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Today's Deal: Save 75% on Lone Survivor!

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

Save 66% on the DiRT Franchise during this week's Midweek Madness*!

Race, crash and hoon your way through a world tour of motorised mayhem in DiRT Showdown! Crowd atmosphere, social gameplay and accessibility are all ramped up in this turbo- injected shot of driving delirium. Smash down the accelerator and earn the adulation of frenzied crowds at hyper-energised events at iconic locations. Trick, speed and smash your way to victory, then do it again.

DiRT 3! Race through the snow, rain and dirt and experience dramatic night races with the most amount of rally content in the series yet.

DiRT 2 is a revolution in off-road racing. Big event atmosphere and a killer vehicle roster come together on a multi-discipline World Tour, stretching from Malaysia to Morocco and London to LA. Compete in 100 events against icons like Ken Block and Travis Pastrana, go online in head-to-head 8 player races and enjoy jaw-dropping visuals, damage and speed.

*Offer ends Thursday at 4PM Pacific Time

Curve Studios' Stealth Bastard Deluxe may have been renamed Stealth Inc. - A Clone in the Dark for its upcoming PSN release, but it's still the same Bastard on Mac and Linux, where it launched this week.

To celebrate the new platforms for the stealth platformer, Curve has discounted all available versions 50% on Steam. It's now $4.99 with SteamPlay, with the soundtrack and DLC also half off.

Leviathan: Warships is Now Available on Steam!

Leviathan: Warships is a turn-based, strategic action game where players can build and customize their own fleet of warships. Play with or against your friends across multiple game modes. Team up in the co-op campaign to battle the growing Marauder threat or fight through special challenge missions with your friends. You can also go online and test your admiral capabilities against friends or foes in skirmishes on multiple maps. You're gonna ship yourself!

Blade Symphony is Now Available for Early Access and 25% off!

Forget button mashing. Blade Symphony is the skillful multi-player sword fighter you have been waiting for on the PC. Pair your character up with one of multiple sword types to completely change your way of approaching combat.

Prime World: Defenders is Now Available for Pre-Purchase on Steam at 20% off! Pre-purchasers will also receive access to the beta and free DLC.

Prime World: Defenders merges classic tower defense gameplay with collectible card mechanic. Your towers, your spells, your traps - all are magic cards, that you can collect and upgrade. You'll have to develop your own strategy, because you'll get your random set of cards after each battle.

Freeze, burn, poison, explode and slash countless enemies that will try to stop you from gathering artifacts of old kingdom. Choose your cards carefully, play them strategically and expect some heavy resistance along the way from small and almost harmless mutated fungi to powerful giant goblins and nagas.

Shadowrun Returns is Now Available for Pre-Purchase on Steam and is 10% off!

Based on the venerable Shadowrun tabletop roleplaying game of the 80s and a spiritual successor to the console games of the 90s, Shadowrun Returns brings back one of our most original & cherished game settings as a single player, turn-based tactical RPG.

The year is 2054 and your old friend Sam has been murdered in Seattle. Youve been hired to find the killers and bring them to justice, one way or another. Soon youll be embroiled in a mystery that expands from missing organs, an antagonistic detective and biker gangs all the way up to the dynastic control of one of the largest Megacorps.

The free-to-play Ragnarok Online 2: Legend of the Second launches commercially on Wednesday, May 1. Players can grab it at the official website or via Steam.

Anomaly 2 is Now Available for Pre-Purchase on Steam and is 10% off, plus comes with a copy to gift to a friend!

Anomaly Warzone Earth owners also receive a additional 10% off when they purchase before May 31st.

As the sequel to Anomaly Warzone Earth, Anomaly 2 adds new features to the single-player campaign and finally puts your skills to a test in a completely unique experience: the dynamic tower defense vs. tower offense multiplayer mode!

In the years following the invasion of Earth in 2018, the planet is overrun by alien machines. Humankind is on the verge of extinction. Banded together in huge convoys, they search the frozen tundra for food and supplies. Since the war, the roles have been reversed: now our species seems to be the Anomaly on a machine-controlled planet. Your convoy, Commander, is called Yukon.

Save up to 75% on new Week Long Deals on Steam, available now until May 6th at 10AM Pacific time!

Check out the Unreal Indie Bundle, available for a Limited Time!

The Bundle includes:

Q.U.B.E.
Sanctum
The Ball
Unmechanical
Dungeon Defenders
Primal Carnage
Waves

Today's Deal: Save 75% on Viking: Battle for Asgard!

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

Steam launched a subscription payment plan for MMO-style games today, starting off with Darkfall Unholy Wars, a sandbox MMORPG that made its way through community voting on Greenlight in November.

Darkfall Unholy Wars is available for the initial price of $40, and then an auto-renewed subscription of $15 every 30 days. Steam will email subscription plan users with billing details after each transaction, and players can cancel or renew subscriptions at any time. For more information about Steam's subscription plans, check out the FAQ, or dive right into Darkfall Unholy Wars and see where it takes you.

Steam will play host to a series of daily Rockstar deals this weekend and first up in the spotlight is LA Noire. The Complete Edition, stock game and DLC bundle - which includes a couple extra outfits and cases - have all been discounted by 75%, down to $7.50, $5 and $2.99, respectively.

The Rockstar Hits Collection is also on sale for $29.99. It's a Steam bundle that includes GTA IV and its Episodes from Liberty City expansion, Max Payne 3, and LA Noire. Pretty much every other Rockstar game on Steam right now is also on sale to varying degrees.

Recent PC arrival Brutal Legend joins the salesapalooza by slashing its price in half, down to $10 for the weekend starting now; if you want to pick up the soundtrack with the game, that'll be $12.49. Creator Tim Schafer of Double Fine Productions has stated he would "love" to revisit the game and add more stuff if the PC version does well.

Operation Payback is a new Counter-Strike: Global Offensive promotion from Valve to compensate prominent map makers, running from now until July 31 on Steam. Seven of the top-voted maps are gathered here, playable on dedicated servers through the purchase of a pass on sale now for $3, normally $6.

Purchasing a pass not only gives you access to these maps on official servers, it also allows you to drag your friends without passes along into Operation Payback matches. Or you can simply leave them to their Super Mareo Bruhs.

We're not sure how the revenue-sharing aspect of Operation Payback breaks down, so we've inquired with Valve for the necessary info. Valve says Operation Payback is the first in "an ongoing series of limited-time updates."

Metro 2033 was a prominent post-apocalyptic novel from Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky before it inspired 4A Games' shooter. Making up for the lost marketing opportunity of the first game, sequel Metro: Last Light will include a free copy of the Metro 2033 novel with all PC purchases authenticated through Steam.

The story of Metro: Last Light was provided by Glukhovsky, who has also created two written sequels to his acclaimed original work. Metro: Last Light is being developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver, who acquired the rights after the collapse of THQ.

Zero Sum Games' StarDrive is now available on Steam for $26.99. The game is currently 10 percent off until May 3.

StarDrive is a new entry in the "4X space strategy" genre, and has players "starting with a single planet and a small number of space-worthy vessels" before seeking out new worlds to conquer and colonies to build and defend. The game features real-time gameplay, eight playable alien races and customizable fleet formations.

StarDrive's publisher is Iceberg Interactive, which published another popular 4X game, Endless Space.

Today is a good day for a deal on Steam: SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition is $5 now through 10 a.m. PT tomorrow, April 29. That's 75 percent off, for those into contextual sales.

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition includes EA's 2003 game SimCity 4 and its sole expansion pack, SimCity 4 Rush Hour. In more recent news, the Deluxe Edition of Sim City 4 was part of the free-game offer that EA handed out to everyone who purchased 2013's SimCity during its launch window.

Today's Deal: Save 75% on SimCity™ 4 Deluxe Edition!

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

Day 3 of the Rockstar Publisher Weekend has kicked off today. The Daily Deal for today is the Grand Theft Auto Franchise at 75% off!

During the weekend, titles in the Rockstar catalog are on sale for 50% to 67% off. Plus, check out the Rockstar Hit Collection, which contains a selection of Rockstar's greatest hits!

Today's Deal: Save 70% on Ticket to Ride Complete Pack!

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

Mike Bithell’s had a crazy year. He went from being one of a few dozen developers at U.K.-based Bossa Studios to becoming a solo indie creator supporting a game on multiple platformers. What prompted the drastic lifestyle change? The steady climb of acclaim around his minimalist platformer Thomas Was Alone. Thomas just came out this week for PlayStation hardware and supports the Cross-Play feature that lets players pick up their progress on either platform. Hopefully, thousands more players are discovering how the game’s charm sneaks up on you, moving from deceptively simple jumping to genuine concern for characters who are, well, just blocks. Bithell was kind enough to answer a few questions from me over e-mail. In the Q&A below, he talks about the difficulty of bringing Thomas to PlayStation platforms, the critical reactions to Thomas he took to heart and what he’s working on next. Kotaku: When did the conversations start about bringing Thomas Was Alone to PS3 and Vita? Were you going to stop with Steam if those talks didn't happen? Did you/do you have plans for a mobile port? Bithell: So the game came out, reviewed well and had a bit of buzz. I could tell that there might be further opportunities. I went to my then employer, Bossa to help me work out the business side of it.. they shepherded me through the process. Simultaneously, Shahid at Sony was a big fan of the game and keen on bringing to his platforms. Curve, who I knew some guys at, were doing some cool work bringing indie games to PSN, so it all seemed to fit really nicely together. I was always going to look into options beyond the desktop, and got into some preliminary conversations elsewhere, but it was Sony who seemed to have this excitement about the game, and a passion for turning their systems into havens for indie games in the living room. On mobile, I'm still trying to work out a way to do the game justice on a touch screen. If I solve that problem, I'll happily bring it to those places too. Kotaku: What were the challenges in getting Thomas to work on these new systems? How did Curve Studios—who handled the port—tackle them? Bithell: Well, first of all, Unity didn't at the time support Vita (they will soon). So the best option available to us was to rebuild. The team at Curve rebuilt the entire game from scratch, building their own tools to import my levels from Unity into their own engine. Incredibly impressive stuff. After that, it's all about polish.. Console gamers will not accept the hiccups of an indie game, and Sony strive to keep a standard of excellence in the performance and quality of their games. There was also a dev at Curve who took on making the game 60fps/1080p as his personal mission. The dude did it. That passionate awesomeness accompanied the entirety of my time working with Curve on this. Kotaku: Did you start out consciously trying to make a game about friendship and jumping, that is to say the bigger themes of how people relate to each other? Or did you work on designing the puzzles and mechanics first, with the other stuff coming later? Bithell: I'm chuffed at how organically it grew. I think the idea of 'switching characters' came first, but the act of playing that game informed where the project would go thematically. I'd come up with 'I want a floating character' and then think about how she would react to that ability, or I thought 'I want someone arrogant' and work out which mechanic would support that. It all kind of gelled. Kotaku: The one thing that intrigues me most about Thomas is the pacing. The dialogue nodes are like the collectible breadcrumbs of this game. How do you decide where to place them? Bithell: Well, first off, I obviously wanted them reasonably evenly paced.. as I knew players would (hopefully) look forward to them, and they'd define the rhythm of the game to an extent. But on top of that, I also knew I wanted the game to have structure. So, the 10 chapters, they form a meta-structure which kind of follows the standard three-act film structure. That informed everything in the telling of the story, and the narration hopefully breadcrumbs between those key story beats well. I think the one place this falls down a bit is in the final act, I follow the right structure, but a choice made for gameplay reasons slightly dulls the player's emotional investment. A lesson was learned. Kotaku: The Benjamin’s Flight levels in the PlayStation exclusive feel harder at the ones at the outset than the beginning of the main game. Was this a conscious decision, driven by thinking that it’d be played by people who’ve already finished with the main game? Bithell: Thomas is not a hard game. I never wanted it to be. I hoped that players would have a chilled out experience getting to the end. Some reviews have criticised this, and I totally get that. I know I felt similarly about games that did the same thing. I still kinda feel that's a big part of the game's appeal for many of its fans though, so no regrets. With the DLC, I was indeed making content intended for those who had completed the main game. I therefore didn't feel bad at all about upping the challenge a bit. I also kinda had to. Benjamin's power is immensely unbalanced to other characters; he can get anywhere. Difficulty in the form of hazards was a good way of honing that in and bringing back some challenge. Kotaku: Do you feel like there's a list of absolute no-nos of things you can't do as an indie creator? Bithell: I actually feel the opposite. There are no areas indie games shouldn't be exploring. There are some in the indie community who are pushing for a specific kind of game or style as 'proper indie'. That's cool, as long as they don't seek to apply that criteria to other people's work. We all have stuff we like, and stuff we don't like. That's awesome. In indie, I get to make exactly what I want, and so does everyone else. Honestly, given the hatred some gamers feel for 'pretentious indie games', and the limits some developers feel on making an 'indie game', I'm not sure the word is as useful as it used to be. As the means of production become more open and more inclusive, I think we're all becoming creators in some sense. Kotaku: You've teased #project2 a bit on Twitter and it sounds like it's going to be radically different from Thomas. Why should fans of your first game show up for the second? Bithell: It's a departure in that it's not a game about jumping rectangles. But the focus remains the same: Trying to gel gameplay and storytelling in ways which I think are interesting. I'm also probably going to always write about flawed nerdy teens, at least until I age enough to write about flawed nerdy middle aged people. My biggest regret in Thomas Was Alone was not inviting players to take part in the creation of the game, via writing stuff, or level design. So that's a big theme of the next game, working out ways that I can tell the stories I want to tell, while opening up some opportunities for others to do the same. I can't wait to share the game with more people. I think it might be pretty good.

StarDrive is Now Available on Steam and is 10% off!

StarDrive sets a new benchmark for the 4X Space Strategy genre. Starting with a single planet and a small number of space-worthy vessels, you must venture forth into the galaxy, conquer new worlds, build new colonies and defend your very existence against those who would take what is yours. How you play is your decision. Use diplomacy or brute force. Trade, spy and research your way to galactic domination. Make friends, or create mortal enemies…

The heart of StarDrive is its ship design and combat engine.

StarDrive takes a modular approach to ship design, allowing the player to create custom ships where the composition and placement of ship modules really matters to the performance of a ship.. In combat, if your portside armor is taking a beating, then rotate around and show them the starboard side! Hide behind a friendly capital ships shields; warp into and out of the fray, launch fighters, lay mines, and so much more.

*Offer ends May 3rd at 10AM Pacific Time

Poker Night 2 is Now Available on Steam!

The chips are down and the ante is up in this sentence already bursting with poker clich! Take the fifth seat in Poker Night 2, at a table featuring Claptrap (Borderlands 2), Brock Samson (The Venture Bros.), Ash (Army of Darkness) and Sam (Sam and Max series). Play to unlock new Team Fortress 2 items and win unique skins and heads for Borderlands 2! Your dealer is GLaDOS (Portal series), but at no point will you be considered as a candidate for a visit to Aperture Sciences Enrichment Center. Unless you lose.

April 26th, 2013 Ugly Baby Update -- 011110100110000101110000011001000110111101110100

Michael here, with some more updatey goodness to share with all of you. Check it out:

GAMEPLAY: Stunts have slightly changed. Buzzes now happen whenever you get close enough to any object, exactly how kisses worked in AAAAA! Grooves are now only rewarded if you pass by something on your stomach. Rotate with your mouse buttons and orient yourself before you... disorient yourself.

INPUT: Weve changed how rotation works and feels in the game. Hows it feel to you now?

LEVELS: Dave updated levels 2, 4, 5 and 6. Hes created a new algorithm that blends the patterns that are created based on the stress of the music. This means that similar sections of a song should look similar within the game. Check these levels out again, youll find theyre quite a new experience now.

ARTWORK: Jons been working hard on some illustrations of our main character. Ive been working on mockups for the new UI. Check them in our discussion here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/15540/discussions/0/810923021580270621/

Lastly, we think we have fixed the decompression issue a small percentage of users were having. Those who were affected previously, and could not seem to decompress any music, please let us know if this resolves your issue.

As always, tell us what you love, what you hate, and what other awesome indie games we should be playing this weekend.

Today's Deal: Save 66% on Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City!

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

Day 2 of the Rockstar Publisher Weekend has kicked off today. The Daily Deal for today is the Max Payne Franchise at 75%-80% off! Be sure to check back each day for new deals.

During the weekend, titles in the Rockstar catalog are on sale for 50% to 67% off. Plus, check out the Rockstar Hit Collection, which contains a selection of Rockstar's greatest hits!

Fallen Enchantress - Legendary Heroes Update Released.

Stardock Entertainment is happy to announce the release of the 0.85 BETA for its upcoming turn-based strategy, fantasy game, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. This new update adds a number of new features, bug fixes and balance adjustments.

Features

Added the Cautious Sovereign ability (allows the sovereign to escape from battle)

Added Sovereign Bond as a sovereign talent (allows the sovereign to summon familiars)

Added the Soldiers Boots (available for unit design, +1 init)

Added the Soldiers Gloves (available for unit design, +5 accuracy)

Added the Soldier's Cloak (available for unit design, +10 magic resist)

Added the Scaled Cloak (available for unit design, +25% fire resistance)

Added the Warboar monster

Added the First Aid Kit (available for unit design, +2 hit points and +1 healing rate)

Added Rations (available for unit design, +3 hit points)

Added achievements for winning as Capitar and Umber

New tactical maps added

Fixes

Fixed an issue keeping the Life V icon from showing up

Fixed an issue keeping pikes from upgraded to lightning pikes

Fixed an issue keeping longswords from upgrading to boreal blades

Fixed bow upgrades

Fixed an issue with chainmail gloves issue that was cuasing them to recolor with cloth color 2 instead of metal color

Fixed an issue with the chainmail hood that was keeping it from being recolorable

Lots of fixed stamps from Parrottmath

Lots of updated tactical battles (blocked tiles set)

Fixed bug where part of the improvement loading process didn't get told it was loading a game, which could cause modifiers to get reapplied when they shouldn't be

Fixed bug where you could get repeat recruited champions after loading a game

Fixed an issue where if you had an army led by a champ that was not the sov, and he died in battle, but the rest of your army won the battle. When this happened the entire army would be transported back to a city and immobilized rather than just have the champ that fell in battle be injured and stay with the army on the map

If a unit is standing on a city at the end of its turn, and it doesn't have a destination set to leave at the start of the next turn, it will auto station that unit in the city

Roads will now not pass through wildlands. When a wildland is cleared, each city reevaluates its connections with other cities and has another chance to build a road if applicable

Fixed yields on captured Deorcnysse

Fixed a clipping issue on cliff corners

Fixed an issue allowing caravans to be killed even if you have the legacy of serrane

Fixed an issue with the Produce Mana project

Lots of fixed tactical maps

Fixed an issue keeping some traits form being applied after a game was reloaded (most notable with the Veteran and Experienced traits)

Fixed an issue keeping Shield Bash from showing the damage

Fixed an issue with guarded strike not proving its defense bonus

Fixed crashes

Balance

Reduced Charge from +3 to +2 and instead the training cost

Scholar moved from a talent to a profession

Padded Breastpiece added as a designable equipment

Reduced Stables from from 1 horse per season to 0.5

Reduced Kennels from from 1 warg per season to 0.5

Moved the Adventurers Guild from Heroes to Breons Letters

Arctic Wolf Cloaks no longer require a tech

Removed the Resistance bonus form the ring of embers, of the glacier and storms

Increased the training cost of mounts

Removed the init bonus form the Athican longsword

Decreased the amount that increased production pace increases production

Increased the strength of the bandits from the Bandit Lord ability

Increased the Noble profession from -5 Unrest to -10

Increased the Scholar research bonus from +10% to +20%

Reduced Warlock from +50% spell damage to +25%

Reduced the Fame from quests from 20 to 15

Balance gives +10 to dodge and -1 to init instead of +5 to dodge and -1 to hit points

Charge gives +1 moves and +2 attack instead of +3 moves and +3 attack

Defender gives +10 defense when defending instead of +5

Impulsive gives +2 init instead of going first in battle

Muscle gives +1 to attack and -1 to init instead of just +1 to attack

Strength is no longer a unit design trait

Reduced base trained unit accuracy from 70 to 60

Reduced maces init from -3 to -4

Reduced Battle Axe attack from 15 to 12

Reduced Boar Spear attack from 11 to 10

Reduced Short Sword attack from 10 to 9

Reduced Pike attack from 16 to 15

Reduced Longsword attack from 18 to 14 and +2 init

Reduced Great Axe attack from 21 to 17

Reduced Maul attack from 25 to 22

Removed the Heroes tech

The amount of Fame quests grant has been changed to be per quest instead of a global value (so more difficult quests grant more fame)

The army that didn't attack starts in defensive stance in tactical combat

Kasst increased from 1 move to 3

Increased the xp given from combat slightly

Reduced the level and hit points on Hergon Sows

Increased the dragon level int he Ghost Helm quest from 7 to 12

Razing cities does slightly more damage to surrounding terrain

Increased Ascian to 4 moves

Reduced the training cost of the Fast trait form 20 to 15

Horses give +2 attack and Init for their first action in combat (warhorses gives +3 to both instead)

Increased all Sharp weapons form +1 crit chance to +5

Increased all Razor weapons from +2 crit chance to +10 crit chance

AI

Monster behavior improvements

Fixed AI bug that kept it from "seeing" enemy armies approaching its cities in certain cases

Fixed AI bug where AI would declare war soon after having made peace

Fixed AI bug in tactical where it would cast tangled web on a ranged unit (edge case)

Razing cities does slightly more damage to surrounding terrain

Fixed diplomacy bug where the AI would seemingly declare war on you for no reason (there was a reason but not the one given)

UI

Better looking river banks from Kay

Pedestrians are no loner displayed in tactical battles

Added Mountains back to minimaps

Steam notifications now popup in the upper left corner instead of over the turn button

Added a new quest completion window

Consolidated all the upgrade actions into a single upgrade button

Added a new unit upgrade screen

Added icon category icons to the train screen (so you can see what type of unit they are)

Double-clicking on perk or path entries in the two unit level up screen will select the perk and close the screen

New texture for Ongr the Unbound

The spellbook remembers the last strategic spell you cast and starts there when you reopen it

Battle window now states what city is being attacked, if a city is being attacked

The camera will no longer recenter on your unit at the beginning of each turn if that unit was already selected

Previously we hid units in the train window if you didnt have any of the materials needed to train them (but they were greyed out if oyu had at least 1). Now we display them greyed out all the time. This caused issues where oyu would unlock mages or juggernauts but not see them because you didnt have any crystal or metal.

Now all the goodie huts you get tresure form have treasure chests in them (color based on how valuable they are)

Mars: War Logs, the sci-fi RPG from Spiders that's a little like Mass Effect with a dash of Assassin's Creed, Rage and Red Faction, is now out on Steam. The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions are coming "very soon."

The ninth installment of the Prison Architect Alpha has today been released, and its a big one. Weve tackled some of the big issues that have been on our list for a very long time - prisoner employment, laundry services, family visitation, workshops, and lots more.

Here is our Alpha9 video. Apologies for my distorted voice, I had the levels on my mic set completely wrongly this time around.



Central to the new version is the concept of Prisoner Employment, and weve been planning this feature for a long time. Prisoners can now perform a variety of jobs around the prison, saving you money on staff and raising money for you by selling goods manufactured by your work force. Prisoners can work in the kitchen, they can clean the prison, and they can work in the laundry and the workshop, both of which are new in Alpha9.

We have a brand new laundry system, which is entirely prisoner run. Clean uniforms will be distributed around your prison in laundry baskets, and prisoners will change into these after theyve had their shower. Dirty uniforms will be collected up in laundry baskets and brought back to the laundrette where they are washed. It can take quite a long time to cycle all the laundry in your prison - expect it to take several days to cycle everyone in large prisons.

We also have workshops. These rooms are used to produce trinkets which you can sell for profit - currently car license plates, which the prisoners make out of sheet metal with a couple of new bench tools. Its up to you if you wish to exploit your prisoners for cheap labour - it will certainly help with the cashflow, and your prisoners will be learning new skills at the same time. (Actually nobody learns anything in alpha9, but they will in a future update)

Prison labour is free right now, but eventually (in a future alpha) you will pay your prisoners a small wage, which they will be able to use to buy essential supplies from a prison shop. And all of these rooms - the kitchen, the cleaning cupboard, the laundrette and the workshop, will bring their own particular dangers to the prison if you chose to use them.

If that wasnt enough, visitation has also been added in alpha9. Most prisoners now have family, and those family will want to come and visit from time to time. (Note: All bios will be re-generated because of this). Click on any prisoner to see his known family members listed in his rap sheet. Build a visitation room and those family members will come to see their loved one in jail, which makes everyone a little bit happier. However you should enjoy the universal goodness of visitation while it lasts, because in a future alpha it will become a major source of smuggled contraband.

Theres also a number of visual changes: Most noticeably, the main toolbar icons have all been replaced with cleaner, higher resolution versions. You should also notice the grime and dirt and overgrown grass and pathways around your prison look much better (so to speak) - we used to rely on a single crack graphic for everything! Its now much more obvious when your prison needs cleaning and gardening, and much more satisfying to watch your janitors and gardeners doing that. And of course you can get your prisoners to do most of the cleaning now anyway, which gets the job done much quicker.

This was a major update, adding a load of new mid game content to the game. Weve got big plans for alpha10 as well, which should be another big one. In the mean time, enjoy the latest version.