Blue Prince is a puzzle roguelite. No – wait. It’s an adventure game with puzzles… No. Not quite that either.
Much like its premise, this great little game from publisher Raw Fury looks like one thing, but then it shifts around a bit.
The first game from Californian indie devs Dogubomb defines itself as a “genre-defying experience” and “an atmospheric architectural adventure.”
It’s a bit like a walking sim, and a bit like an interactive novel; a mystery, a story, and a game. It wouldn’t be here if it didn’t have elements of the roguish variety too.
It’s gentle, and interesting, and absorbing. It’s frustrating, complex, and the more you get to know it, the deeper you realise it is. It’s also pretty good-looking. No wonder I couldn’t put it down.
Mystery, Mountains, and a Mansion
You are Simon Sinclair. It is 1993, and you are not at home – instead, last night you slept in a small campsite in the grounds of quirky architectural marvel Mount Holly, your family’s ancestral pile.
Today, Day One, opens with your ascent up the steps to the Entrance Hall.
Before you, across the glass-like marble floor, there are three closed doors: one ahead of you, and one each to the left and right.
On the table in front of you, there is a letter.
To Be Opened in the Event of My Death.
It’s addressed to you, and it’s from your great uncle, Herbert S. Sinclair.
Uncle Herbie, may he rest in peace, is (or indeed, was) the Baron of Mount Holly – until his aforementioned demise. You’re here a few days later because, at his request, his title and his house now belong to you.
Well, almost.
The letter goes on to explain that you aren’t just getting handed your inheritance. Of course not; where would be the fun in that? To secure your prize, you must use the blank blueprint provided, the three doors and your wits to find the 46th room of the 45-room Sinclair estate. Find it, and it’s all yours, young Simon. Fail, and the inheritance will lapse. Simples.
A Drafty Hallway Indeed
You have a few things in your knapsack to get you through the task. First, the blueprint. 45 squares, stacked in nine neat ranks of five, indicate the potential floorplan of the house. Potential, because unlike many houses, the 45 actual useable rooms of Mount Holly (mostly) have no fixed position on the floorplan.
Two rooms do remain fixed: the Entrance Hall in the centre of the bottom rank, and the mysterious Antechamber in the centre of the ninth. To get from one to the other, Simon must open a series of doors. What lies on the other side each time depends on the draft.
There are many possible rooms, represented by cards in the draft pool. Opening a door drafts three possible choices. Choosing one commits it to the blueprint. Stringing rooms together by opening doors, drafting three more choices, and moving along and up the ranks allows Simon to explore Mt Holly room by room. Just keep exploring, find room 46 of 45 (whatever that means), and boom. Baron Simon. Simple.
Watch Your Step
Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that. You have, again at the behest of the Baron, only 50 steps to last you a day. Moving from one room to another costs a step. When your step counter reaches zero, the day ends and, faint with exhaustion, you retire to your tent in the grounds.
You are not, according to Uncle Herb’s letter, allowed to sleep in the house at night. You are also not allowed to take anything from the house to your camp when you leave. Each new day begins on a total reset; 45 rooms, 50 steps, and one big mystery.
Where the fluff is room 46?
A Room With a View (Or a Key, or a Gem..)
I think this is a really interesting set-up, and if you think the same, you’ll be pleased to hear it’s executed really well.
Rooms come in a number of different colours, and each type of room brings either bother or boons your way. Rooms must be arranged to avoid dead ends and allow you to progress. Special rooms can be opened with gems, steps replenished with food, and items purchased with coins. Some rooms have synergies, some have timed effects, some open up new parts of the game.
Most of it builds, piece by piece, the lore and world that you are discovering via a mysterious and well-concealed family story. As a story, it’s complex enough, and each new room or upgrade reveals a little more of what exactly Simon is inheriting.
As a game, it’s balanced well, and the drafts are not too repetitive nor predictable. This allows for lots of different strategies to build each run. You could focus on the direct route to the ninth rank, drafting corridors and secret passages and speeding through the blueprint. You could gather resources and abandon physical progress for story progress for a while. You can choose one of the many puzzles available and spend a few days focussing on drafting specific rooms to solve it.
The pace and approach are up to you, and although the drafts are random, I still felt a decent sense of control over the direction of a run. The puzzles are challenging, and most were not too frustrating – it’s not a proper puzzle without a level of frowning and pencil-throwing, I personally feel – and a wide variety of teasers and twisters await you.
Fans of What Became Of Edith Finch, The Unfinished Swan, or those 1001 puzzle compendia you get at train stations will feel right at home here. There is so much to do and everything is connected.
This is where the notes come in.
Take Note (No Really I Mean It)
Fourth-wall breaking hints can be found around the rooms, and early on one such note advised me to get a notebook. Pah, I thought. I have never needed an actual notebook for a game before. I play big games, usually – I put 200 hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition and I didn’t need notes. I’m not an amateur. I think I can handle this.
By (in-game) Day three I had a single note on the coffee table in front of me, and a new appreciation for how much an RPG really does keep the notes for you. By Day nine, Goodnotes was earning its subscription fee and then some, the kids were involved, and there were sticky notes on the dog.
There is SO MUCH to remember – and every little detail might mean something. Notes are CRITICAL. A crucial clue left behind in the early ranks might be out of reach if you are short of steps and stuck in the higher ranks, a gnat’s pube away from the Antechamber. You might not draw that room again for several days. If you didn’t write it down, you’ll be swearing as everything fades to black and, yet again, you ascend the steps on a fresh day.
Day ten: highlighters made their first appearance. By day twelve, the neat handwriting and colour-coding had gone out the window and the pages were starting to look more and more concerning to my loved ones. I was muttering colour combinations under my breath. Twice, I had to break off during a meal to write down something my brain had been working on. I dreamed about it. I talked about it. I was hooked.
The End…?
WARNING: I am going to briefly discuss the ending here. I don’t think these are spoilers, but be warned. If you don’t want to know, scroll to the next heading. It’s OK. I won’t mind.
I rolled the credits on my first successful run on Day 53. Irl, this took me around 50 hours across about ten days. Was there a lot of cheering? Yes. Did I delete Goodnotes? Erm… Can I sleep? Well… no.
Like many rogue-ish games, the end isn’t really the end. I mean, it would be disappointing if it was. I was just getting good at this, after all. Sure, I found Room 46, and I’m enjoying making the kids address me as Baron Simon… but there are still so many stones left unturned.
I suspect, Hades-like, if I want to understand the full story of my (Simon’s) eff-ed up family, I will have to roll up my sleeves and go again. And again. And again…
You know that feeling when you finish a good story, and you feel a little sad because you didn’t want it to end? Perish the thought: there is clearly much left to discover here. It’s not often I go back once I’ve “finished” a game – I’m not very patient, and generally repetition is kryptonite. I’m not easily hooked. Yet I learned enough by end of that successful run that I need to know more. I have questions. I have three rooms left to draw. And don’t start me on upgrades. There is real replayability value in them tharr hills.
An Architectural Marvel… or a New Build Nightmare?
Blue Prince is great, and the sooner we can wrap this up so I can go play it some more, the better, frankly. It’s nothing personal – I think you should probably stop reading and go play it too (come back when you’re done, though, yeah?). The pace is nice and measured, the puzzles are challenging but not rage-inducing, and the attention to detail is great. I could play a quick day on my lunch break, or I could lose myself all evening and go full CSI:Mount Holly.
The menus are simple, it’s easy to understand (even if my notes are not) and the connections, when you make them, are genuinely satisfying, but it’s a challenging game, too. Not an easy balance, but one I think they’ve achieved.
And my final mention goes to the lovely visuals, falling somewhere between a story book and a graphic novel, and bringing an element of environmental storytelling that brought an immersive quality to the proceedings.
It’s clever and at times, funny. The game, like the house itself, feels like there is always more to explore. I look forward to seeing what it’s got left, hidden in the halls of Mount Holly… and the sooner that update unlocks Dirigiblocks, the better.
Blue Prince is out now on PC (Win), PS5, and Xbox Series (where it is also available on Game Pass).
