Blue Prince

I mentioned at one point that I had beaten Blue Prince – inasmuch as one can truly believe they have fully plumbed the depths of the bottomless puzzle pool that is Blue Prince, which at this point I fully believe I have done. But did I like the game?

First, an anecdote: a few weeks ago now I was a guest on the Blizzard Watch Podcast, and we asked editor-in-chief Liz if she liked Blue Prince. We then poked fun at it later because she hemmed and hawed about the game, talked about a number of things she did or didn’t like, discussed the weirdness and the puzzles and the worldbuilding and whether or not things like the letter I missing from every keyboard matters, and never got around to actually saying whether or not she liked the game. This is, I am finding, something of a common refrain.

I’m much the same. On paper, Blue Prince sounds like catnip for me. It’s like someone took the randomized house-building part of the first phase of Betrayal at House on the Hill and turned it into an entire game. That’s my favorite part! It’s got roguelike elements, in that your house is never quite the same from day to day. I’m a notorious roguelike liker! It even has a storyline you have to ferret out from environmental clues and puzzles, both obvious and non-obvious. It’s almost Souls-like in the way it does not want to actually tell you what the story is actually about.

Most of the time, I found that adopting a sort of zen state of mind with Blue Prince was the key to having a good time. Going in with one specific goal in mind was a recipe for disaster and frustration; best to keep a list of things that you’re chipping away at at any given time – one of the contents of my little blue notebook. At first, the game’s sheer depth of mini-puzzles is almost overwhelming. Having the overarching goal of reaching the 46th room of the 45-room manor is perfect as a first starting goal; you can just take what the game gives you and start to keep things in the back of your mind. Ah, I want a power hammer if I find that room again. Ah, that finger pointing at the ground looks suspicious, I should draft this again but on a day I have a shovel. Ah, I need to connect this room to that room to power it up and solve the puzzle therein. So on and so forth.

Eventually the puzzles sort of funnel; the more you solve, the more you realize the game is directing you towards specific sets of puzzles that all narrow down until finally you reach what could be considered an ending. (To its credit, the game outright tells you at this point that your journey is at an end. It also tells you that your journey never ends. Both are true, in a way: there is a short series of dense puzzles leading to a sort of unsatisfying and frankly kind of confusing epilogue at this point.) By the time you reach this point, this is where Blue Prince can go from fun to frustrating: you’re left to hope for specific series of rooms, or even worse specific items, to spawn together just so that you can do things in the exact right order, and is somewhat where I just started to want to be done with it.

Blue Prince could do a better job respecting its players’ time. It desperately needs a document system like that in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. I was lucky I was playing it on a Steam Deck, where it’s extremely easy to take as many screenshots as I want and reference them at any moment in game, but even that – probably the best possible system – is still fairly clunky at times, and it would’ve been nicer to just be able to consult documents in game. There are also just enough oddities that seem to point to dead ends and red herrings that it can be frustrating to pick out what “matters” from what doesn’t.

Also, every adult in Simon’s life except for most of the house staff kinda sucks. But that’s a different story.

Did I like Blue Prince? Sure. I had fun playing it, and I don’t regret that time I spent with it! Even my wife got into playing alongside me; having two sets of eyes really helps with spotting things sometimes. It had some interesting worldbuilding; I don’t know if any of it will stick with me, but I can sorta speak a fake foreign language now, and I’m sure I’ll slip a Mora Jai box into a D&D game. Am I glad to be done with it? Yeah. It’s fun, especially if you like its broader elements of roguelike puzzle housebuilder, but it kinda overstays its welcome by the time it’s all said and done.