To start off, I am very sorry for my absence for the last few months (has it really been that long, wow). From this point on, I’m making it a goal to post here at least once weekly, so we’ll see how long I can keep that up.

This review is free from any major spoilers, aside from the basic premise and mechanics of the game. Puzzles and the specifics of secrets are not discussed, though some thoughts about the ending of the game will be discussed. A warning will be shown before that point though.

This ‘drafting’ mechanic is primarily what set’s Blue Prince apart from other ‘escape room’ type games. Essentially, the Mt. Holly estate is divided into a 45 room grid. Each day of exploring, the grid starts off blank, with only a starting hallway and a sealed off room at the end of the house. Every time you open a door to a blank space, you are presented with 3 different rooms to choose from. You’ll have to be smart about the types of rooms you draft, balancing your resources and stamina, without blocking yourself off by drafting rooms with too few doors, forcing you to call it a day and start fresh.

This kind of a randomly generated, roguelike escape room is something that by and large, Blue prince pulls off masterfully. This is a combination of genres that shouldn’t work, yet does (mostly). Rarely did I feel too frustrated with having to call it a day, as each fresh start offered new possibilities for exploration and discoveries. That being said, the drawing and drafting of new rooms I feel suffered the most whenever I was trying to find that one room I needed to solve a puzzle I was working on, and the game just wouldn’t give it to me. It’s something that comes with the territory of RNG, yes, but that doesn’t make the experience less frustrating, and shows the limitations with a puzzle game that relies so heavily on random generation.

For the most part, I felt that the overall puzzle design was very well done. I don’t think there was ever a moment where I felt like I had run out of things to experiment with or explore more when I was a little stuck. As I mentioned earlier, it could get frustrating when my the information or equipment I was looking for was in a particular room that I struggled to draw, but other than that, I felt the game was well paced and gave an adequate number of clues, while still leaving enough room for deduction to let me feel like an absolute genius when I discovered something new.

IMPORTANT: I will be discussing aspects about the ending and post-game aspects of Blue Prince. No specifics are explored about the puzzles or game content, but if you would like a fully blind experience, than please stop here.

My playthrough ended when I found the 46th room. At that moment, I felt like I had accomplished the task at hand, and I could feel done. That being said, I know that there is a tonne more that the game has to offer, both from secrets I never got around to looking into, and also anecdotally from other people online. I haven’t looked too far into it yet, because I’m not sure how much more of Blue Prince I want to experience yet. The hard part for me is I just don’t really know what the goal is after this, and so I don’t really feel a tonne of motivation to continue playing, even though I know the game has a lot more to offer.

And I don’t know exactly why that is, because Animal Well similarly had a lot of post-game content, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. What my hunch is though, is that the difference between the two is an achievable goal to go towards. In Animal Well, even after you’ve reached the first credits sequence, you still have a goal beyond that– find all of the eggs. Not everyone will be into it, but at least those that are know that there is something that they can work towards. And I feel like Blue Prince doesn’t really offer that. I know that there is puzzles and secrets I never uncovered. But I don’t really know what the end goal of uncovering those is. Before the goal was to find room 46, but now the game just kinda goes “Here’s some puzzles, solve them and maybe you’ll figure out why you’re solving them.”

Because this is the first review, I want to lay out how I want to give ratings. I plan on giving games a scale of 1-10.

• 1/10 represents a game that fails to provide any of it’s promised experience, or is just wholly awful (in my opinion)
• 5/10 represents a game that is perfectly competent. It does nothing special, but it isn’t bad either. It’s fine, and sometimes we just want to play a ‘fine’ game.
• 7/10 is a good game. It’s great even. Not the greatest game out there, of course, but it’s a lot of fun, and well worth the time and money.
• 10/10 is a game that not only provides what it promises, but pushes the boundaries of the medium while doing so. It is a game that will forever go on a pedestal of gaming gold.
• 0/10 is a game that not only is bad, but has also been created using tools or practises that I feel cannot justify recommending it for.
• 7/7 is a game that seeks to do something very specific, and achieves that perfectly. It’s not the greatest game out there, but it is near flawless in what it is trying to do as an experience.

All that said, I would give Blue Prince an 7.5/10. If you’re into mysteries and puzzles, definitely pick this one up.

You can purchase Blue Prince here for $29.99 USD:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1569580/Blue_Prince/

Until next time! 😀

-Dr. Puzzler