Found this on game pass (which I keep meaning to cancel, but here we are). Holy. Shit.
It’s a cute little cell shaded board style game. Might be fun to toy around with… Maybe just a couple more tries…wait what…?
It’s a masterpiece. It’s genius. It’s madness. It’s like Myst shot up the 7th guest and started snorting riddles.
Did anyone else stumble into this labyrinth? I’m obsessed.
For those interested. The game is actually based on a book from the 80’s called Maze. It was a contest offering a reward for the first to solve it. It’s only a maze in the same in the same sense Blue Prince is
By random coincidence, my wife has the book. You can definitely see the resemblance.
I was enjoying right up to the point where I stopped making progress and started getting frustrated at the random aspects of it. Even some of the self contained puzzles were taking a bit of trial and error.
The last puzzles are likely going to take a lot more hours than I’m willing to give it, not because they’re hard but because they require the stars to align before it’ll let you even try them. I stopped playing a while ago now, and I haven’t felt the urge to go back.
I don’t really have time for extensive puzzle games anymore, so I watch a YouTuber named Aliensrock. He’s still playing it, and I’m so invested! It’s insane that a puzzle rougelite can work so well and be so engaging with the story and mysteries. There are multiple ways to figure out each puzzle (except one so far), which is fascinating.
My mother got into it. I’m not going to.
A puzzle game that puts RNG in between the player and the ability to attempt a solution is something I’m not willing to tolerate.
how is it different from playing Riven with one of your sticks of RAM poorly seated so the computer crashes on a semi-regular basis resetting your progress?
No. Not for me. I’d be more interested in wearing the corner fire hydrant in my ass than playing that.
Do you feel the same about other games that involve random chance, such as roguelikes and RPGs?
That question is the thesis statement of a 2 hour long video essay if ever I heard one.
Most games involve random chance somehow to make the game feel more alive and less deterministic, like in an early Zelda game, should the Octorok run 3, 4, 5, or 6 tiles forward? Should it turn left or right? Should it drop a rupee or a heard when killed? These I’m fine with.
In an RPG, things like monster encounter rates might use the RNG to simulate the behavior of a dungeon master, both “roll for initiative” and “I’ll have them encounter 4 groups of low level monsters on their way through the creepy forest.” Using an RNG and lookup table for that is a reasonable low overhead way to add some unpredictability and adventure to the game. Note: I don’t really play RPGs that much.
The term roguelike has started to be overused to mean any game that features procedural generation and permadeath. By that definition I think Tetris qualifies as a roguelike. The original Rogue kind of worked like a virtual dungeonmaster, it would create an RPG campaign for you to play in, and then it played like any RPG where you have to explore a dungeon, learn the mechanics etc. with permadeath and the consequence of having to relearn everything you’ve learned thusfar generating stakes and pressuring the player to survive, no “whatever, I’ll just die and respawn.” So that’s an innovative use of a computer random number generator. Most things that call themselves “roguelikes” are more “We designed a cool primary gameplay loop but can’t really be bothered with level design so here’s some procedural generation to beat your head against over and over again, maybe hoping to find a scenario you can possibly win.” Quite often, it’s not that the game randomly re-engineers itself, it throws the same pre-scripted things at you in a somewhat different order, so they end up playing more like old arcade games than an actual adventure.
A “roguelike” I’ve spent the most time with is FTL: Faster Than Light, and its roguelike structure is by far my least favorite feature. I don’t really like beating my head against the RNG hoping a permutation of combats, 50/50 “do you help with the giant spiders” encounters goes my way so that I have enough scrap, and that it gives me a shop with a useful array of weapons so that I have a chance at the end encounter.
Blue Prince takes the randomization to a whole other level. It might be compelling if it procedurally randomized the house for each playthrough such that you do have to learn YOUR way through it, and you have limited stamina so that each day you can only explore so far, but you can get upgrades to your stamina so that you can stay in the house longer and explore deeper, but…I can’t see the way they implemented the game’s RNG as anything other than flagrant disrespect of the player’s time.
The “AHA!” moment in a puzzle game is what you’re after. That hapens in the player’s mind. If the player thinks up the solution, but the mechanics of the game make it take a long time to implement, all you’re doing is grinding the player’s teeth together. And Blue Prince seems designed to maximize teeth grinding, because the player may know the solution to a puzzle, but contriving the circumstance necessary to implement that solution requires several unlikely rolls back to back to back to back to back.
Sorry, I’m just convinced it’s bad game design pretending to be novel.
I found it to be a beautifully frustrating experience. There clearly are a ton of layers and puzzles can help you solve other puzzles. I appreciate the effort it took to make it, but it doesn’t feel like it respects the effort it takes to play it. Here’s some of my frustrations:
- At a certain point you should get a magic vacuum upgrade to pick up all common items in rooms. Hunting for gems and coins in rooms on my 25th day sucks and adds nothing
- I should be able to move at least three times faster. Fuck, navigating the house is slow
- It really sucks that the first time you “solve” the primary puzzle you actually can’t progress until you solve a separate other puzzle that is dependent on finding one room and then another, and that is not clearly indicated at all
- While footsteps eventually become trivial it’s an annoying resource when you don’t have full control over the layout of the house. So you can build a maze through no fault of your own and then you don’t get the steps to explore them
- Eventually there’s a special room you can pick every run. Why do you make me actually traverse to that room? It burns useless steps and again, is slow as fuck
- Additionally, the only “permanent” room you can place (to my knowledge) you can get way too early. So if you put that in a crappy spot you just kinda fuck yourself for the rest of the game
- Sometimes you will think you have solved a puzzle but need to assemble the rooms to implement the solution. So you can: spam runs and rooms to get lucky and find it, do normal runs and just hope you find it, try to manipulate RNG to maximize the chance of solving that puzzle. None of those are fun when you have a couple of solutions to try and you spend multiple in game days manufacturing that opportunity
- The items are kind of crazy. There is a puzzle that requires you to assemble three items in a specific room, then discover a separate other room, then get to that room to use that item. There’s like 15+ items in the game, how are you ever supposed to organically put that together? Also finding a metal detector in my first 5 days made me paranoid that every room was hiding keys and coins on the floor even when I didn’t have it
- Some of the puzzles are so obtuse and have so many layers that if you ever happen to solve one that you suddenly think all puzzles could be that crazy. I solved the chess puzzle before the periodic table puzzle and was building this wildly complicated solution to that puzzle when it was actually really simple
Despite my gripes I do think it’s a good game with incredible puzzles and a very unique design. I just think it doesn’t account for people actually playing it. I would bet there’s a really intriguing story under this but eventually I got so hung up on performing solutions I had already discovered I couldn’t be bothered to also discover the plot. I did read a summary after that helped contextualize things. Honestly what I’m looking forward to is when someone else takes these mechanics and refines it into a really cool rogue-like
Just here to agree with your thesis. It feels like Blue Prince doesn’t respect my time. So much of the game relies on luck but each round is 30+minutes long.
I got credits and uninstalled. I respect this game, but I’m not sure I enjoyed it.
Yeah I’m on day 45ish with no credits yet, a general idea of the story, most rooms unlocked and… feeling very meh about starting it up again.
I was trying to outlast my willingness to look up the puzzle answers, but I’m getting to the end of that.
Prior to playing Blue Prince I finished Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
I enjoyed that one so much more.
You have me intrigued. I’ll check this one out.
It’s great.
Played it with my partner, she is not a gamer but we had such a great time puzzle solving together.
1 part professor Layton, 1 Myst, 1 part avant garde Italian cinema
If you got credits, thats you completed the tutorial. The game has ridiculous depth and story to discover. I can totally see how not every one gets that
Oh I get it. I choose not to participate.
That’s fair. Not every game is for everyone :)
You’re not wrong. I’ve had most of these thoughts. I would appreciate more permanent upgrades to save time.
I won’t say it’s a flawless game. The depth is just so unexpected.
I played through the credits run solo. Now that I’m passed that, I’m bouncing ideas off a friend because it might take either of us ages to discover things like how to create certain items, etc.
I think it’s a master piece. I played a lot of it.
I do kind of have a problem with the RNG because at some point I already know what I need to do to solve a puzzle, but I just need to get the right rooms to be able to actual make the puzzle. I don’t have a lot of time to play games, so I gravitate away from it due to this.
But aside from that, I think this is one of the most amazing games I’ve played. The lore, the design, the puzzles themselves. I’ve had quite a few moments where I was completely mind blown with things.
I felt that way a bit too, but the game has so many layers of puzzles, that even a failed run has more to solve.
It’s kind of like watching Futurama. You still catch jokes on an episode you’ve seen ten times… Except clues in this case.
Often times you do, but plenty of other times there’s nothing left, and I think that’s where the frustration sets in.
Yeah it definitely needed some way to make it less random the further you got (more than it already did). The rng ended up just being a time waste.
I played it obsessively for a solid month or so following its release. One of the best puzzle games ever and still a GOTY contender for me.
I know some people didn’t like the RNG, but for me it never became a real big problem. You get some control over the randomness eventually, and I also just found the drafting part of the game enjoyable in itself.
Piecing together the story and the world building bit by bit and uncovering the mystery was also super enjoyable. It’s one of the most rewarding games ever for note-takers. So much so that keeping physical notes in a journal was like half my enjoyment.
I did find a few ways to control the randomness, but I’m wondering if there are many more? I basically got:
spoiler
The Coat Check where you can leave an item, and I think the well at the entrance of the mansion where you can drop a coin per day which increases your… luck or something?
There are several more. Some examples (light spoilers):
spoiler
Pick any room upgrades that give you extra dice. There are also two items that let you reroll, though they aren’t the easiest to acquire (but can be Coat Checked!). I also recommend looking into the Sheet Music puzzle.
There are some other ways to reroll or affect RNG, but I don’t know how to hint at them without spoiling too much.
spoiler
Oh I think I’ve seen something about sheet music but have no idea about. The dice and such are indeed practical.
Thanks!
I abandoned it.
I found some cool stuff. I even coincidentally solved a puzzle involving an ice box on my first go. But it was taking waaaaayyyy too long to find anything interesting, and I had multiple runs where it felt like there was no chance to build anything other than a straight path of rooms leading to a dead end, either from lack of doors, or lack of keys.
I actually like the dice roll of getting different encounters and adapting to what comes up; but only when the goal is generally to do well, eg dealing lots of damage or exploring new directions. But often there’s very particular objectives in BP and the UI doesn’t do a lot to help you track them.
Fair warning: the rest of this post has mild player character capability spoilers and a judgemental tone. No mention of puzzles or solutions, just observations about how people are playing the game and some talk about my own experience with it.
spoiler
Uncle Herbie must be posthumously disappointed in so many parallel universes. Looking through this thread, many people are quitting before finding out there’s multiple methods of not just mitigating, but almost entirely removing the randomness of runs. It’s understandable to some degree, but it baffles me to see so many people not knowing about nigh infinite drafting rerolls, room rarity manipulation, items that literally do a function they’re implying isn’t in the game like automatic collection of common objects, and more.
spoiler
I had ready access to all this at 30~40 hours invested and some of the further puzzles really require them; unless you’re literally just looking up solutions to each puzzle as you encounter it I don’t see how you’d be wanting these things without encountering them outside of maybe not knowing what to do to get a magnifying glass to spawn. Patience with investigative process and understanding of the drafting pool seem to be lacking among people who heard the game was good and tried it on a whim.
Like Outer Wilds, this game involves a lot of reading and connecting the dots on one’s own. Unlike Outer Wilds, a lot of the puzzling happens outside the game entirely, providing you no in-game method of remembering things or solving some puzzles. Very early on, the game tells you to keep a notepad for it, and it quickly becomes more than a suggestion. In my hubris, I didn’t take any notes until a fair way into the game, and had to basically repeat some of my earlier forays to get information I had thought to be extraneous.
Anyway I’m approaching 120 hours spent and having a blast with it still. I feel like I’m approaching or in the late game, as some of the things I need to do involve having already solved and re-used info from previous puzzles, sometimes more than once.
spoiler
I’m aware of the electromagnet. I think it’s ridiculous you need to find a compass, a battery, and a workshop in order to make it work. By the time you have all those are you really going to run around the house to hoover up items? If you want it on another run is that what you’re waste a coat check slot on? Also, it doesn’t collect gems or dice, which is stupid. That’s something you should just get permanently at a certain point
I played a ton of it, and it basically consumed everything I did, but after a while I just dropped it. I technically beat the game, but I think it’s probably the worst-kept spoiler that finding the 46th room isn’t finding more than a fraction of the puzzles the game has to offer.
At this point, it’s less of a fun payoff and more of just a feeling of “finally” for the puzzles. There’s a room that allows multiples of another room whose puzzle I never managed to figure out after multiple tries, even with heavy RNG manipulation. I have another puzzle that I have to have specific rooms to place as well, which means more RNG. When it’s giving good puzzles, the game is a wonderful onion. When you’re stuck on a bad one, you’re either cursing the RNG required for it, or wondering how the hell the devs could ever have expected that to be solved (looking at you, Room 8’s predecessor).
I’ve got what feels like a ton left to find, but it kind of feels like I’m at the point where the satisfaction is outweighed by the tedium or the sheer confusion the puzzles have. All that to say that this game has totally been worth it, even if I couldn’t find myself finishing it.
I had the same experience.
Up to room 46, it felt like every failed run built up to your eventual success, like any good roguelite. You failed, but at least gained a bit of knowledge, a permanent upgrade or improvement to the state.
Then you get to a point where each run is less and less rewarding and eventually give up. There’s nothing left to learn or upgrade, it’s now a fight with the RNG.
My opinion is that in the game you should have collected rooms over time, but be able to build the house with whatever tiles you have.
This would still require multiple playthroughs, as you need to rebuild the house for different puzzles, but also removes some of the RNG by tying it to finding new rooms rather than at every door.
My SO and I have been obsessed with this game for the past few weeks now. Unlike any other game I’ve played, this one makes you feel smart for remembering small details about things you spotted earlier, or when you look back on a note you took that is suddenly relevant.
That said, we are at a point now where we know roughly what we have to do, but we still need to slog through multiple days to get the rooms we want to appear.
We’ve built enough starting bonuses that reaching 46 isn’t really a challenge, so now the drafting just feels like a slog.
I think from here on out we’re going to be looking up hints just to get to the finish line. [Edit: spoiler tags aren’t working for me, removing them for now]
Hey! Not sure if you’re on an app or browser. I’m currently on the Lemmy browser. Doing
::: spoiler An example spoiler Something happens at the end of the game! :::works for me to make
An example spoiler
Something happens at the end of the game!
I’m curious to see if copy/pasting that on your end will look correct on my end, even if it looks wrong for you.
I got to room 46 then looked stuff up for the later more arcane puzzles. I still have some stuff to unlock but waiting until someone finds the last envelope
I played Blue Prince and Clair Obscur back to back on Game pass and I’ve got to say that these were two of the best games I’ve ever played in their respective genre. Makes me want to go back and try Myst/Riven.
That’s funny, I’m doing the exact same thing. Got credits on BP and then started into CO. I don’t think I’ll go for the full puzzle experience with BP, I’ve had my fill.
Regarding BP:
spoiler
Yeah, it feels like rolling credits on blue prince is just the beginning. I think you could have 100 hours in BP.
I feel the same way but will put more time into it if I get it on steam one day
Clair Obscur was awesome especially as a big fan of both old PS1 Final Fantasy and Sekiro/Souls games.
I’m switching between Blue Prince and some other games, but it’s still such a good time whenever I play it. But then again, I’m a fan of both roguelikes and puzzle games. Just didn’t expect these two genres to mesh so well.
To quote one of my favourite book series of all times (Mistborn): “There’s always another secret”.
Blue Prince is an awesome game, but it confirmed for me that I can’t stand roguelikes. Any game that’s based on repetitive loop where you do the same thing over and over for small progress is just not my jam. That includes multiplayer grindathons, MMOs and roguelikes/lites.
I guess as I got older, time became more and more of a previous commodity and feeling like I’m not moving forward in an experience kills it for me.
Nothing against the game. Just not for me.
I love rougelites/likes, but for me the issue was the RNG. When you have the knowledge to solve a puzzle, but can’t get the resources or rooms to line up right it just feels stupid.
The game wouldnt be half the length if I could just define the layout myself each day.
I thought I was the same, but I quite enjoyed hades. Though it’s not a traditional roguelike.
It has a good mix of mindless fun that doesn’t punish you when you lose and don’t make progress. The story does heavy duty in making sure each run, no matter how successful it is, is fun/interesting.
I guess I still don’t like rogue likes that much but I do like hades.
I keep wanting to love Hades but keep bouncing off it. It has all characteristics of what is want - great art, good story, solid voice acting… I think I am not into the combat mechanics though. Diablo, at least I would enjoy until I finished all the story and quests…
I can’t blame you. I was for forced to play it before I got into it. Forced by the fact that supergiant games can be er go wrong in my book 🙌. Haha
