Prison Boss: Prohibition – Quest 3 Review

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I spent the week diving into the fantastic Prison Boss: Prohibition on the Meta Quest 3. Developed and published by Trebuchet, it’s a sequel to their earlier game, Prison Boss VR. I’ve not played the original so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I think I might just have a new favourite VR game?

Who says crime doesn’t pay?

Who knew prohibition could be so fun and lucrative at the same time. Lets dive into the world of being a chicken in the 1920s-esque New Yolk City and see if we can end up ruling the roost!

Gameplay

Within Prison Boss: Prohibition you play as a shop owner in the poultry populated city of New Yolk, where the overly zealous mayor has outlawed almost everything. This opens up a lucrative opportunity for you to make a quick buck by selling produce that customers can’t find anywhere else.

The Basics

After a quick tutorial introducing the basics, we begin at the dockyards. Here, we will brew beers, sodas, and juices to sell for a profit. The day is divided into morning, evening, and night. In the evening, you can purchase various contraband to craft items your customers desire. At night, under the cover of darkness, this is when we brew beers and prepare sodas, but be cautious of the police—getting caught with any contraband means confiscation and hefty fines. You’ll use cupboards and drawers to hide everything until morning. This is when you’ll sell your products. Different customers will want different items, so keeping a well-stocked shop is key. You’ll also handle phone orders, which, when fulfilled, earn reputation points to unlock more items and create complex recipes.

The aim is to make as much money as possible over a 12 day cycle. After you complete the level, you will register your high score then move onto the next level with a different shop location and different items to craft and sell. There are 4 levels in total with over 30 items to craft across the entire game. This is a simple concept but the execution is what makes this really enjoyable. The crafting in VR is so much more enjoyable than it can be on a flatscreen game.

VR Play Modes

There are 3 different ways to play Prison Boss: Prohibition depending on your VR set up. There’s Room Scale which requires a 2m x 2m play space. I didn’t manage to get this set up for my review so can’t comment on it. There is the standard standing/seating mode. This allows you to walk around using the thumb sticks, with the option for smooth or snap turning. The final option is what made this one of my new favourite VR games, Mixed Reality Mode.

Mixed Reality

Using the Quest 3’s built-in room scanning feature, the mixed reality mode lets you overlay virtual objects onto your physical space. To fully enjoy this, I tidied up my garage, moved the car to the street, and mapped out my new play area. The virtual shop I was playing in now matched the exact dimensions of my physical space, but I could also “turn off” the virtual walls, floor, and ceiling while keeping the virtual furniture, items, and shop counter intact for interaction. If you’ve ever felt the need to peek through the nose gap of your headset to check your physical surroundings and avoid hitting a wall, this mode is ideal. It gave me complete confidence that when a police officer was doing their rounds, I could quickly dash to the back of my play area to hide the contraband without worrying about crashing into a real wall.

Being able to see my physical surroundings massively increased my immersion. I was confident of where I was in the real world and so I stopped pulling myself out of the game world to check. This was the best feature of the game in my opinion and is the reason why I’ll continue to play this game to enjoy this mode.

Co-op Play

A great new feature is the ability to play in VR Co-op. You can play alongside a friend, or be matched with a random player then both spaces are linked to create 1 large store front. While you can’t enter each others spaces, you can share items and money by handing them over to each other, or just throwing stuff to them. Playing with a friend, I was able to act as look out while they finished up crafting their items. The in game voice chat works well to make this experience more enjoyable.

Trying to be matched with a random player, I was paired with a young kid from Indiana. Our transatlantic business venture never seemed liked it would be successful. He was insistent that his preferred approach to selling items was essentially “made to order”. This meant he wasn’t able to sell more than 3 or 4 items in any 1 day, but he was clearly enjoying himself, so who was I to tell him he was doing it wrong?

Graphics & Audio

The visuals of this game continue the cartoony, stylized approach of its predecessors. The graphics are clean and simple, yet they reveal an impressive level of detail upon closer inspection.

The sound effects are immersive and enhance the experience. The genuine panic that sets in when contraband is still visible, and the policeman’s whistle signals his patrol, adds a thrilling touch.

Longevity

The comfort level of this game meant I could easily play for longer than my Quests battery levels could provide. The fact there is only 4 levels means I’d be worried that I’d also outlast the content. The co-op mode though will probably give me quite a lot of replay value. I’ll try it with different friends and strangers hoping to increase my best score each time.

Final Thoughts

As mentioned already, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Prison Boss: Prohibition. There were a few physics glitches here and there but for the most part everything ran smoothly. I’ve personally recommended it to friends so we can enjoy the co-op mode together and I will definitely be keeping it in my library.

I really thought long and hard about if to award this a gold or a platinum review. I feel in an ideal scenario, there would be a few more levels and a little bit more structure around goals and objectives. Ticking them boxes would absolutely give it top marks.

Prison Boss: Prohibition receives the Thumb Culture Gold Award.

Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.

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Michael

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