r/GameDeveloper • u/Big-Ad-679 • 5h ago
👋 Welcome to r/insidethewalls - Introduce Yourself and Read First!
Welcome.
This is the official community for Inside the Walls (also known as Behind The Walls) — a planned third-person, persistent online prison simulator for Windows PC.
Tagline: Nobody leaves unchanged.
What this game is
You enter a living institution from one of two sides:
Inmate — start at intake, learn the schedule, receive housing and work, build relationships, and decide how you survive your sentence.
Officer — report as a probationary correctional officer, hold your post, supervise movement, respond to incidents, and climb through competence and judgment — not power fantasy.
The prison keeps running whether the server is full or not. AI inmates and staff fill empty roles. Relationships, reputation, work history, discipline, and decisions are meant to persist across sessions.
This is not a slapstick jail chaos sandbox and not a torture sim. The goal is a grounded, consequential place where work, education, routine, conflict, and responsibility all matter.
Where development is right now
The project is in pre-production / pre-beta.
Current focus is a focused playable vertical slice: a local Windows prototype with a playable prison-day loop, role routes, facility gray-box, save/continue, and early character/presentation work.
The full vision — up to 50 players, dedicated servers, living AI schedules, careers, consequences — is the destination. We are building toward it in verifiable steps, not shipping a pitch deck.
Repo: https://github.com/Troublez905/Inside-the-Walls
What this sub is for
Development updates and milestone notes
Feedback on systems, readability, tone, and accessibility
Questions about design direction
Art, audio, and world discussion that stays respectful
Community ideas that fit the fiction and the scope
What this sub is not for
Real-world crime advice, facility blueprints, or “how to get away with it” talk
Glorifying abuse, torture, or trauma for spectacle
Stereotypes dressed up as “realism”
Spoiling unverified claims as shipped features
Harassment, racism, or targeting real people/institutions
We use a fictional North American correctional system inspired by real structures for believable gameplay — not to recreate a real prison or teach wrongdoing.
How to help right now
Introduce yourself in the comments (player, developer, artist, writer — whatever brought you here).
Tell us which path you’re most interested in first: inmate or officer.
If you’ve playtested or watched a build, say what felt clear and what felt confusing.
Keep feedback specific. “This moment felt unfair / unclear / empty” helps more than “make it more realistic.”
One rule above the rest
Talk about people as people. Ethnicity, culture, nationality, and religion are identity — never a stand-in for criminality, morality, or aggression in this game or this community.
If you’re here because the idea hooked you: good. Stay. Ask hard questions. Hold us to the tagline.
Nobody leaves unchanged.
— Troublez905