PrisonBaLL › How to Play › Player Guide
You are seventeen years old, rated seven out of a hundred, and you have a ten-season sentence. Nobody on the yard knows your name yet. This is what the game is keeping score of while you change that.
You arrive as a fish — the yard's word for a new inmate — and the numbers are deliberately humiliating:
| At intake | What it means | |
|---|---|---|
| Age | 17 | Nine years before your peak |
| Rating | 7 | Out of 25 internally — the bottom of the pile |
| Potential | 74–95 | Rolled at intake. You never see it. |
| Talent | 1.5 or 2.0 | Your growth multiplier — always above average |
| Form | 50 | Neutral |
| Sharpness | 50 | Neutral |
| Mood | 65 | Cautiously fine |
| Energy | 92 | The one thing you have plenty of |
| Contract | 3 seasons | Then somebody decides whether to keep you |
The talent roll for a random inmate can come out at 1.0. Yours never does — it is either 1.5 or 2.0. You genuinely are better than the yard thinks. It just has no reason to believe you yet.
Your arrival costs somebody else their place: the weakest player at your club in your position is released to make room. That is the first thing the yard learns about you, and it is not in your favour.
Yard rank is a live 0–100 score of how the block sees you, and it is the number the parole board eventually reads. Five things feed it:
| Input | Max contribution | How you move it |
|---|---|---|
| Overall ability | 40 | 40% of your overall rating — the largest single term |
| Experience | 20 | One point per 8 career appearances, capped at 20 |
| Personality | 20 | Base 10, plus your personality score |
| Age | 10 | 0.9 per year over 17 — time alone earns some of this |
| Revealed ability | 10 | All ten at once, but only if the ability is a good one |
Note what is not in there: goals. You climb the yard by being good, being present and being known — not by scoring. A striker who racks up goals raises his overall, and the overall raises the rank, but there is no direct reward for the goal itself.
Those numbers put you in a tier:
| Yard rank | Tier |
|---|---|
| 0–34 | Fish |
| 35–54 | Soldier |
| 55–74 | Enforcer |
| 75–100 | Shot Caller |
There are no referees, and the yard has its own way of settling things. Your record tracks four numbers: fights taken, fights won, knockouts and — kept just as carefully — fights refused.
The game decides whether a man is the aggressive type from his attributes, not from a flag: bravery of 75 or more, strength of 78 or more, or a Maverick personality. If that describes you, the yard will find you.
The record counts refusals, and the block remembers them. Walking away is a valid strategy for a player whose value is on the pitch — but it is a choice with a price, not a way of avoiding one.
From season seven onwards, if your yard rank is 60 or higher, the board makes you an offer: walk out early, with the remaining seasons cut off your sentence.
It is offered once. There is no second hearing, no reconsideration later in the same career. Two futures, chosen in a single dialogue:
The board only comes for people who are doing well — which is exactly what makes it a real decision. A rank of 60 in season seven means the last three seasons are the ones where you would finally have been good.
When the gate opens, the game reduces everything to one title. The scoring is deliberately built to reward how high you climbed rather than how long you lasted — an earlier version let longevity dominate, and every career read the same.
| What is measured | Worth |
|---|---|
| Peak overall rating (above 45) | ×1.6 · up to 88 |
| Championships, Player of the Season, Top Scorer | 22 each |
| Other honours | 8 each |
| Goals per game | ×110 · capped at 60 |
| Highest division reached | 16 per tier · up to 48 |
| Career appearances | ÷6 · capped at 30 |
| Final status (above 40) | ×0.4 |
Add it up and you get one of five endings:
| Score | Title |
|---|---|
| 250+ | Yard Legend |
| 170–249 | Shot Caller |
| 100–169 | Enforcer |
| 55–99 | Soldier |
| under 55 | Fish |
The weekly yard rank tiers and the final career titles share the names Fish, Soldier, Enforcer and Shot Caller — but they are separate systems on separate scales. Ending your sentence as a Shot Caller on the yard does not guarantee a Shot Caller career. Only Yard Legend exists at the end.
Three things dominate: peak rating (up to 88 points), goals per game (up to 60) and how high you climbed (up to 48). Appearances are capped at 30, so grinding out matches has a firm ceiling.
The practical reading: getting to Division 1 is worth 48 points on its own, and productivity is measured per game, not in total. A short spell at the top beats a long one in the pool — and a striker who plays fewer matches but scores in them will outscore one who plays every week and doesn't.
The career log marks goals at 1, 10, 25, 50, 100, 150 and 200, and appearances at 1, 50, 100, 200 and 300. Goal milestones also raise your status, up to a maximum of eight points each — so the first goal moves you a little and the two-hundredth moves you properly.