Incarceration sim Prison Architect is turning its thoughts from punishment to rehabilitation with arrival of its fifth expansion, Second Chances, which will be releasing onto PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch (while hopefully remaining on its best behaviour) in June.

As its name implies, the focus of Second Chances is on successfully integrating inmates back in to society once their sentence is complete - which can be achieved by taking advantage of various new rehabilitation tools and programmes, each with their own benefits.

Successful rehabilitation is a bit of a multi-pronged endeavour, but one significant aspect comes in the form of work experience. Second Chances lets players assign inmates to different jobs around prison - catering to members of the public in the new bakery and restaurant rooms, for instance - with the goal being to give offenders a sense of purpose and increase their chances of getting work once released, in turn reducing their chances of reoffending.

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Prison Architect's next expansion, dubbed Going Green, adds farming to the prison management simulator.

Going Green, due out on 28th January on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, lets prisoners grow produce (potatoes, wheat, apples etc) and create a self-sustaining compound. You can farm the land, build green energy sources (solar, wind, and solar/wind hybrid) and customise the compound with sustainable materials. Produce can be exported or used as ingredients for inmate meals.

The Going Green trailer is below:

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Incarceration-themed management sim Prison Architect is getting a new Alcatraz-inspired paid expansion, known as Island Bound, which comes to PC and consoles on 11th June.

As its name suggests, Island Bound is all about creating prisons that, through the wonders of watery surrounds, aren't restricted to a single access road. New ferry and helicopter transport options (making use of docks and helipads) can be used to deliver supplies and inmates with greater efficiency to prison compounds - although, as publisher Paradox Interactive notes, this also means more access routes by which prisoners can sneak in contraband.

To combat this, new security facilities make it easier to search deliveries and prisoners as they enter a complex, or at key security checkpoints, and special emergency services - including Air Firefighters and Paramedics, plus Elite Ops Teams - can be summoned as required.

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Prison building and management sim Prison Architect is finally bringing its previously console-exclusive Psych Ward DLC to PC and Mac next month, on 21st November, in the form of the enhanced Psych Ward: Warden's Edition.

Psych Ward, created by developer Double Eleven (the studio responsible for porting Prison Architect to consoles), initially launched for Xbox One and PS4 in June 2017.

As you might imagine, Psych Ward expands the core game by introducing new management options themed around the concept of successfully housing the criminally insane. The new Warden's Edition also incorporates a number of features not seen in the original DLC.

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A group of seven games highly praised by the Steam community are available for cheap as part of the Humble Very Positive Bundle 3.

Featuring a range of diverse and interesting titles worth over 100, you can be sure you'll find something of quality here based on the recommendations of other players. In fairness, if I only got the phenomenal Nex Machina for less than 10 I'd be more than thrilled!

Before I get too far ahead of myself, though, let's start at the first tier. The Humble Very Positive Bundle 3 starts at just 80p for psychological horror Distraint 2, tough roguelite Unexplored and atmospheric point-and-click adventure Rusty Lake Paradise. I've not seen much of these three games myself, but for less than a quid I'm willing to give them a go.

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Paradox Interactive has acquired the rights to developer Introversion Software's enormously successful prison management sim, Prison Architect.

As part of the deal's official announcement, Paradox CEO Ebba Ljungerud called Prison Architect "a natural fit" for the company's catalogue, which features a host of strategy and management games, including the likes of Cities: Skylines, Stellaris, Surviving Mars, BattleTech, and Crusader Kings.

"I believe the considerable player base of Prison Architect will be excited to see where we can take the game next," said Ljungerud, "We promise to exercise good behaviour with this cherished title going forward."

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Out of the blue, Prison Architect has added cooperative multiplayer.

It's far from finished and requires opting into alpha/beta updates on Steam if you want to try it, but once enabled you can happily go about building a top-notch prison with your friends (up to seven).

There's plenty that doesn't work in multiplayer because the game was never meant to have it, but Introversion has plenty of ideas about how to flesh it out and improve it so long as you want it. If everyone who tries it hates it then Introversion probably won't bother.

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Prison Architect studio Introversion has unveiled a new game called Order of Magnitude, and I played it at EGX Rezzed today.

It's a space colonisation game set as Earth becomes uninhabitable and humankind is forced to make a go of it on the moon. To begin with this involves building structures focused on basic survival: shelters, algae farms (for food), and oxygen harvesters for air. But the longer you survive, as with all games of this kind, the more advanced you become, and soon you will be recycling your waste into water (yuck) and fertiliser and growing potatoes from it. Do you want to come over for dinner?

There are different minerals to target and mine, and different scientific procedures to employ - Introversion hasn't shirked on the science.

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