Blue Prince

This is horrible. I understand that I need to play for a 100 hours to "get it," but I don't want to get it. I want you to give me something before I make the effort to get it, and you've already gotten something, namely my money, so please give me something before I give your egregore something. Trade deal?

Starts out as an easy A+ for me, truly one of the greatest experiences of the last decade. Yet by the end, it fizzles out to a C-. Still, I think I'd have to recommend it, even if just for the first half of the game, based on the ideas, mechanisms, story, lore and theme presented here. Some of the puzzles and ideas introduced are truly unique to adventure games. Many of the puzzles have clues presented to the player in totally different ways, so that you can draft completely different combinations of rooms and yet still catch glimpses of the hints and story. Early on, you're never forced to play a specific way. You can uncover rooms in whichever order you want, always finding little seeds that make you want to keep going. The early puzzles are exceptionally well integrated into the environment, and it feels like you are uncovering and discovering solutions on your own. By the end though, the puzzles become super obtuse, repetitive and solvable only through brute force. The randomness of the game itself prevents you from thinking up ideas on how to solve puzzles and then testing them out easily, because it might take you two hours just to test out a single potential solution. It's not like a standard adventure game where you can just try different combinations back to back (where even that can be obviously frustrating). Here you try one thing and if that doesn't work, you might have to play another two hours just to try again with a slightly different solution. It reaches a point where the game really prevents you from solving anything on your own. You'll lose interest in doing so completely. Clues become so cryptic and open ended and there are so many potential combinations of answers, that it all becomes a big mess. I feel towards the end the solutions should've been based more around the manipulations of the house, since through the game you've spent your time gaining power and control over doing so, and that's what feels empowering--instead, the house becomes secondary to hints that could literally mean anything. So many potential ideas as well are introduced that are never expanded upon. There are dozens of things that seem like they should matter but they don't at all. You're left with this idea that so much was cut from the game. It's also disappointing that there is no real ending, and extremely deflating when you see the reward you get for doing hours of work. Ultimately, you don't even know if you should keep going or when to stop, and it all literally fizzles out with no satisfaction at all. Although even through all this, the promise of the game will kinda drive you through maybe, and keep you going. The hope that the end is worth it. And the hope that there is more you missed. The various challenge modes do add a very nice element to the game however.

A truly innovative game. Fantastic puzzles that are extremely challenging yet rewarding to solve, an engaging gameplay loop that is difficult to master, and an excellent narrative to tie it all together. Blue Prince has quickly become an all-time favorite for me.

So...if I could leave a 'meh' review, I would. But I got this game on sale, so I'll recommend snagging it as such with two caveats: I like puzzle games, but A. I think that they should not be so reliant upon RNG at such a base mechanical level in order to function properly and B. that they are best handled when the person presenting them (in this case, the dev) establishes very early on just how detailed the puzzles are going to be, aka how much attention to detail is going to be expected of you as the player, in some fashion or another. There should be a VERY early moment of recognition and reward that makes you go "oh THAT'S how much I need to be scrutinizing details" and then that line should be respected as the expectation has been established. Stop. Moving. The Line, Dogubomb. If you want me to explore your layers, you GOTTA figure out a way to make me care about them MUCH earlier because by the time I realized how deep the rabbit hole was going, I 100% did not care enough to follow it any longer. Unfortunately, this did not feel particularly like a game that respected me as a player, but I also don't really have any suggestions as to how that could be fixed, and I *did* play long enough to manage to open the 46th door (in about 18 hours) on Day 22 with copious amounts note-taking and screenshotting, both via Steam, and an unabashed ability to either restart a day or look up an answer without shame after I realized the game itself didn't respect me enough to EVER establish a level of scrutinization that was going to be needed on my end, and I refuse to let something as trivial as a completely RNG-based puzzle game to cause me frustration to the point of no longer wishing to play, especially when it was one I was looking forward to playing as much as I was this one. Am I going to keep playing? Maybe for a little bit. I'm aware, according to my notes, that there is more that I haven't done, and I unlocked a bunch of stuff on my final run that I'll be interested enough to see how they affect gameplay going forward. Will I start a second playthrough, though? I mean, probably not. I get the feeling I'll leave this game when I do feeling somewhat unsatisfied at the delivery. I truly wished I had liked it more.

Blue Prince is a delightful multi-path game of fun puzzles and discovery. I highly recommend it for Myst lovers!

Simple, boring, grindy game with unmutable annoying music. Not worth your time, unless you care about the "atmosphere"

I have just reached room 46 for the first time, and i have to say, what a game, it made me feel smart, dumb, depressed and without motivation but at the same time overcharged with energy and a strong will to continue! I am not in any way, shape or form done with this game, reaching room 46 might just be the beginning, but i am ready to face what comes ahead I recommend this game to anyone, because when it gets you, i don't think this game will let you go, it certainly wont let me go (HELP IVE BEEN STUCK IN THE GAME FOR 18 HOURS IN A DAY AND A HALF). I am truly blessed to have been able to play and "finish" this game, and i would wish that everybody could experience it as well!

Unfortunately the game crashes constantly and can't go beyond the day 1, ruining the experience. I'm using a Macbook Pro M4 Max with 32GB ram.