The credits have just rolled on Blue Prince, a goal that felt akin to attempting to exploring an open world RPG; you have a main objective, but every time you try to get there you just get carried away with exploring points of interest, and then you discover more side quests – soon, you’ve forgotten that you’re supposed to be looking for your kidnapped son. In Dogubomb’s Blue Prince, a unique strategy puzzle game, we play as Simon, the heir to Mt. Holly. In the event of Simon’s great uncle’s death, he is invited to the manor to claim his inheritance. But the only way that he can do so is by reaching Room 46. But there’s a catch to the catch: the mysterious manor has interchanging rooms which we must draft the floor plans for before stepping through each door, turning the mansion into an endless labyrinth of unexpected surprises and reveals.
As we arrive at the manor, a letter awaits for Simon from his great uncle, which details some strict rules: Simon is not allowed to bring any tools with him onto the grounds, nor is he able to take anything away with him other than the knowledge that he has collected, and finally, he must leave the grounds at the end of each day. We find out why as we approach our first door and are given three room floor plans to choose from to draft on the other side of the door. The room selection is entirely randomized using RNG (Random Number Generator) mechanics as we come to each door. And, at the end of the day, the manor resets and we start again.
While our primary goal is relatively simple, Blue Prince is anything but. Even if you set ahead, only focusing on reaching Room 46, it takes an immense amount of strategy room placement, resource gathering and sheer luck to do so. In fact, while I solved puzzles along the way, reaching Room 46 first was my priority, as I knew that any puzzles left behind could still be solved after the credits rolled. It took me twenty six hours to eventually get there. However, this was mostly due to bad luck when it came to drafting rooms on top of poor resource management when starting out. Other players could take longer, or get there in much less time. It’s safe to say that no two players have the same experience when it comes to Blue Prince.
In fact, Blue Prince is one of the few games where I agree with the sentiment “the game truly starts after the credits roll”. While it certainly seems like your average, run-of-the-mill indie puzzle game, which are usually around 10 hours long, it certainly isn’t. In fact, Blue Prince’s depth is currently incomprehensible to me, because every time I feel as though I have a good idea of what’s left to uncover, I find more.
We have four types of resources to consider while journeying around the estate: keys, gems, footsteps and coins. We start each day with 50 footsteps to begin with, and these reduce as we move through the mansion’s rooms. Once we run out of steps, the day ends and the rooms reset. To help us maintain footsteps are food items left around the manor, which we can consume to gain a few extra steps. To assist us with this are the coins we can also gather, which can be used in shops to purchase food and other items. The further we progress North of the mansion, the more doors we encounter will be locked, which we’ll need keys to unlock. This is where things start to get tricky, as in the event that we come across a locked door and have no more keys or doors to draft rooms from, then we’ll have to call it a day and reset the rooms. Some rooms also cost gems, which we’ll also gather as we journey through the mansion. Of course, running out of gems also means we have less options when it comes to the rooms we pick, and if your goal is to reach Room 46 then it’s essential that you try to draft as many rooms as possible in a single day and avoid running into a dead end, so you’ll want a full selection of different shaped rooms so you have the best chance of drafting rooms that will create a path to Room 46.
Inside these rooms is a myriad of puzzles, some of which won’t seem like a puzzle as you pass them, but you’ll later find a clue in another room and have the light bulb moment where you see the connection. Unfortunately, this leads onto my only criticism of Blue Prince and it’s one that I know a few players would disagree with: note taking. While I love taking my own notes in puzzle games, I do really wish that Blue Prince recorded any gathered literature somewhere in a journal of some kind – possibly sorted by room and recording absolutely everything we see so that the act of recording literature doesn’t give away any clues. A similar system was used in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes and while it didn’t make the actual solving of puzzles any easier, it just didn’t mean traipsing back through the mansion, trying to remember where we had seen that information before. Blue Prince has the added task of needing to draft that room too, and if you found the information in a rare room then you’re going to have a tricky time doing that. The alternative is, of course, simply taking screenshots, but why do this when the game could simply store literature or have its own in-game camera for ease?
Regardless, the puzzles in Blue Prince are spectacular and tickled my brain in a way that no other puzzle game has before. While you are doing the usual of translating cryptic messages and staring at a particular piece of decor to determine whether it’s a clue or not, you’re also putting certain rooms together just to see if something happens. Blue Prince is often one of those games where you’ll finish playing for the day and then suddenly think of a solution while lying in bed. It’s one of those games where there’s puzzles where you didn’t even think there were puzzles.
It’s also highly addicting and that can be credited to how short each day can be which very easily leads you into a ‘just one more try’ mindset. This is especially the case because things can go wrong so easily while other runs will have you discover a clue for another room and you’ll want to immediately start a new day so that you can focus on the puzzle within that room. It got to the point where I was dragging myself off my Steam Deck at 2am and then proceeding to have Blue Prince dreams – being unable to determine the following day what I had actually accomplished in the game and what I had simply dreamt.
Blue Prince is unlike any other game I’ve ever experienced, and it is an experience. From the sheer awe of its size and complexity to the way it engages the player to pay attention to everything around them. And, underneath it all, there’s a beautiful story to be told by uncovering letters and newspaper clippings, with its touching narrative being the greatest discovery of them all.
Jess played Blue Prince on PC with a provided review copy.
