Nillo
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 550
Registered: 01-04-2004
IP: Logged

How have you guys been? I had to poke my head into this forum to check if there was a thread about this game, but to my surprise there was not. This has gotta be the puzzle game of the year, right?

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

Blue Prince is a strange combination of genres, and I've described it to people as "Carcassonne and Myst". Though I think Castles of Mad King Ludwig is more fitting, that game is perhaps too obscure for non-nerds to recognize... You have inherited a spacious manor from your uncle, and each day you start at the entrance and try to place rooms so that they open paths deeper into the house and trigger useful effects. The goal is to reach the mysterious "Room 46", but this will likely require many attempts, wiping the board and putting you back in the entrance hall.

What's interesting to me about it is that the game's puzzles are not overly punishing, and in truth most of them can be skipped entirely, if you just want to "beat the game". But oh boy does the game have a lot of puzzles, expanding fractally, seemingly without end. If you try to reveal all of the game's mysteries you are likely to go crazy. I've spent 180 hours on the game now and I'm still digging for more. Blue Prince is something quite special.

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“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

Gordius
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 98
Registered: 12-16-2008
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I'd strongly agree with this recommendation for anyone who likes "wander around and figure out what to do" puzzle games. But that comes with a couple of caveats:

1) Many of the puzzles in this game lack any real motivation other than "because it was there." Aside from trying to get to room 46, there's rarely any indication what solving a puzzle will achieve, which can be frustrating. Sometimes the result is interesting and obviously important and sometimes it's "Oh, I guess that's a bunch of coins I might have a use for some other day (but only also when I've put together a build that allows me to achieve this outcome)." I have one puzzle I've put a lot of effort into and am clearly making progress, but still have no idea what I'll use the answer for or whether it will be worth it beyond the satisfaction of having solved it. So just be aware of your personal tolerance for "well that was a lot of time spent on something that doesn't (currently/obviously) help me at all."

2) Because of its format, the game would benefit a lot from some kind of in-game notetaking mechanism, but doesn't have one. So expect to work in a place where you can have a (sizable) notepad handy and refer to it a lot. My normal setup isn't this, so I've had to make adjustments and personally, I'd much prefer to be adding my own notes to the in-game catalog of rooms.

Citrus
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1240
Registered: 01-08-2006
IP: Logged

Absolutely adore this game. One of the best cork-board and string required games I've played in a long time. It has that Void Stranger feeling of I have no idea how much deeper there is to go. It's surprised me several times thinking I finally reached an end state but it just keeps going.

The room drafting part of the game is a lot of fun. It's surprisingly malleable. There are ways to make rooms show up more or less often, you can upgrade rooms to let them have more stuff or be more useful, there are even a few difficult to set up infinite combos, one of my favorite things to discover in these types of games.

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Call me Citrus.