When comparing Don't Starve vs Prison Architect, the Slant community recommends Prison Architect for most people. In the question“What are the best low-spec PC games?” Prison Architect is ranked 20th while Don't Starve is ranked 31st. The most important reason people chose Prison Architect is:
The game consists of a wide variety of overlapping systems that work together to create excellent depth. You have to figure out the layout of your prison, how to manage the needs of your inmates, how to earn enough money to expand and hire new staff, what to do in the case of a natural disaster, a riot or attempted escape and so on. Every decision you make will impact all other elements of the game. For example, instituting regular shakedowns will help prevent prisoners from carrying banned items like forks taken from cafeterias that can be used to dig tunnels, but will also make the inmates more angry and thus more likely to riot. You can decide to instead use tunnel-sniffing dogs set to patrol around the perimeter, but that will cost more money and if the inmates pick up on the patrolling patterns they will tunnel around them. Or you may decide to check each inmate individually to see who's tired from staying up late to dig while everyone else has been sleeping though that approach may not scale.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Uniquely atmospheric art style that gives a polished look that is difficult to match
Don't Starve has a very unique art style, using two dimensional or 2D characters and items in a 3D world gives a very interesting artsy feel to the game. The hand drawn look and feel to the graphics are a nice change of pace from ultra realistic games, but it doesnt take away from the suspense.
Pro Very active modding community with numerous mods available allows for a lot of replayability and customization
Using the Steam Workshop, Don't Starve has a very active modding community. With nearly 800 mods currently available, there are unlimited ways you can change your Don't Starve experience.
Pro Challenging arcade style game play, with permadeath mixed in makes for a tough to master game that is still fun to play over and over again
Don't Starve is a classic example of "Easy to play, tough to master". The game play is very easy to learn, in fact Don't Starve doesn't really tell you how to play, you just point and click. Some items will be clickable, exploration leads to discoveries, and discoveries lead to longer survival, but death and a new game are always right around the corner.
Pro Randomly generated worlds allows for content that continually stays fresh to the user
Don't Starve generates a completely new game world for every new game, and since you only get one life per game, you will be seeing a lot of different worlds. All of the lands and items will be totally new on every try.
Pro There's never a dull moment thanks to how new mechanics are introduced throughout the gameplay
As the game progresses, it offers more and more mechanics that require constant attention to function properly. It becomes a constant re-evaluation of risk and reward.
Pro Pleasantly twisted sense of humor makes for an entertaining environment and story
Random quips from characters, info, text and the world itself (such as the existence of werepigs) show glimpses of a dark sense of humor throughout.
Pro Easily customized thanks to being able to adjust difficulty on the fly
The game gives you a lot of world customization options. You can change the length of day, weather patterns, how much of each monster or resource spawns, etc. This effectively allows you to adjust how difficult you wish the game to be.
Pro Amazing depth
The game consists of a wide variety of overlapping systems that work together to create excellent depth. You have to figure out the layout of your prison, how to manage the needs of your inmates, how to earn enough money to expand and hire new staff, what to do in the case of a natural disaster, a riot or attempted escape and so on.
Every decision you make will impact all other elements of the game. For example, instituting regular shakedowns will help prevent prisoners from carrying banned items like forks taken from cafeterias that can be used to dig tunnels, but will also make the inmates more angry and thus more likely to riot. You can decide to instead use tunnel-sniffing dogs set to patrol around the perimeter, but that will cost more money and if the inmates pick up on the patrolling patterns they will tunnel around them. Or you may decide to check each inmate individually to see who's tired from staying up late to dig while everyone else has been sleeping though that approach may not scale.
Pro Works great for both long and short play sessions
The gameplay lends itself well to both doing a couple of things around the prison every once in a while or setting up elaborate systems that can take hours upon hours of time. The game can be saved at any time so you don't have to make commitments in one way or another.
Pro Great freedom of playstyle
You can run the prison in the way that you see fit. You can put the wellbeing of prisoners at the top of the priority list by making sure their living spaces are comfortable, that they're well-fed, have the opportunity to educate themselves and often get to go outside in the yard to socialize and exercise or you can run the prison with an iron fist by instituting regular shakedowns, putting CCTVs, metal detectors, K-9 units and armed guards in every corner. Whichever play-style you choose, the game will offer challenges that will keep the game interesting.
Pro Developers are releasing free updates and additions to the game
Developers have been updating the game almost every month with new content, improvements and tweaks to the game.
Pro Relaxing to play
Building your prison is almost zen like. There are periods of stress when there are riots or things going wrong, but you can always pause to take your time and figure out a good solution.
Pro Lots of mods available
A wide variety of user-created modifications to the game are available including mods that change the theme of the game, look of the game, add new objects, grants, programs, scenarios and new mechanics. They're listed in the game's wiki, here.
Cons
Con Constant restarts can be drawn out and boring
The beginning of a playthrough starts out pretty slow, which is exacerbated by the fact that the player will need to restart many many times as the game is a rouguelike, so permanent death is something that will be encountered often.
Con Gameplay is poorly explained
The game does a poor job of explaining all the mechanics to the player when they begin the main game which leaves the player guessing as to what they need to do in order to be successful.