Joint Venture: Prison Commissary Simulator Demo

The only honest job in the joint is the one behind the counter. This isn't it.

Welcome to the commissary at Las Almas State Penitentiary, and to your first three days running it in this demo of Joint Venture. By day you fill orders for the most dangerous clientele in the state; by night you move what the warden's catalog doesn't carry. Every transaction is a small decision about who you'd rather disappoint: the inmates who can shank you, or the guards who can fire you. Three shifts is all this demo gives you, and it's plenty of time to get rich, get fired, or get shivved.

RUN THE COMMISSARY

Learn the job fast. Take orders at the window, pull stock from the shelves, work the terminal, and keep the line moving. Order inventory, restock the shelves, sweep the floor before inspection, and squeeze a profit out of ramen, mackerel, and soap. The legit job pays the bills. Barely, and only if you hustle.

FOLLOW THE RULES AND REJECT RULE BREAKERS

Every customer comes to the window with an ID, and not every ID checks out: match the photo, the name, and the prisoner number before you serve, because a mismatch or a forgery is a write-up waiting to happen. The guards hand down fresh rules every morning, so all three days keep you on your toes: no service to D-Block today, limited stock per inmate, or more. Some days the yard riots and half your customers never reach the window. Read the day's rules, check every face against them, and turn away the ones who don't qualify, even the regulars who'll make you pay for it.

WORK THE SIDEHUSTLE

Drugs, shivs, nudie mags, smuggled phones. There's a market for everything inside, and you're the only store in the building. Buy low from your supplier, cut it down, and sell high to the yard. Three days is enough to run your first deals and feel exactly how good, and how dangerous, the money gets. The margins are incredible. So is the sentence if you're caught.

BEAT THE HEAT

Cameras that never blink. A patrol guard who stops to watch. Random spot-checks. An x-ray scanner at the end of every shift. Read the patrol, stash the goods in your pocket, and pray today isn't a search day. Get sloppy and the fines stack, your guard rep tanks, and the scanner starts beeping. Your prison pocket is the safest place to hide and smuggle objects.

MANAGE YOUR REP

Your prisoner rep keeps you protected and your customers loyal. Your guard rep keeps you employed and the searches gentle. Almost every choice trades one for the other: undercharge a regular and the yard loves you, but the guard watching just saw it. Let either hit zero, even on day two, and your run ends right there: fired, or shanked.

PLAN YOUR WAY OUT

This is a job with an exit strategy, and getting out is the whole point of the full game: smuggle the right parts past the scanner, build your tools in the quiet of your cell, and assemble everything you need to walk out of Las Almas for good. You won't be clearing the wall in three days, but the blueprint is already pinned up in your cell, and every part you carry is a part that can get you caught. The demo is where the plan starts. Wishlist to see it through.

KEY FEATURES

• Three full shifts: the complete daily loop start to finish, from your first order at the window to the last x-ray on your way out

• The yard's named regulars: a rotating cast of inmates with faces and grudges, from gentle giants to motormouth hustlers to the guy who counts the cameras out loud

• A new rulebook every morning: the guards change the rules daily, who you can serve, what you can sell, how much per inmate; read the board, check every face against it, and turn away the ones who don't qualify

• Both sides of the counter: hands-on, first-person shopkeeping above the glass and a full contraband sidehustle beneath it, every sale and every smuggle in your own two hands

AND WHEN THE THIRD DAY ENDS

That's the demo. The full game opens it all up: the long escape you've been quietly prepping for, more rules and events to juggle, a bigger black market, and store upgrades that turn the commissary, and your plan, into something that can actually get you out. If these three days hook you, wishlist Joint Venture on Steam so you're there when the full sentence starts.