“Blue Prince is the kind of engrossing puzzle game that will change your brain chemistry.”
- Ingenious design
- Satisfying roguelike hook
- Entrancing puzzles
- Constant discovery
- RNG can be a hassle
Night after night of frustration and euphoria have all led me to this moment. There’s no action, but my heart is racing. I feel like I’m about to emerge from a cocoon. There is another face beneath my own, another brain bulging inside my own.
Just a few more steps. That’s all it’ll take. A few more steps and perhaps I will be reborn.
It’s a Wednesday night. I’m laid up on the couch, just as I have been all week following a sleepless weekend. I’m still suffering from sleep debt after staying awake for 24 hours on Saturday night as part of a charity live stream. The only thing I’ve had the strength to do all week is clutch onto my Steam Deck and check out Blue Prince, an enigmatic new puzzle game published by Raw Fury. It had been on my radar for a full year after I was the first person to ever publicly demo it during last year’s Game Developers Conference. It has lingered in my mind ever since.
Now, one year later, I am on the verge of solving it. It’s a feat that comes after days of trial and error. I have scoured every changing corner of the mysterious Mt. Holly manor. My notebook is overflowing with clues, my phone full of blurry screenshots taken by my shaking hands. There are no vacancies left in my head. This is all I’ve been able to think about for a week now, and it may be coming to an end. Is that relief I’m feeling? Or is it a hint of slow simmering terror? What will I have left once I have earned my moment of triumph?
And then, another failure. Back to the entrance hall. Where it always begins. Deep breath. Don’t get frustrated now. Go back to square one. Remember your order of operations. Spread the pieces back out and put them together one by one. What do I know for sure?
Right. I know that Blue Prince starts with a death. My wealthy uncle has passed away and left me his estate in his will. I don’t know why. It hardly feels like I’ve earned it, but it’s my responsibility now. Or it will be, so long as I can comply with a catch in his final wishes: I won’t get the keys until I can find a secret 46th room locked somewhere deep in the manor. It’s just one house. How big could it be?
I’m in the entrance hall. It is Day 1.
I’m staring ahead in first person. I’m in a square room and there are three closed doors before me. I click on one and three tiles appear before me. These are the rooms that could be on the other side. Bedrooms, hallways, boudoirs. Each has its own layout of exits and entrances that I need to account for before making my sections. When I make my choice, I can then walk into that room and continue to the next door. Each room is filled with items to pick up. There are keys that will unlock doors, gems that I’ll need to draft rare rooms later, items with uses I’ll need to figure out as I go, and the occasional fruit that can restore my stamina, which I lose one point of each time I enter a new room.
If I lock myself into too many dead ends or run out of stamina, I’ll need to call it a day and come back tomorrow, when all the rooms will reset like cards shuffled back into a deck. It’s a puzzle game. It’s a roguelike. It’s a strategy game. It’s Blue Prince.
It grabs me immediately. I feel the tactile pleasure of a board game like Betrayal at House on the Hill. I am building a maze of interconnected passageways with each attempt. I’m an architect trying to squeeze as many square rooms as possible into a neat grid. I’m entranced in the same way I am whenever I make a jigsaw puzzle. It just feels good to watch my randomly drafted rooms click together into a space I can explore.
What have I learned since then? Well, I know that there’s more strategy than just making every room connect into one traversable path through the manor. When is the best time to play dead end rooms? Is there any significance to the color of the rooms? When should I focus on placing down rooms that will give me gems versus keys? I didn’t used to know any of this. I do now. Don’t lose hope; I have gone from a clueless kid to an encyclopedia of knowledge in just 50 in-game days.
I can find Room 46. Focus.
Look for solutions. Success in Blue Prince isn’t solely about reaching its ending; any run where I learn something new is a victory. There are puzzles within that puzzle, and puzzles on top of that. What’s with that dartboard in the game room with its glowing spaces? I’m now fluent in how to decipher it and find what’s hidden behind it. The boiler room that once seemed impossible to turn on is now pumping power through the manor whenever I draw it and place it on the grid. I know how this room interacts with that one. I finally know what that pesky green key was for all this time. Close your eyes. Lay it all out. Piece by piece.
Open them again. It’s a fresh day. I’m in the entrance hall. It is Day 50. I have dozens of leads on unsolved mysteries, which have stacked up over all my attempts. There are still locked safes and gates, but my mental map is becoming stronger even as the manor’s own keeps shifting. I have the information I need to get to my prize. Now I just need to piece it all together. One room at a time. I know exactly what I need to do this time. I start placing down rooms, waiting for specific item to spawn. It never does.
Day 51. Now I’ve gotten the item, but not the room I need to use it in.
Day 52. Finally, I’ve gotten both … and I’m out of keys.
Day 53. Madness sets in.
Shouldn’t solving the puzzle be enough? Why muddle that satisfaction with so much random luck that can kill a perfectly good run due to any number of X factors that are entirely out of my control? I’m starting to give in. Maybe I’m not supposed to find Room 46 at all. Maybe this manor isn’t a manor at all, but a rich and powerful man’s attempts to bury his secrets in a place where no one will find them. A safe with no combination. A tomb with no door.
No. I’m thinking too narrow. I’m trying to stick to one plan instead of adapting to the cards I’m dealt. This is a video game about growth and reaction, just as an action roguelike is. You don’t start button mashing four bosses deep; you build on everything you’ve learned and get further and further with each attempt. I start a new day and begin drafting. The closet goes here. The den goes here. I’m working towards a specific floor plan initially, but this time, I change course when I find a specific item. What if I use it here? Something clicks open and my heart rate begins to speed up. I start rapidly tossing down rooms like a railway worker trying to stay ahead of an approaching train. I can’t let it crush me.
Closer now.
Closer.
Closer.
This is it.
Eat that apple to top off your stamina. Grab this. Go back there. Press this. Deeper now. I exit one door and see another puzzle I thought I’d have to solve to get here in the distance. “You’re telling me I could have gotten here much sooner if I’d just done that?” No matter. I’m here now. This is where I’m supposed to be, no matter how long it took to get there. I press on, my pounding heart doing folly work for my character’s footsteps. Another hallway. Another room. Another hallway. Another room. One more button press. My entire body temperature shoots up in a moment. My ears are burning. Could it be? Turn around. Run. Don’t get lost. You only have so many steps left.
Now, look. A door. A voice. Black. And then, finally, credits.
I leap off of the couch. A week’s worth of pent up energy combusts like a house after a match is lit next to a leaking gas stove. I’m pounding my chest like a gorilla. Screaming. My body contorts, as if my skeletal structure is reforming into something stronger. It’s the kind of manic victory that’s usually reserved for beating a hard FromSoftware boss after hours of failure. A moment that was earned, not given to me. I did not inherit it through obvious signposting, a helpful hint button, or AI-generated guides. It is my own determination, patience, and willingness to learn that has led me here. No one can pry this away from me. I will take it to my grave, just as my uncle was buried with his secrets.
It takes an hour for me to start coming down from the high. I’ve paced around every inch of my living room in that time, only stopping to press my head against the door and catch my breath. It’s only then that I start to remember just how many mysteries I left unsolved. That one peculiar note. That gate I never opened. Flooded paths never drained. Unlit flames. Books. Colors.
Red.
I bask in my moment of glory one final time and then sit back down and turn my Steam Deck on again. I did not come this far just to leave so much unsolved, and I now have the confidence that I can tackle whatever brain buster is still to come. This isn’t a dead end; it’s a new beginning for the unshakable version of myself I found on the other side of that door.
I’m in the entrance hall. It is Day 1.
Blue Prince was tested on PC and Steam Deck OLED.
