Blue Prince GBAtemp review
Computer
Product Information:
- Release Date (NA): April 10, 2025
- Release Date (EU): April 10, 2025
- Publisher: Raw Fury
- Developer: Dogubomb
- Genres: Puzzle, adventure
- Also For: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
Game Features:
Baron Sinclair has passed away, and in his will, his teenage grandnephew Simon is named as heir to his manor and land near Mt. Holly. However, this is on condition that Simon finds the location of Room 46 of the 45-room estate.
This will be no simple task as the manor’s layout changes every dawn, and it hides more secrets than meets the eye. Will you be the architect who maps out the mysteries of Mt. Holly?
Mystery at Mt. Holly
While the premise of Blue Prince is rather simple, there is more story than the quest to claim your inheritance. As you explore Mt. Holly’s manor, you’ll learn that this is as much of an exploration game as it is a puzzle-solving game. There’s an interesting layer of secondhand and environmental storytelling as you venture in search of the cryptic Room 46 to the tune of atmospheric jazz tracks.
By poking around, reading notes and picking up letters in a point-and-click fashion, you will get to learn more about Simon’s family, the Baron’s past and even the mysterious disappearance of a local author. These entice further exploration as you uncover more of the secrets and lore hiding within the manor.
While Simon is the main character, there are other characters that are gradually fleshed out, even if you never meet them. You’ll get acquainted through their letters and correspondences. As each has their own writing style and handwriting, you can slowly piece together their persona. This makes for interesting world-building as the characters are unique and layered.
However, it does take some time to paint a mental picture of each individual as you will have to take the time to explore and read what you find. You will do so in a non-linear way and you might find story elements in a non-chronological way for you to piece together. In this sense, Blue Prince puts you in the shoes of a detective-architect.
You’ll have to keep your eyes peeled, as interactive items are not highlighted. You will need to scrutinise your surroundings to pick up items and clues that can assist you in your progress. While this approach means that you might miss out on some items, it also encourages exploration and doing so will benefit your playthrough.
The Prince of blueprints
It’s no coincidence that “Blue Prince” is an alliteration of “blueprints”, as you will actively be laying out the blueprint of the manor in this first-person game as you search for Room 46. You begin at the manor’s entrance hall, which presents three closed doors. Opening one will indicate three possible rooms at random, and you must choose one among them to draft. Each possible room is unique, with some being deadends, others featuring a puzzle, and some storing items to be picked up.
There are three main items that you can collect and use to progress, namely door keys, gems and coins. Some doors are locked, requiring a key to be opened and explored; some rooms require one or more gems in order to be added to your current blueprint; while entering some rooms requires coins.
Once you have laid out a room, you would proceed to explore it before opening up another door and setting out a new path. You start each day with 50 steps, and entering a room generally costs one step, but some can take more.
After you have used up your available steps, you will have to call it a day. You will reawaken at the manor’s entrance the next day, with 50 fresh steps reallocated, but your previous day’s blueprint and inventory items will have been reset. The available rooms when you open the closed door at the entrance will have shifted, providing you with other options. This procedurally generated map layout mechanic will perpetuate in every day’s run, making each blueprint different.
Blue Prince’s roguelite approach makes each run feel unique and addictive, as each can wildly vary in length and content. In each run, you might encounter rooms and items you haven’t been in before. It’s further encouraged to place unexplored rooms in your current map as you might find new items or gather new knowledge.
Due to the randomness that rooms are available for you to explore, tutorials from scattered books are also randomly obtained. This can be troublesome at the start as you figure out which rooms do what, and after several days of exploration, you find a basic tutorial that you’ve already figured out. In this regard, the randomness could be eased, especially for tutorial access.
Blue Prince: a puzzle game of strategy, synergy and repetition
While the manor’s layout keeps changing every day, there is one room that is constant other than the entrance hall: the Antechamber. It soon becomes clear that this northernmost room has some relation to the mysterious Room 46 and that you’ll need to reach it to solve the mystery. However, you might be easily disappointed by finding that your day ends prematurely before nearing the Antechamber.
For example, you might inadvertently close off paths or might not have enough door keys to proceed ahead. It’s easy to be discouraged in such instances, but you should not despair as knowledge is key in this game. In each run, however long or short it is, you will learn more about the possible rooms, discover clues for puzzles and passwords, or even get some permanent upgrades that can assist your future runs. It is recommended to take notes of such findings as they can be reused.
As you discover the available rooms, you will be able to find strategies and even synergise your room layout to facilitate your runs. For example, you might want to lay out the breaker room and security room close to each other. The former can override the need for keycard access, while the latter will keep rooms with keycard access open.
Finding such combinations will take trial and error, and not every player will have the same experience. Blue Prince is indeed a slow burn game, as you will find more helpful items and “upgrades” as you explore deeper levels of the manor and beyond. This will not be a quick process, but it is not a game to rush through, and it’s “cosy” enough to lean back and enjoy in your own time.
However, there is a constant need for repetition, where you are bound to encounter the same room and the same puzzles. Some do get gradually more complex the more you solve them, and you encounter more challenging puzzles as you progress. But the core loop of respawning at the entrance, mapping out the manor’s layout one room at a time, finding items to proceed persist.
In addition, the randomness of the draftable room in a day’s pool can occasionally get frustrating. You might have some specific items that you know how to use but cannot find the right room to use them in. At other times, you might find a specific item in a specific room, but that item might not be there in another run. As you progress, you can unlock upgrades that ease the process, but the hurdle of the random elements is particularly felt early on in the game.
On a more technical level, it is a shame that you cannot save mid-run. If you have other commitments and need to switch off your PC/console, you will need to call it a day and lose your progress. A quick save option would have been welcome, allowing you to pick the game where you left off in a run.
Even with its reliance on repetition and randomness, Blue Prince is a well-designed game that feels clever and original in its own right. Its mix of exploration and puzzle-solving will entice fans of the genre, but there is a slow-burn nature to it all. However, sticking to it will be rewarding, as the game has more to offer than it lets on.
Verdict
- Addictive procedurally generated runs
- Original puzzles
- Interesting environmental storytelling
- Repetitive aspects
- Cannot save mid-run
- Slow burn nature
