So I've been playing hard time 2D since it's debut in 2013 and thought I'd like to share my knowledge on the subject

Tip #1 Always do tasks given to you, you will earn some decent cash from it or make a friend if the task is from a warden you might get time shaved from your sentence additionally people might call you over the prison phone to give you tasks there is one task that shaves a ton of time off that is murdering someone when the task is presented to you, this can shave a ton of time off your bid but if you get caught... things might not end up well it's best to just murder whoever it is your trying to kill when the guards have their back turned or aren't around this can legit get like half your sentence gone

Tip #2 Join a gang or don't if you join a gang you'll have more people help you in fights while in a gang you might get asked to do a task whether it be bringing an apple to the yard or murdering someone gang tasks also reward cash. Additionally sometimes a guard will walk up to you asking if your a member of a gang this interaction can only happen when the player is in a gang saying yes to the question will automatically make you wanted for Conspiracy.

Tip #3 Stay away from cigarettes and beer eat healthy food like apples and bananas and meats you'll lose intellect and other stats smoking and drinking

Tip #4 avoid murdering and committing other crimes if you can walk away do so even if people hit you, the more crimes you commit the more time you'll be in prison (This is optional but it's ideal if you want a early release)

Tip #5 keep toilet paper and a bed in your cell these are basic things to keep in your cell and will help another thing I do is also have a dumbbell and tablet in my cell that way when it's lockdown if any of my stats deplete I can regain them back (also optional to even be in your cell)

Tip #6 Keep your mental state in check meditate in the chapel or shoot a syringe up However meditating in the chapel will reduce reputation you can also raise your mental state shooting buckets in the yard or sleep it off additionally you can drink a cola or eat chocolate to raise your mental state.

Tip #7 Never give money to people who say they are the "king" of this place and you need to pay your respects after all it's free rep if you say no and you can just walk away lol

Tip #8 Another good way of making cash is fighting people for money someone will walk up to you and offer a fight to the death for a sum of cash usually a good hunk of cash but beware you might catch a murder or attempted murder charge after the fight so you can try saving them to not murder them you can do so by grappling while they're down fighting to live

Tip #9 If your to much of a wuss to serve your time in prison or don't have a lot of free time in your real life sleep your sentence out

Tip #10 DO NOT WATCH TV IT WILL DESTROY YOUR INTELLECT

Tip #11 stay near the phones if you have a lot of money your lawyer might call and can shave up to half your sentence off with some money!! additionally you might receive calls like someone wanting the "rights" to your story other random events like your wife divorcing you your kids talking to you etc can also destroy your mental state

Tip #12 If you Have low health go to lunch asap or sleep immediately water is also a good source of health

Tip #13 If you don't want to catch more cases never pick weapons up

Tip #14 If you want to get through your sentence never I mean absolutely never serial kill doing so and being found guilty will net you 100 extra days in prison which is a lot

Tip#15 Spam walk left and right while under the showers your mental state will slowly rise

Tip #16 Playing the guitar earns you intellect and increases mental state useful if you don't want to lose stats while gaining intellect another great way of gaining intellect mentioned later in the guide is the tablet you can gain intellect by holding the taunt button

Tip#17 Not a great way to make cash but repairing damaged furniture (picking them up with x on keyboard and pressing x again) will give you 5 dollars

Tip#18 this one is pretty basic if your health is extremely high like almost full don't overeat doing so will make your character throw up .

Tip#19 Another thing I can't stress enough in this guide is maintaining your health try to keep it above half at all times after all it is "hard time" and your health will slowly deplete over time

Tip#20 pooping or peeing in the shower holds no downsides?! LMAO

Tip#21 if you sit down in a chair you will slowly gain health if your at full health but need mental state grab a beer sit in a chair and slowly sip, every time you loose health wait for it to regain then take another sip

Tip#22 forgot to mention this but when you get into fights and get in hit in the face sometimes you'll bleed sometimes your whole face can be covered in blood by the end of a fight to wash it off go to the bathroom and stand under the shower to wash all the blood off

Tip#23 when people are running at you full speed you can grapple (by pressing s) and you can use their momentum against them my favorite move by doing this is the reverse hurricanranna, the move is listed as momentum in special moves

Tip#24 As a guard you can even get tasks but just worded differently example: hey there officer *name* want to work some over time? deliver this baseball bat to whack ax

Tip#25 you can hand other people items by standing in front of them while they are facing you, then press x (make sure you don't have the left or right arrow key held when you hand them the item otherwise you'll throw it)

The spit n sweep strat
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Step 1 while making your character through the editor make your big attack spit
Step 2 get a broom and find a room with no one in it (or clear it by killing everyone)
Step 3 spit multiple puddles by pressing a and z at the same time (which is how you do your big attack)
Step 4 sweep it
Step 5 repeat step 3 and 4
You can also set your gamespeed to 250 to do it faster (120 is the default just in case you can't remember)

Another odd thing is if your released and you go back to jail, your uniform won't change color according to the cellblock your in it's an unpatched glitch so your going to have to go into the editor and click on your uniform to change the color instantly unless your assigned to the same cellblock it won't change.

Additionally your character can gain weight by working out and doing other things another small fact players might miss.. or realize, your character can also loose weight by running and gaining agility.

There will sometimes be a "Food Shortage" at the prison this means lunch will not be served which won't be an issue if you mainly get your food from vending machines anyway

Over time you will see default characters not in a gang join a gang this is random, but you'll notice it

Beating dead bodies with weapons is great for mental state (I know I just sounded like a psychopath but it works)



This is the best possible phone call you can get (Only happens when you have a lot of cash)
Also my purchase receipt to the right of it! I've been playing his games way longer then 4 years though

Sitting in chairs for a long time depletes agility



This is an old photo but another interesting call I've only gotten a few times, very rare

If you slam people into an already broken vending machine a food item comes out.


Lockdown is at 22:00 guards will hassle you if your not in your cell after that

A funny phone call I've gotten repeatedly is your wife divorcing you over and over, I'm like how does one person divorce another person 50 times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LblGCQ-5Sng

Suns of God:They are White supremacists who have shaved heads,glasses and tattoos they prohibit black inmates from joining and gay inmates.

The Ummah:A hostile muslim gang who wear turbans they can also be spotted praying

One Eye Open:The name says it they can usually be found wearing an eyepatch they also have tattoos

Los Enemigos:Latinos who are wealthy they also wear bandannas have rings on their hands you must have a lot of cash to be offered to join

Gang Bang:A gang made up of gay prisoners. They strictly prohibit straight people from entering and always wear shorts with one hand on their hip. They also greet people by French kissing them.

Roadkill:A biker gang that only has straight prisoners they have tattoos and black shirts

The Dark Side:A gang of black inmates who banded together to protect themselves from the suns of god They are easily recognised by their gold cross necklaces and most of their members are characters who parody real life rappers

Method #1:Digging a tunnel

Method #2 placing a ladder or vending machine next to the fence and jumping over the fence when on top of the ladder or vending machine

Method #3 Climbing the fence

Method #4 Glitching through the fence while walking against it holding furniture

Basketball - You can use it to play basketball in the yard you can shoot the basketball in the hoop by aiming with your directional keys and holding x and releasing depending on how you time it

Apples/carrots - A decent source of health depending on how much you can eat

Phone - sometimes you will find a mobile phone laying on the ground serves the same purpose as the ones in the main hall

Pay phone - There are 4 payphones in the main hall you can answer incoming calls by pressing x on whatever payphone is ringing, additionally inmates may taunt with this phone on occasion if you walk out of the scene while they have a phone in their hand it will disappear.

Knifes & swords - The basic knife does decent damage but is not as powerful as the sword which is often found in the chapel

Soccer Ball & Football - often found in the yard you can gain agility and a decent amount of mental state by kicking the soccer ball around in the yard, the football can be thrown the same as the basketball throwing the football gives you small amounts of mental state.

Snooker Cue - A decent melee weapon not the most ideal though

Broom - you can use the broom over puddles on the ground to gain money there are downsides to this though other inmates will notice and your reputation will decrease

Chair (Weapon) - can be found lying around the prison/wrestling arena a decent melee weapon effective if you have high strength

Camera - If you hold taunt while using the camera you will gain very little mental state, can also be used as an explosive exploding sometimes if you throw it

Toilet Paper - very useful to keep in your cell works the same as a toilet

Metal Pipe - A very versatile melee weapon works better if lit on fire as does every melee weapon pressing z and x together will light fires

Wooden Plank - It's a decent weapon especially if lit on fire

Trophy - Can be used as a weapon but if you hold taunt you will slightly gain mental state

BriefCase - not a good melee weapon unless you have high strength

Gifts - can be given to other inmates by pressing x when facing another inmate

Tennis racket - not the best melee weapon, kind of bad

Crutch - not the best melee weapon but useful if you break any bones or are injured

Meat (Food) - A very good source for health you can also gain strength by eating them sometimes

Rifle (Ranged Weapon) - It's useful especially when going on a killing spree.. that is if you want to get released

Machine gun - by far the best ranged weapon in the game very useful

Handgun - A decent firearm single fire, effective

Nightstick - my favorite melee weapon very effective

Syringe - Will fully restore your health and give tons of mental state can be found in the infirmary aka hospital

Guitar - will give you intellect/mental state with no downsides of stats!! found around the prison but sometimes chapel

Book - will give you intellect fast but at the cost of loosing reputation found in the library

tablet - can also be used to gain intellect also works great if your also sat down in a chair. you can also light it on fire and use it as a bomb

med kit - Gives you a ton of health usually in the infirmary at the start of the game

Dumbbell - the best way to gain strength will deplete agility can be found in the yard

Wooden stick - a decent weapon can usually be found in the workshop

Fire extinguisher - a very dangerous weapon to use, very explodable

Water bottle - very good source for health

Baseball bat - An okay melee weapon better if lit on fire

Chocolate bar - good for mental state not so much for health can loose agility by eating it

Sandwich (but really it's a burger) - not the healthiest option but decent for health and mental state

Slice of pizza - same as the sandwich

banana - a good source for health not so much mental state

Shovel - can be used to dig tunnels out of the jail also gives a ton of mental state while doing so however your health will slowly decrease while digging

Cigarette - horrible for health and agility but good for mental state it can also decrease intellect

Beer - same as cigarette

Dynamite - pretty self explanatory light it and throw it can backfire on you though

Soda - Great for mental state adds tiny amounts of health

Hammer - A very effective hard hitting melee weapon

Golf Club - A moderate weapon decent damage and speed

Revolver - The same as the handgun just a different look

Fork - somehow this melee is quite deadly

Microphone - Somehow one of the worst weapons in the entire game but taunting with it gives very little mental state

Knuckle Dusters - probably one of the best weapons in the game does extremely high damage

Hockey Stick - as for every wooden weapon it'd be better to light on fire also has a very far reach

Cash - sometimes you'll find a bundle of cash with a random amount of money pretty useful

Bag of coins - same as cash

My personal settings are

Game Speed 130

100% population

Resolution High Res

Displays clock+meters

Lighting On

Shadows On

Particle FX +Puddles

Update: the date is 4/14/2024 I have found the issue to the horrendous performance and that's the 120 game speed bump it up to 130 and then you can turn lighting and shadows on

If this doesn't help open task manager navigate to hard time right click on it press go to details
right click on it again and set priority to high
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Additionally if that does not work change your resolution to windowed and lower your population

Also keep in mind this game is a 2nd gen game meaning the FPS is hardcapped you will find this
all on his other 2D releases although the game will run smoothly if you have the correct settings

7/7/2024 I'm also pretty sure that alt tabbing can cause lag in a scene so avoid doing that unless your paused

Strength:The more strength you have the harder you hit good for fighting very easy to gain

Intellect:Makes you counter attacks useful for fighting in the hard time fandom wiki they say it also helps with court cases but I've yet to confirm this in the 10 years I've played this game

Agility:The more you have the faster you run kind of useful if your in a hurry

Reputation: the higher the reputation the more feared you are in prison (having higher rep can exclude you from some gangs but get you into some)

On occasion a warden you or someone else has killed in the past will come back to life as a robot this doesn't happen with every warden however.

Hard time 2D was featured in the 2015 guiness world records 2015 gamers edition you can see the image matt took at https://web.archive.org/web/20170421012632/http://mdickie.com/images/mags/mag_guinness.JPG

Hard time 2D was released in 2013 for mobile devices

Hard time is one of if not the leading prison sim on mobile

Hard time 2D was inspired by matt's original game Hard time 3D which was released in 2006 it's still available at his site mdickie.com

The judge Angelo Escobar is killable but will come back to life making him basically unkillable

The name of the prison is SouthTown Correctional Facility

The theme in matt's trailer was big boss mans theme which can be found here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76J2qu9r5c4&list=PL_jXT-nZVe2lDW8vott5aqBlmrgZhYjIe&index=11&ab_channel=WWEThemesandMore

If your having troubles with hard time 3D (the old one) try using this video as help to run it this works for virtually all of matt's older games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXVaMyO1QIo&ab_channel=Seal481

There is some leftover content from the mobile version of the game like a phone call advertising popscene 2D which as of 5/25/2024 isn't available on steam and might not become available unless mat ports it back wars 2D and wrecked 2D are also unavailable as of now

Mat deleted some faces from hard time 2D awhile back I also remember them here's an image of a few of faces that were removed

The dancing cigarette glitch (sometimes cigarettes will bounce up and down until picked up)

The Jesus Christ glitch - Sometimes when someone gets knocked off some piece of furniture or falls off of one they will float in the air

The inmate uniform glitch - When you get re incarcerated your uniform won't match your cell block which means you have to go into the editor and click on your inmate uniform once for it to change color

The not in our gang anymore glitch - A very rare one sometimes a gang you will never have been in will "kick you out of their gang" even though you never were in their gang

The black screen glitch - I'm not sure if this one really exists as I've only seen one guy encounter it on a forum in the discussions section if you encounter this try reinstalling your game.

The name quest glitch - sometimes when given a quest like digging a tunnel in the outside of the prison they'll say cell 8 of the park or cell 2 of the bedroom this is a glitch within the code of the game the tasks are still completeable though.

Progress Lost - I encountered this a few days ago lost a few week long save, I had like 25 grand on that save.. anyways if you encounter this your best bet is to just not think about it and move on making a new save. (And yes this one is extremely rare I think the reason was cause I alt f4'd or did something stupid) I also emailed mat about it and he said he could explain why that would happen

This one just happened today 5/14/2024 even though I'm a guard another guard came up to me and told me I'm being moved to a different cell my uniform changed to an inmate one this won't put you back in jail and you can get your civilian or guard uniform back by just going to the editor

Court glitch, I've encountered this a few times basically all characters stop talking in court and just stand there a rare one

The "civilian charged with escape glitch" essentially sometimes you'll be released and be charged with escape Note:Does not happen every time

This is an open thread as of now this game glitch wise isn't that bad at least for me

As a male inmate their is 24 options for your torso and 5 options for pants
There is also 35 options for beards and 30 for headwear. As a female inmate their is only 9 options for the torso and you can't have a beard the head wear is the same as the male inmates. As a civilian their is way more clothing options but still the same amount of beards and head wear an inmate would have, their is 103 heads in total to choose from.

Heights range from 4 feet tall to 8 feet tall

In terms of all of his games this one probably has the least amount of customization which is fine since most of the gameplay is in the jail anyways.
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The furniture is extremely interactive in this section of the guide I am going to go through what items of furniture really do and the upsides of having them in your cell or in general, also happy mothers day as the time I'm writing this section along with the customization the date is 5/12/24

Folding chair and office chair: Great for using the tablet in you also slowly regain health when sitting in a chair

Hospital bed, casket and the normal bed: Good for sleeping all better then the floor

Pool table:Useless if I'm going to be honest

Table:good for smashing people into you can also throw things on top of it if you don't have a place for it.

Carboard box, glass pane, ladder, steel steps, barrel and trash can: All of these are probably in the workshop none of them really serve a purpose except for the ladder which you can use to jump over the fence you can however repair them for money though.

Motorcycle: this isn't really furniture but it's the only vehicle in this game and I just wanted to include it as I didn't know where to put it in this guide compared to the cars in the other games it's horrendous and is more dangerous to drive

Toilet: serves two purposes I think you can guess what it does.

Christmas tree: usually found in the chapel serves 0 purpose but bodyslamming people into LMAO also is a vibe in the christmas season when you play this game

TV: Good for mental state horrendous for intellect I've mentioned this a ton but yeah this really only destroys your intellect

Praying mats: It's not really a furniture persay but I felt it needed to be included these can be found in the chapel and can be used by taunting great for mental state bad for reputation.

Vending Machine: THE MOST USEFUL THING IN THE GAME WILL SINGLE HANDEDLY SAVE YOU AND GET YOU THROUGH PRISON. You can maintain your health and mental state with these (Cola and chocolate is the best for mental state as mentioned thoroughly through the guide)

Furniture also gets moved around as time goes on to different rooms or moved around in general

This concludes the section of this guide

Injuries can happen in fights I'll list the ways they can happen

Getting smashed into furniture
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Simply just getting knocked down in a fight (Happens like very rarely)
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Opponent hits a grapple move on you (also kind of rare)
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When you get injured your stats will go down usually each of them go down by 5 excluding reputation
Additionally the time of being injured is random someone might also come up to you and say they used to be a doctor and that they can treat your injury for a certain amount of cash. Your movement will be hindered meaning you can't sprint and will probably need a crutch to walk.

The outside of the jail is similar to that of school days however none of the interiors except for the house is enterable their is also a wrestling arena below the yard (Wrestling ring can sadly not be entered)

Their isn't much outside of the jail or really anything to do, sadly their isn't shops like school days the game is kind of bland once released which leaves the player with only one option to get re incarcerated once again

Photo of the outside wrestling ring


Photo of the enterable house on the outside (The images are such high quality cause I used a flash decompiler to obtain it)

My shirt came in after 2 weeks of waiting, it was worth it though 5/18/2024




A PURCHASE RECEIPT I FOUND FROM 2018!

Once you've installed JPEXS Flash decompiler right click on hard time and browse files

Then in the search bar on the top right search "swf"

Double left click on SWF

A new tab will be opened you can basically now see every sprite and texture it might look something like this

And that's basically how you decompile it I guess I'm not really knowledgeable in this subject but yeah

This is more of a yapping section the date is 7/26/24 I've been aware of hard time 3 since November when mat made a post hinting at it I will no doubt dump a ton of time into that game and also buying it on launch all the videos mat has posted so far about the game give me high hopes and it will for sure be better then hard time 2D.

The date is october 11th 2024 I'm not really sure there's anything else I can possibly add to this guide if I add anything in the future it will be noted here