How to play parole

What happens when I join for the first time?

Most new players get the first-day quest: a bar at the top of the screen shows your next step and a blue trail points the way, from your first job to cutting through the gym window bars and out. /quest skip ends it for good.

Some get a camera tour of the prison instead, and some start with neither. On Java, /tutorial plays the tour whenever you’re a prisoner with no guard close by and no fight in the last 30 seconds. It isn’t available on Bedrock.

Who are the green Help NPCs?

Explainers. Each one stands somewhere in the prison and covers one part of the game: Jobs Help, Detector Help, Crafting Help, Schedule Help, Solitary Help, Escape Help and Gang Help. Guard Help stands in the guard office. Right-click one and pick a question.

/guide opens every topic from anywhere, and this page follows it.

Finish the first-day quest within 7 days of joining and you’re offered the Know-How quest: talk to every prisoner explainer for 15 chocolate.

Can other players kill me straight away?

Not for your first 10 minutes. Hits from other players do nothing, you look see-through to everyone else, and you start with Strength I and Speed I for 20 minutes. The 10 minutes stop counting during Lockup, Lights Out and Lockdown, and carry over if you log off.

The protection ends early if you hit someone, carry contraband, start digging, take an escape route (a tunnel, a rope ladder, a grappling hook or an opened door), get caught by a detector gate or the snipers, or stop being a prisoner. Detector gates, snipers, mobs and falls work as normal the whole time.

Any prisoner with no gear and no contraband (prison clothes, no weapon) also gets 30 seconds of it after joining or respawning, until they step off the spot.

Where do I get help?

/helpop messages the staff who are online. For their first 3 days new accounts get a gameplay tip every 3 minutes; /tips off stops them and /tips on brings them back.

/link gives you a code to link your Discord account in the parole Discord. Your first link earns a Tier 2 and a Tier 1 Loot Box, which you collect with /delivery.

How do I get a job?

Right-click the Job Office NPC and pick one: Rake, Laundry or Trash Bag (Mail unlocks at 20 escapes and needs 10 prisoners online). The Janitor hands out the Mop.

Two jobs have rooms of their own: take uncarved wood from the woodshop closet and carve it, or swat bees in the bee room.

While new-player help is on (/tips), holding the job item makes its targets light up.

How does pay work?

Every job pays chocolate as you finish a round: a few bushes raked, a set washed, a bag thrown out. Most jobs have a short cooldown (about 30 seconds), so you can switch jobs or run a few at once.

What does each job pay?

Rake: 1 chocolate for every 11 dead bushes. Mop: 1 for every 3 stains. Bees: 1 for every 3 bees, and the count goes faster with other players in the room.

Laundry: 1 for each set you wash. Trash Bag: 1 for each bag thrown into the garbage truck, sometimes 2. Woodshop: 1 for each carved piece you hand in, 2 if you toasted it in the oven first.

Mail: 3 for each delivery, sometimes 2, and 1 more with 36 or more players online.

When is the best time to work?

During Work Time (11:00 to 13:00): the first 5 payouts of each job pay +1 chocolate, and every mail delivery does. /routine shows the whole day.

Are there better-paying jobs?

Visit the duck just east of the gym for prisoner missions: pickpocket a guard, plant evidence in a cell or beat up a snitching dealer. They pay more, but guards may kill you for them.

Each mission pays 3 chocolate (a pickpocket sometimes 4), with 7.5 to 10 minutes before you can take the same one again.

What is contraband?

Anything with CONTRABAND (or BLACKMARKET ONLY) on its tooltip: escape tools like cutters, spoons and shovels, weapons and more. /iteminfo tells you about any item.

What happens at a gate?

With contraband on you, a gate makes you glow for 60 seconds, so every guard sees you through walls, and they all get an alert. While you glow you can’t use the ender chest, the gang vault or /role. Walk through clean and the glow goes.

What do guards do about it?

Guards must kill prisoners who glow from a gate or who have contraband out (holding or wearing it). Keep it in your inventory, and if a guard catches you holding it, drop it.

How do I see the gates in time?

While new-player help is on (/tips), gates near you light up red when you carry contraband, and the first 3 times you get close you also get a warning in chat. Go around, or stash it first.

Where do I craft?

Right-click a crafting table in the cells. The menu shows every recipe and what you’re missing. The materials come from the dealers around the prison: Timber, Sheet of Metal, Duct Tape and Files.

How do I make cutters?

Tool Handle = Timber + File. Sharpened Metal = Sheet of Metal + File. Flimsy Cutters = 2 Tool Handles, 2 Sharpened Metal and Duct Tape. Add Sharpened Metal and 2 Duct Tape for Sturdy Cutters. Flimsy ones break after one bar.

What is clay for?

Clay blocks some passages and vents. Dig it with a Plastic Spoon (left-click), which Hefty sells north-east of the canteen. Dug clay grows back after a while.

Where do I keep my stuff?

In an ender chest (cells 6 and 7): what’s inside stays safe when you die. It’s locked while you glow, in combat or as a guard. Everything else in your inventory drops when you die.

What does a day look like?

A day takes 21 real minutes, Roll Call to Roll Call. /routine shows it in game.

Each prison hour is one real minute, except at night: the six hours of Lights Out pass in 3 minutes. Click a period in /routine to get a title on screen whenever it starts.

What happens at Lights Out?

At Lockup head back to a cell. At Lights Out the cells close and guards must kill any prisoner outside one. On the bright side, the snipers stop watching at night.

Is there free food?

At breakfast, lunch and dinner the Kitchen Lady in the canteen hands out a free meal. Right-click her once per meal.

What’s the gym for?

Run on the treadmills for a Speed boost, hit the punching bags and dumbbells for Strength. It counts extra during Gym Time, and the boost lasts longer the more you’ve escaped.

14 reps make a boost, 7 during Gym Time. Each boost lasts 3 minutes plus a second for every escape you have (at most 5 minutes more), and boosts add up to an hour.

What are the showers for?

Standing under a running shower heals you (Regeneration I), and so does standing on a bed in your cell. During Shower Time a shower fills your hunger too.

What happens when I die?

You’re knocked out and wake up in a cell. Your inventory drops where you fell (job items and inmate clothes are lost), so anyone can grab it. The ender chest is the safe place.

A fugitive who dies is a prisoner again, unless it happens in the Temple arena while a Temple event is on: then you wash up on the shore, still a fugitive.

Who goes to solitary?

A prisoner a guard knocks out within a minute of hitting a guard, or of being BUSTED by the snipers or a slipped lockpick. During a Lockdown any guard kill sends you there.

How long is solitary?

About 30 seconds. Every hit you deal in there adds a second (up to 15), so stay calm. Leaving the server doesn’t help: you’re put back in when you return.

What do guards get from me?

Guards earn bits for knockouts: more for fugitives, good armour and tools. Kill guards and your gang earns gang XP, but each guard kill raises your bounty.

How do I get out?

Cut the window bars with cutters, dig through clay vents with a spoon, tunnel with a shovel, or climb, blast and grapple your way out. The tools come from crafting and the dealers. Reach one of the fugitive towns and you’re out.

What ways out are there?

Cutters cut iron bars. A Plastic Spoon digs the clay that plugs vents and passages. Shovels tunnel through sand and dirt, and a pickaxe breaks some of the stone walls.

A Rope Ladder lets you climb a wall (one ladder every 3 minutes). A Grappling Hook pulls you up onto a wall. Dynamite blows a hole in one, and only one stick can go off per minute on the whole server. The sewers run under the prison, behind drain covers you unscrew.

Switching the generator off (it takes a wrench) cuts the power for about 30 seconds: the cell doors and guard exits open, the lights go out and the detectors stop. A Lockpick opens some of the locked doors, if you can pick the lock; fail and you’re busted.

Open routes don’t stay open. When a guard finds a tunnel, the prison technician comes to repair it.

What about the snipers?

Cut bars, tunnel, break a wall, unscrew a drain or put up a rope ladder without a Cloak on your head and you’re BUSTED: you glow, the guards get your position and the snipers open fire. Jimmy sells Cloaks, by the gym. Digging clay with a spoon never sets them off. At Breakfast they also fire at anyone outside the walls, and at Lights Out they don’t watch at all.

What counts as an escape?

Walking into one of the two fugitive towns as a prisoner. Everyone sees it in chat, you get FREEDOM! on your screen and you become a fugitive. In hardmode you have to make your own way out.

What happens once I’m out?

You’re a fugitive: you get a fugitive kit and earn golden chocolate in the fugitive towns (the Fugitive Chief has jobs). Guards must kill fugitives, and if you die you’re a prisoner in a cell again.

Do escapes count for anything?

Every escape counts: it earns your gang XP, gives longer gym boosts and better meals, and unlocks things like Mail at 20 and /hardmode at 50. /escapebonuses shows them all.

Hardmode is a timed run with handicaps you choose (HalfHealth, NoAttack, DoubleCost, Hunted, Blind) and no ender chest. Starting one kills you, so stash what you carry first. Gang XP you earn during the run (guard kills, airdrops) counts 2.75 times, plus 0.5 for each of HalfHealth, NoAttack and DoubleCost. The escape that ends the run isn’t multiplied, but it pays 4 gang XP more than a normal one. The fastest runs go on a leaderboard.

Where do fugitives live?

In the two fugitive towns outside the prison. You join the server in your town, the towns have gym equipment of their own, and fugitives train a little faster than prisoners.

How do fugitives earn golden chocolate?

The Fugitive Chief (there’s one in each town) has three missions: smuggle contraband into a desk in the prison cells (3 golden chocolate), dig through clay (4) or kill a guard (4 to 6). Each has its own cooldown, from 5 to 10 minutes, and the first two pay 1 more with 3 or more guards online.

Shooting clay pigeons pays 2 to 11 golden chocolate depending on the colour, breaking cacti pays 1 for every 9, a Metal Detector (the Oil Foreman sells them for 2 golden chocolate) digs some up, and the fish-shop cats pay golden chocolate for the fish you feed them.

What do fugitives spend it on?

The fugitive shops, and the radio tower, which sells buffs: Reinforced Buildings, Guard Alarm, Air Radar, Uproot, Sharpshooting and Scurry. Golden chocolate also counts in black market bids.

How do I join a gang?

Open /gangfinder: gangs post ads there, and you can ask to join with one click. Or ask a gang in chat for an invite.

How do I start my own?

/gang create plus a name (3 to 9 letters or numbers) founds your gang right away, for free. You need 1 hour of playtime this season first. Then find members with /gangfinder recruit or /gang invite.

Guards can’t start one. The chat filter checks the name too: if it flags it, your gang gets a random name like Gang4821, and you can’t pick gang names or edit your gang’s banner for 7 days.

What does a gang give me?

Gang chat (/gc), friends to escape with and gang levels: guard kills, escapes and airdrops earn gang XP, and higher levels allow more members. With 3 members a gang can buy a vault (/gang upgrade vault) to share items.

How do gang levels work?

A gang holds its level plus 4 members. Levels also unlock new name colours (up to level 13) and up to 6 banner layers (the last at level 5), and wearing your gang’s banner on your head doubles the gang XP you earn. /gang top shows the leaderboard.

What are supply drops?

A guard supply drop comes by itself at most once every 90 minutes: it needs at least 3 guards and 7 fugitives online and enough guard kills lately, and never comes during a Lockdown. A guard can also call one in with a Supply Drop Summoner from the armoury. Opening one as a prisoner or fugitive gives your gang 35 XP.

How do ranks and the vault work?

The ranks are Gangmaster, Underboss, Gangster, Gangnon and Gangguest, and new members start as Gangguest. Gangsters and up can invite players and buy the vault, which costs 192 chocolate. Underbosses can kick, promote and demote.

The Gangmaster decides which rank can open the vault (/gang vaultaccess), and every gang can read its vault logs. A Gangmaster can also connect the gang’s own Discord server for gang chat, vault logs and events (see the gang Discord page).

When is the black market open?

Every 2 days and 17 hours the Rat King opens it under the prison fountain and announces it in chat. Prisoners and fugitives can come. Guards can’t get in.

How do I get in?

Through the port-a-potty: pull its lever and you’re flushed down into the market. It’s clogged while you’re in combat.

How does bidding work?

It’s an auction: items come up one at a time and you bid with chocolate and golden chocolate, which count together. If someone outbids you, you get your bid back.

Can I sell there?

Once you have 100 escapes you can hand in one item for each market, and the winning bid goes to you. Items are taken between markets, never while one is open.

What is a riot?

Staff start a riot now and then, sometimes once the server reaches a player count they announce. Every prisoner gets a shank, 3 bananas and a juice, and the contraband detectors switch off for about 9 minutes.

Rioters get a ⚔ next to their name. The game tells them guards can kill them while they have it; it goes when the detectors come back on, or sooner if they get rid of the shank. Hardmode prisoners sit riots out.

What is a lockdown?

With 35 or more players online and at least 10 prisoners or fugitives carrying a sword, axe, pickaxe or an iron or chainmail chestplate, enough guard kills put the prison into Lockdown. No period starts while it lasts (the clock runs on), the cells close, the snipers come out and the guards collect riot gear at the armoury.

While it lasts, any prisoner a guard knocks out goes to solitary, and riot officers can be deployed once it has run for 8 minutes.

How do I become a guard?

Play for 2 hours, join the parole Discord and link it with /link, then take the test with /apply (or /guardapply): short prison scenes where you pick what a guard should do. You need 90% to pass. If you don’t, you can try again after 4 hours.

Pass and you can switch with /role whenever there’s room (about one guard for every 7.5 prisoners online), with 6 minutes between swaps. You start as a Trainee.

Who may a guard kill?

Only prisoners you see doing something illegal: contraband out, glowing from a gate, attacking someone, outside a cell at Lights Out, in a tunnel or outside the prison, and all fugitives. Never for no reason, never just for a nametag, and never through a detector. /guardrules has the full list.

What are bits?

Guards earn bits for knockouts (more for fugitives and well-armed prisoners) and for answering /backup. They pay in the guard shops and count as guard XP: Trainee becomes Guard at 250 and Detective unlocks at 750. /guardbonuses shows the rest.

/backup can go out once every 35 minutes for the whole server, and anyone who switches to guard within 7 minutes of a call gets 8 bits. Finding a tunnel pays up to 10. There’s a daily limit on bits.

Detectives may follow prisoners into tunnels, escape routes and the fugitive huts, which other guards have to stay out of.

What upgrades can guards buy?

The armoury sells upgrades for bits once you have the guard XP: Gourdian (750) or Sharpshooter (1500) as a guard, Vampire (750) as a detective. Only 2 players can run the same upgrade at once, and at most half the guards online can be upgraded.

Who are the riot officers and the warden?

Both are picked by staff, not earned with guard XP. Riot officers are only deployed during a lockdown.

What if I break a rule?

A broken guard rule is a strike, and 3 strikes demote you. Breaking one on purpose is an instant blacklist. Check yours with /strikes.