This has a lot of potential. However, the game as it currently stands is in an incredibly rough state, which makes sense since this is an alpha. Below are some points I wrote down while playing.
Things I liked:
- Aesthetic and music are very enjoyable. They fit the game very well.
- Core gameplay is solid. (Using cameras to move around and check on inmates, scheduled behavior, etc.)
Issues:
- Performance takes a major hit when prisoners are moving all together to another screen. Typically this causes frames to dip from 40 -> 20 frames. Notably this happened consistently when the prisoners simultaneously leave the cafeteria.
- Can't use the cleanup option? (Unsure of how the mop works)
- Around day 5 the option to send someone to solitary confinement broke. The robot that was supposed to move prisoners stopped responding and selecting the option did nothing.
- In the bathroom there are three toilets but the prisoners only seem to gather behind one.
- The word "cannon" is misspelled as "canon".
- How to switch back to hand cursor after selecting electric shock/megaphone? (If there was a way I couldn't figure it out, and I don't remember it being mentioned)
- Make cursor appear ABOVE the UI icons (clock, room buttons, megaphone, etc.) instead of underneath.
Suggestions:
- Hand cursor changing sizes per screen can be annoying. (however, if this is a stylistic choice, then it might be better to keep it.)
- Maybe have some kind of mood indicator?
- Weird jumpscare when someone dies? (Don't like this, hard to tell who the perpetrator is? Even more difficult since it's hard to differentiate prisoners from each other, since they have the same sprite)
- Add some method to speed up time? (Each day is too long)
- Have some kind of ticking clock animation to make it easier to see that time is progressing.
Regardless, what you have here is a solid base to work on, but it needs a lot of polish.