Prison Life is a prison-themed roleplay and survival game created by Aesthetical. The game has undergone a lot of changes since version 2.0.2.
It had always topped the front page during v2.0 in 2016 and early 2017, with an average of 10,000-25,000 players daily despite being rarely updated. In 2021, the game lost a lot of players, now no longer reaching the top page. As of today, Prison life averages at around 3,000 to 4,000 players.
However, Aesthetical has explained that he has been in university since 2017 and does not have much time to develop the game. Despite this, he has changed Prison Life's game description in the recent months which state he has additional time off to further develop the game.
Updates[]
A massive update enrolled on February 11 2023, which patched several glitches and exploits used to get guns, auto-respawn, spam-arrest, switch teams, Neutral2, (most) server crashes and lots more. The day prior, the game could be seen having no floor, leaving players to fall through the map upon joining.
Prison Life's last major update was on March 7, 2019. The update changes all of the sounds in the game, except for the prison door opening. It has lost a lot of popularity because of a more innovative and modernized prison-escape game, known as Jailbreak.
Updates had rarely been seen during the 2019-2020 time period. At the beginning of 2021, it seemed like Aesthetical was updating the game again as it was given updates two times, respectively on January 6 and 12, 2021. However, The game got updated recently on February 12, 2023, which states Aesthetical is currently trying his best to stop the cheats and exploits and that he is focusing his life right now and not Roblox, which is one big thing in Prison Life which doesn't say "Cars Fixed" towards this point.
There is an unreleased gamepass for Prison life called "Mafia access". This pass is meant to be used by criminals since the description is "Join the rebellion against the prison!". This Gamepass grants you the FN-SCAR-H Battle rifle, Bulletproof Vest [150 HP], and C4 explosives. It is unknown about the release date of this Gamepass. Aesthetical also tweeted a picture of the FN-FAL Battle rifle on his Twitter.
Gameplay[]
In Prison Life, there are 3 teams with different goals as listed below.
Prisoner[]
The Prisoner's goal is to escape. Many ways can achieve this, from brute force to sneaking their way out.
It is recommended to kill guards, because they will not be able to handcuff them unless they're in the armory, the lights are out or any other area restricted to the Prisoner. Prisoners may get useful tools such as keycards and guns when they kill a guard.
Note/Tip: If you reset your character before the handcuff timer goes to 0 then you can skip the 10 seconds wait time.
Guard[]
The Guard's goal is to arrest criminals and prevent prisoners from escaping and obtaining contraband. Prisoners cannot be handcuffed unless they're in restricted areas.
Killing 3 unarmed prisoners will turn the Guard into an Inmate and will not let them go back into the Guards team unless they rejoin the server/game. The Guard can buy the Riot Police Gamepass to unlock more items in the guard room to help them if the criminals keep killing them. There is a limit of 8 Guards per server. Trying to click "Kick a Random Player" will not do anything and is a harmless joke created by Aesthetical and when you hover your cursor over it says "just kidding lmao".
Criminal[]
After escaping, a prisoner will become a criminal. Criminal's goals range from helping prisoners escape to killing guards or both. Criminals have access to 2 weapons inside of the criminal base warehouse. Criminals can kill prisoners and guards.
Dying as a criminal won't affect your team status, but when you are arrested you will turn back into a prisoner and spawn back into the prison.
Stamina[]
At the bottom of the screen is a blue bar that shows your stamina. Without stamina, you will not be able to jump. Many users have expressed there opinions on this as it can be very annoying in certain situations.
Cars[]
Cars are parked at multiple locations such as the Criminal Warehouse, Police Garage, Grocery store parking lot, and next to the row of stores. All cars are immune to bullets, but players can shoot at each other if they are inside the car. There are multiple car colors such as red, orange, silver/grey, white, black, gold (rare), pink (rare), and blue. There are also cop cars that have sirens (as of 2023) that sadly do not work anymore.
Riot Police Gamepass[]
The Riot Police Gamepass grants weapons and clothing in the Riot Police category. If the Player attempts to pick up a weapon without owning the gamepass, an offer will show up. Prisoners and Criminals cannot pick up the Riot Shield or the Armor, but can pick up the ski mask, cop hat, helmet and M4A1. Strangely, the Police Hat requires the Riot Police gamepass to be equipped.
Tools[]
There is a variety of tools available to each team. There can't be 2 of the same tools in a Player's inventory. Some tools are team exclusive.
Chocolate bar[]
Obtained by using a vending machine and grants a small stamina boost when consumed.
Hammer[]
Obtained below a bench in a yard. Used to break a toilet and escape through the sewers. It can be used as a melee weapon as well. Guards are unable to obtain hammers.
Crude Knife[]
Obtained in either the white bleachers or under one of the 4 tables near a corner and is used as a melee weapon. Guards are unable to obtain crude knives.
M9[]
Obtained by either breaking into the Armory, killing a guard or spawning as a guard. It has 15 bullets with a decent firerate and is not automatic.
Remington 870[]
Obtained at both the Armory or the Criminal Warehouse. The Remington 870 can kill in 1 shot at close range but has a slow firerate, inaccurate at longer ranges. non automatic, and has 6 bullets.
M4A1[]
Obtained at the Armory and locked to players with the Riot Police Gamepass. It has a high firerate and accuracy with 30 bullets and is automatic.
Riot Shield[]
Obtained at the Armory and locked to players with the Riot Police Gamepass. When equipped the Player can block bullets and use another item in conjunction with it.
AK-47[]
Obtained at the Criminal Warehouse. It has a high rate of fire and accuracy, but less powerful than the M4A1 and has 30 bullets.
Armory[]
The Armory is the Guards' spawning point. Most of the game's guns are found here. It also includes functional security cameras and a lounge/break room. The Armory has various items as listed below.
- M9
- Remington 870
- M4A1 (Riot Police Gamepass)
- Riot Shield (Riot Police Gamepass, Guards only)
- Kevlar Armor (+50 health) (Riot Police Gamepass, Guards only)
- SWAT Helmet (Riot Police Gamepass)
- Ski Mask (Riot Police Gamepass)
- Police Cap (Riot Police Gamepass)
Handcuffs[]
Obtained by spawning in as a Guard. It allows Guards to arrest Prisoners and Criminals. It has a short-range and a 15-second cooldown between each arrest and makes the Guard wait 10 seconds for them to be properly arrested.
Taser []
Obtained by spawning in as a Guard. It allows the Guards to stun Prisoners and Criminals for 5 seconds. It has 1 bullet and a range of 200 studs.
Keycard[]
Obtained by killing Guards. It can be used by Prisoners and Criminals to access every door in the prison. It can be picked up by guards, but is useless.
Removed/Exploit only peripherals/items[]
Usually obtained by Exploits.
Sharp Stick[]
Melee weapon, it looks like a sharpened stick.
Extendo Mirror[]
A simple gear that "zooms" your view. It doesn't do any damage and has no animations.
Sniper Rifle[]
You can't get the weapon despite using exploits, because it will state that you already own it. Inside of the Armory, there is a notice that says 'Coming Soon'. Rumored to be where the Sniper Rifle will be obtained.
An example of an exploiter who spawned in and bypassed the team selection screen, ending up on the Neutral Team (gray color).
Neutral Team[]
The Neutral Team is where the player chooses the team and can be accessed by switching teams. However, once you switch teams, you would only stay on the team selection screen. This team is playable with exploits, as you can kill anyone if you bypass the team selection screen.
Places[]
Criminal Warehouse[]
The Criminal Warehouse is the criminal spawn point. It includes a car spawn and a warehouse with 2 weapons: the Remington 870 and AK-47. Guards can travel to the Warehouse to stage police raids and take AK-47s as an alternative to the Riot Police game pass. There are two other warehouses beside the main warehouse, but they are inaccessible as of the present time. However, the two other warehouses can be accessed by glitching, even though there is nothing inside of both of them.
The criminal warehouse.
Prison[]
The prison is the subject of Prison Life, and most player activity takes place here. It is situated at the corner of the map and includes the main building, yard, armory, back lawn, parking lot, walls and a garage with police car spawns.
Jail Block[]
The Jail Block is the room that contains the prison cells. Inside the prison cells are beds, a table and a chair, sinks, and toilets, which you can break using the hammer to escape through the sewers. Inmates can get handcuffed there at any time of the day, except during Breakfast, Free Time, Lockdown and Lights out.
Cafeteria[]
Meals spawn there during Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, you can pick up a tray and sit at the tables and eat. There are vending machines with "Out of order" on it. However, when the server you joined is new, potato chips, milk, and other things spawn there, and you can eat them. Inmates can be handcuffed there during Yard time, Lockdown, and Lights out.
Nexus[]
It is the main hallway in the prison, and it has entrances to the yard, guard room, cafeteria, and jail block. Inmates can only get handcuffed there during Lights out.
Yard[]
The yard contains an athletics area, a few bleachers, tables near the door to the yard, an entrance to a tower, a hammer and a crude knife. The hammer is located under a bench at the athletics area, and the knife is located on the white bleachers on the side of the yard. It is also located under one of the metal tables next to the yard door, you need to crawl and get into the first-person mode to get it. Inmates can get handcuffed here any time except during Yard time and Free-time.
Armory[]
The armory is the place where guards spawn. It contains an M9, a Remington 870, a police hat, an M4A1, a riot shield, a SWAT helmet, a ski mask and SWAT armor. Only the M9, Remington 870 and police hat can be taken without having the Riot Police game pass. It also has a break room and a surveillance room where you can watch the inmates using the security cameras. Inmates can be handcuffed at any time here since it is a restricted area.
Small overview of the armory.
Walls and Gate[]
The prison is surrounded by tall concrete walls with roofed towers located in between, and there's a single fence gate at the front that can only be opened by guards or others with key cards (or camera glitching). Criminals can get inside via stolen key cards at the gate or via the leaning tree, and prisoners can escape by climbing ladders at certain locations. It is also a restricted area, so prisoners can be arrested there at all times.
Other buildings[]
There are a few skyscrapers, houses, trees, empty shops, car spawns and roads scattered throughout the map, with many providing hiding locations for criminals on the run, although not usually used. Criminals are rarely chased into a building.
Secret Room[]
The secret room is a room that can only be entered with exploits/glitches. The room is located on the left of the main entrance of the building and can be viewed through a window. The room has random models that include a couch, carpet, chair, desk, dresser, windows, and blinds.
Bugs[]
There are many bugs present in the game. It is unknown when all of these will be fixed.
Corner glitching[]
This was the most useful form of glitching as it was quick and pretty simple. This makes the game harder for guards, as prisoners could escape and hide easily. This was also be used to gain access to the room with the windows (glitch room) near the garage. (There are some comfy seats and flying mirrors that don't work in there that were in the 2nd floor offices of an unreleased map).
Criminal glitch[]
When you kill a criminal, the game can sometimes think you're killing innocent inmates and proceed to give you warnings. This has been found to be actually when you kill a criminal that isn't brandishing a weapon right after they escape the prison, as the innocent inmate script is the exact same with criminals.
Legal room glitch[]
A prisoner wielding a gun in legal rooms such as the prison, cannot be arrested. It is unknown why this happens.
Armor spam glitch[]
If you have the SWAT gamepass, you can keep spam-clicking on the SWAT armor in the armory which can stack on your avatar (though you don't see it), overload the server and crash/lag out players with low-tier PCs (or mobile devices).
Accessory/bundle glitch[]
Players with big accessories on them (such as wings) can be very hard to arrest as the game tells you "That is not a player!" since the big accessory they have might be covering half or most of their body. Their body parts also can get in the way, such as the Woman bundle, said bundle being slim and the game thinking there is no player. People with bigger body parts, such as 1.0, can be arrested easily also with accessories but the game can still think, "That is not a player!".
Aftershot glitch[]
Players who wield guns that were killed can sometimes shoot one shot from the dead for unknown reasons. Many players say this is the worst bug in the game because it gives a disadvantage to players who are prisoners, guards, or criminals close to dying and their (opponent's) gun shooting them from the dead eventually resulting in a death on the latter.
Near-death warning glitch[]
Whenever you bring down a prisoner's health to about 0.1 or 0.9 (an estimate of the range of those numbers, specifically) you can receive a warning even though they have not died yet. The player's name tag shows that their health bar is empty, but still alive. This happens very rarely though.
After-arrest glitch[]
This might be one of the most annoying bugs on Prison life. Whenever a cop dies near you (in places you aren't allowed to go to as a prisoner or criminal) with their handcuffs selected in their inventory at the perfect time, they can still arrest you even after death.
Criticism[]
Early criticism (2015-2017)[]
Before v2.0, the game was criticized for having abusive cops in the game, buggy cars, bad weapons, and also for the poor design. It later turned over to the exploiters for appearing in most servers destroying the game as this game does not have any type of anti-cheat on it.
Some people have also criticized Prison Life for "copying" Redwood Prison. Prison Life has also been criticized because of the lack of activities when players escape. Players who are on mobile cannot crawl, punch, and run, which has also lead to criticism from mobile players. There is also an exploiter issue in the game itself as exploiters are in almost every server of the game, due to a lack of an anti-exploit script. The game has also been criticized for its "toxic" fanbase.
Criticism due to lack of updates (2019-2023)[]
An example of an exploiter in Prison Life
The creator of the game, Aesthetical, has also been criticized for almost never updating the game. People have noted that he is online everyday but never works on Prison Life. People are also calling him "lazy" since he hasn't added an anti-exploit script into the game yet. Some people have also said that he doesn't care about his fans anymore because of the game being very rarely updated. At one point, it had taken 1 year and 4 months (August 20, 2019 - January 6, 2021) to push out an update. He had yet to say anything about the game for not receiving major updates (excluding the fact he said he was still in university).
However, in January 2021, Aesthetical had finally updated the game for the first time since 2019 but for unknown reasons. It was most likely to fix a bug where exploiters would set it so that all users in a server could not use a gun after shooting it once or twice.
As time progresses without essential updates, Prison Life is degrading due to the advancement of exploits and scripts without any anti cheat to prevent it. It is also degrading due to the lack of activities to do after escaping. Mobile players don't have the basic abilities such as crawling, punching or running unlike Windows (PC) players.
Addressing the lack of updates and current state of the game (2023-present)[]
On February 11, 2023, after 2 years of no major updates, Prison Life was updated due to a glitch days prior where the map would disappear on private servers. Some exploits and glitches were patched and the description of the game was updated, where Aesthetical stated that Prison Life was going to be rewritten code-wise some day to stop all the exploits that have been going on – though also noted he was trying to focus on his life at the moment, which explains the lack of updates throughout the past few years.
Schedule[]
- 6:01am - 8:00am: Breakfast
- 8:01am - 12:00am: Yard Time
- 12:01am - 2:00pm: Lunch
- 2:01pm - 6:00pm: Free Time
- 6:01pm - 9:00pm: Dinner
- 9:01pm - 10:00pm: Lockdown
- 10:01pm - 6:00am: Lights out