of switches that you’ll need to turn on in the correct order using a simple trial-and-error method. Both of these puzzles are repeated multiple times throughout the short game, and neither will take you more than a minute or two to figure out.

Now, you may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned anything about combat or stealth or hiding from whatever brutally killed these prisoners. That’s because the supernatural creatures haunting this particular prison are completely harmless. They can’t hurt you and you can’t hurt them. They are a non-factor. Most of them will are quite literally locked up, smashing their heads against the bars as you walk by.

Further in the game, you’ll run into bits where something will race towards you. But don’t worry, it will disappear right in front of you. There’s a bit where a bunch of hospital beds fly up in the air. That would normally be scary, but by this point you know that none of these jump scares can hurt you. Oh look, blood has suddenly been added to the interrogation room. Oh no. The only way that would be scary is if I was the one forced to clean it up.

The truth is, I found a lot of the attempted scares to be more funny than horrifying. This is the first game I’ve ever seen that has used those “caution: wet floor” signs to scare the player. And none of it works. The moment you realize that the creatures living in this prison can’t actually hurt you, the game ceases to be scary. The moody lighting and atmosphere may get some players for a while, but once the illusion is broken, there’s no going back.

And therein lies the real problem with Prison Alone – with no scares, there isn’t much of a point to the game. The story here is so paper-thin that the developers didn’t even bother with an ending. This is meant to be an hour-long haunted prison roller-coaster ride, with the scares doing most of the heavy lifting. There’s nothing especially noteworthy about the puzzles or the gameplay; you’re really only here for the frights. And if the scares don’t work on you, then all we’re left with is a very boring roller-coaster ride.

There are other problems with Prison Alone, like the limited control settings and some performance issues, but let’s be honest, none of that matters. The game wouldn’t suddenly be better if I could invert the camera. Prison Alone is a toothless horror game that ultimately squanders a good set-up and location. The story isn’t interesting enough to keep it afloat and the ending is so anticlimactic that it’s almost insulting. Who knew that going to prison would be this dull?