This game made me feel miserable, disgusted, sadistic, and—I've never thought I'd ever use such a term on myself—violated. It is unpleasant to play this game. It is suffocating. While playing, I wanted nothing more than for this game to end. The only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that it would be over after a certain amount of time: the game explicitly tells the player that its events will last only for seven in-game days. I was counting each second.
Although the game claims that the player will experience "life as a prison guard," you should not be fooled—you are a prisoner. Even though the role of the main character is to enforce order and discipline in a very small prison-like facility, the player is forced to endure the same mind-numbing routine along with the prisoners under his control. Neither the player nor the main character are free; there are no meaningful choices in this game. The game forces the player to follow a routine; a sequence of actions that tolerates no deviation. There are instances when the player may attempt to break out of the sequence. The result of such attempts is always the same: the main character faces death, and the player faces dull repetition. There is no other escape but to end one's own virtual existence by hitting the "Exit" button. When you think about it, you really start to relate to the real-life misery of the prison experience. Play this game if you have any romantic notions about prison life. Being stuck in a prison is not the same as sitting in your room, doing nothing all day, and hanging out with other people. Prison is hell. And this game is not afraid to put you through it.
Although there are no meaningful choices in this game, there is a meaningless, but malicious one: you may choose how much rat poison to put in a prisoner's drink. You can put in between a small mouthful and the entire bottle. To my knowledge, putting anything less than the whole bottle changes absolutely nothing. Putting the whole bottle down kills a prisoner. As you may have guessed, a major sequence-breaker such as the murder of a prisoner does not go unpunished, so, really, there isn't a choice whether to kill or not to kill. But there is a certain element of sadism in being the judge of how much of a deadly concoction to put in the drink of someone you have power over. I'm not exaggerating when I say that putting rat poison in a prisoner's drink is THE MOST FUN you'll have in this game. It is the only thing you have control over.
But sadism does not end there. There is an established punishment routine. The punishment routine consists of hitting a prisoner in the solar plexus, taking him by the neck, forcing his head into a bucket full of excrements produced by the main character, and making the prisoner to drink it empty. This is truly disgusting. At least for the first time. When boredom and misery kick in and the taste for sadism awakens, I personally began looking forward to an excuse to enforce the punishment. Again, there is no choice whether to enforce or not to enforce. It is only if a prisoner has "contraband" (anything but a mattress and a sink) in his cell that the main character tells the misbehaving prisoner to "wait here" and the player is allowed to bring the bucket. Ever read a horrific story describing events that happened in a prison? The one that made you question how a human being can become so cruel and violent? This game demonstrates that, under certain conditions, ANYONE of us can turn into a sadistic monster. Humans strive for positive emotions. Sometimes, the bar for "positivity" falls so low, horrific acts become the only source of pleasure. This is the genius of this game: if you want to "survive" till the end, you have no choice but to derive pleasure from malignant, sadistic acts. It will make you more miserable; it will make you disgusted (unless you are far beyond the point of normality in your day-to-day life). But it will also allow you to tolerate your situation.
The game does not let you go mad with God's complex, though. Don't forget that, in essence, the player is also a prisoner. As such, there is a warden above the player. Besides the main character and the three prisoners, there is Security Guy. Security Guy, in his own words, picked up the unconscious main character in a blizzard and brought him to the prison. For such a "favor," Security Guard asks the main character to take over his duties as a prison guard; thus, making the main character a prison guard himself. Security Guy teaches the player how to play the game on the first in-game day and then only appears in front of the main character's eyes once every morning. However, one should not be fooled: Security Guy is always present. His presence is evident through objects being moved: the punishment bucket being brought to its original place, the prisoners' food trays being taken away, and the main character's lunch box being refilled before he even goes to sleep...
This hidden presence is horrifying once you realize it. But there are less opaque signs of Security Guy being creepy. Actually, "creepy" is a modest word in the given situation. "Perverted, sick in the head, crazy tormentor" would suit better. On the very first day, Security Guy provides the main character with breakfast. After eating the breakfast, he informs the main character that he put laxatives in the food. Putting laxatives in the main character's breakfast allows him to fill the punishment bucket daily. When the main character fills the bucket for the first time, Security Guy simply comments: "Mouthwatering." This comment, along with the arranged punishment routine for prisoners, makes the events that unfold further into the game of little surprise... But not less horrifying to observe.
When I say: "I felt violated," I am not trying to be overly expressive for the sake of adding flare to my language. I genuinely felt as if my personal boundaries were being exceeded by someone I didn't want these boundaries to be exceeded by, and I could do nothing about it except helplessly watch. What was done to the main character was, in a sense, done to me too. Not in a physical sense, thank God, but more emotional. Security Guy comes to the main character's room every night. And every night, he gets more and more emboldened to satisfy his disgusting urges. This inability to resist, or do anything about this fact is horrifying. In these moments, the player is just a disattached observer. Observer, forced to witness heinous deeds committed on his avatar...
Unfortunately for all of us, violations of all kinds happen behind prison walls—horrors scarier than any monster. Security Guy's predatory behavior, his soft talk, and his disgusting violations of the main character, further reinforce the feelings of misery, disgust, and the will for sadism.
Worse of all: there is no escape. Neither for the prisoners nor the main character. Sometimes, I did ask myself: "Why don't prisoners just escape?" Their cell doors are unlocked, they can overpower the main character and Security Guy any time, and they can open any door since every door is unlocked. And I genuinely tormented myself with these questions. Just as the game wanted me to. And in the end, the game gave me answers. The answers, which only made me more miserable. It all made sense. But in doing so, everything I've done became so utterly pointless and depressing, it turned my already negative expectations into cynical nihilism. You would expect a reward for going through hell, but all you get is a "your efforts don't worth even a grain of sand" type of ending. In the end, it doesn't even matter what you have done. It was all part of some sick game. Game, where living envy dead. Game, where you are better off dead.
I recommend this game to everyone, because I believe everyone should at least have a glimpse of the negative experience a real-life prison offers. There is no romance or glamour. There's hell.
