I’m not solely satisfied Dogubomb didn’t develop Blue Prince as a private reward to me, particularly. This exceedingly intelligent puzzler mixes collectively a shortlist of my prime game genres and ideas: First-person puzzling with a easy facade that hides a seemingly bottomless pit of secrets and techniques, roguelite runs that completely stability everlasting enhancements with the growth of your own expertise, drafting mechanics that capitalize on the perfect components of deckbuilders with out the luggage that comes with really being one, and even tile-based map building reminiscent of my favourite board game, Carcassone. Even if there are issues in that pile of Tom Stuff that don’t excite you as a lot as they do me, the mixture comes collectively fantastically. I’m nonetheless rabidly peeling back the layers of this onion after dozens of hours, however I’m already sure Blue Prince has secured its place as an all-time puzzle great.
You play as Simon, a teenage boy who has inherited the stately mansion of his well-respected and considerably eccentric great uncle, however might solely declare that inheritance if he can work out how to navigate the ever-shifting halls of the property so as to discover a hidden forty sixth room. It’s a pretty easy setup firstly (aside from the entire M.C. Escher shifting home factor), and whereas there are a lot of useful tips scattered round so that you can discover, you’re largely simply set unfastened to see what you possibly can piece collectively for your self. It’s a great basis, as a result of whilst you don’t at all times know what the following step could also be, your objectives are at all times clear enough that I by no means felt like I used to be simply wandering round at nighttime.
You most likely will really feel like you’re wandering round in circles from time to time, although. The meat of Blue Prince is the drafting mechanic you utilize to discover the home: You begin every day with a restricted quantity of “steps” which are spent everytime you undergo a door, and every time you open a new one you’re given three choices for which of the mansion’s many distinctive rooms might be on the opposite aspect. That means you’re filling out the nine-by-five room floorplan in another way each single time, connecting doorways and attempting to not hit useless ends as you discover useful gadgets and invaluable clues alongside the way in which. It might sound like nothing too outdoors the field, however it’s a actual delight to slowly gain mastery over this system.
Some rooms are simply easy hallways, whereas others play more diverse roles which are break up into coloured classes based mostly on kind. For instance, purple bedrooms typically offer you further steps when entered, yellow outlets can promote useful gadgets when you’ve picked up enough coins to purchase them, and pink rooms have damaging results (like obscuring your draft choices) that would throw a wrench in your plans. Certain rooms might solely seem when particular situations are met, too, equivalent to if you end up drafting on the perimeters of the home or when you get deep enough in. It was enjoyable to determine which needs to be my go-to rooms early on so as to set myself up for fulfillment later, gathering gadgets like keys to unlock doorways or gems that may be spent to draft particular rooms, after which utilizing that prep work to make focused dives towards a room or lead I used to be wanting to hunt down.
The precise “puzzles” tackle a selection of completely different varieties inside these rooms, however all of them are as entertaining as they’re devilish to unravel. Some have very easy math or logic issues, there are a few literal puzzle bins to search out, and others require a barely more sophisticated mixture of button pushes or lever pulls to unravel no matter that room is doing. But absolutely self-contained challenges like which are aspect dishes to what Blue Prince actually has to offer, and essentially the most attention-grabbing stuff feels nearer to unimaginable first-person puzzle video games like Return of the Obra Dinn or Outer Wilds. It asks you to actually take a look at the world round you, take notes on what you discover, after which use that data to make connections the place you possibly can – and it does so in that professional means the place one thing can really feel utterly cryptic on the outset after which brilliantly achievable whenever you lastly crack it. That may imply trying by way of paperwork to search out the mixture to a secure, decoding why sure objects are the place they’re, or utilizing the operate of a particular room to get previous an impediment some other place.
That final half can result in the one actual level of frustration I discovered with Blue Prince, nevertheless, which is that the best-laid floorplans of home mice and males can come crashing down with a few dangerous attracts. Don’t get me fallacious, there are very actual and efficient methods to help mitigate the randomness of which rooms are provided to you – each in phrases of studying what to prioritize and when you need to or shouldn’t take dangers, in addition to in everlasting upgrades I gained’t spoil that may make future runs more constant. But, plain and easy, generally you’ll need a room that allows you to flip left, do every little thing in your energy to set your self up to get it (together with gathering cube that allow you to reroll the rooms you draw), and nonetheless be as caught as Zoolander whenever you’re in the end given your choices. Those dangerous breaks are rare, however it nonetheless stings when an otherwise-good run ends since you simply by no means noticed the room you had been in search of.
(Tangentially, I additionally actually want you might save and give up mid-run with out having to cut your progress short by ending your present day solely, or on the very least that opening the menu stopped the in-game clock from ticking. Runs can typically stretch over an hour, which makes dipping out and in of Blue Prince a exhausting proposition – although that is solely actually a downside since I used to be taking part in on a desktop PC, as consoles and even the Steam Deck would allow you to droop it when you need to go do one thing else.)
Thankfully, any ache from that randomness is mitigated by the truth that there’s simply a lot to find right here that a given run is never a waste of time. You might not have been in a position to draft that particular mixture of rooms you had been after or attain that sure sq. you wished to, however odds are you continue to entered some new rooms alongside the way in which, and doing so nearly at all times added to the rising checklist of mysteries I’ve jotted down throughout a pile of handwritten notes. “Beating” Blue Prince took me about 15 hours, and attending to that forty sixth room is completely a satisfying puzzle to unravel on its own, however I even have far more objectives now than I did after I first set out. There are safes to open, doorways to unlock, books and letters to learn, clues to decipher, and masses of lore to uncover.
It’s spectacular how all of these non-obligatory puzzles are woven into and across the path of the “main” one – some are hiding in plain sight from the primary minute, simply ready so that you can understand they’re important, whereas others drop an unassuming string of crumbs in your means that lead down a deep and surprising rabbit gap when adopted.
Blue Prince was an extremely tough game to speak about with buddies who had been additionally taking part in as a result of the randomness of the drafting mechanic, mixed together with your own private sense of curiosity, can ship two gamers down very completely different paths. One time after I was round 5 hours in, I excitedly talked about I’d unlocked one thing to a buddy who had already performed 40, solely to study they hadn’t even discovered that factor but. And but, this fractal abode doesn’t frustrate by randomly withholding issues both, as a result of clues can typically be present in a number of varieties or locations; Once again, you’re at all times making progress towards one thing.
As you do get deeper, Blue Prince’s initially light-touch story additionally begins to shift more straight into the highlight. Discovering more about each your character’s great uncle and the bigger historical past of their household begins off as a little enjoyable set dressing, however it will definitely turns into as wealthy and compelling a purpose to maintain taking part in as any puzzle. The worldbuilding right here is doled out with a persistence I’m not used to seeing, with tons to study your family, the manor, and the nation it’s situated in, however none of that’s ever pressured down your throat. That made something I might glean about important historic occasions or advanced geopolitics really feel like a win that may nearly at all times help me clear up future mysteries, not just a few “lore” to examine in books or letters after which transfer on from.
Still avoiding spoilers like laser tripwires in a Mission Impossible entice, that story and its themes neatly tie into your actions in a means few video games are in a position to pull off so efficiently. Piecing collectively the messy historical past of an prolonged and generally estranged household is never a linear course of – Simon wanders by way of the home he has instantly inherited discovering bits of info instructed from conflicting factors of view, and infrequently within the solely fallacious order. Trying to make all of the suitable connections as he goes from a boy merely fixing a enjoyable puzzle so he can win a prize to at least one who understands the actual reward this mansion holds mirrored my own journey with Blue Prince, which is the type of refined brilliance you don’t see in lots of video games.