Blue Prince Review – Puzzle Games Redefined

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Many puzzle games have significantly impacted the gaming landscape, like *The Witness* (2016) and *Return of the Obra Dinn* (2018). *Blue Prince*, the new puzzle game from Dogubomb, is poised to be remembered similarly. What makes it stand out is its unique combination of challenging puzzles and the unpredictable, replayable nature of a roguelike game.

Okay, so in *Blue Prince*, I play as Simon P. Jones, and I’ve inherited this huge, 45-room mansion from a Baron. Sounds awesome, right? There’s a catch though. To *really* get the inheritance, I have to find a hidden 46th room! But there are rules. I can’t bring anything in with me, and I definitely can’t spend the night there. The craziest part? The whole mansion changes every single day! Basically, I have to explore as much as I can each day, trying to reach this area called the Antechamber, which will hopefully lead me deeper into the mansion and, eventually, to that secret Room 46. It’s a lot of exploring and a race against time!

Although the basic story of *Blue Prince* – spending time in a mansion to earn an inheritance – is familiar, the game doesn’t reveal everything upfront. Instead, it slowly unveils deeper mysteries of the Sinclair estate through clues like journals, letters, computer logs, and the details of the mansion itself.

One of *Blue Prince*’s strengths is its gameplay, which creates a compelling experience with surprisingly simple mechanics. You move, interact with objects, and that’s mostly it – there’s no jumping or crouching. The game focuses on exploration; you’ll walk through a mansion, flipping switches, pulling levers, and reading notes left by others. Importantly, there’s no combat or real danger – your biggest challenge comes from solving puzzles and avoiding your own errors.

The game takes place within the Sinclair estate, which you explore one room at a time. When you’re ready to move forward, you’ll choose from three possible rooms to enter next. This choice is a key part of the game’s puzzles. Each room is different, and deciding where to go next depends on the layout you’re looking for. While the first room always offers three choices, later rooms may have fewer. You’ll need to balance your desired direction with the need to find useful items – keys, gems, coins – that you can use in other rooms.

Every room is different, and when choosing your next one, a key consideration is how the space is arranged.

Many rooms in the game feature their own puzzles. For instance, the Security Room appears early on and offers clues through a notice board and a computer that can also control keycard readers. The Billiards room presents a math puzzle with a reward, and the Parlor room has a traditional puzzle involving three boxes to find a prize.

When you first start playing *Blue Prince*, it’s common to fail because you’re still learning the ropes. It’s easy to get stuck with no way forward. This is one way to lose – the other is running out of steps, which act like health. You start with 50 steps and lose one each time you enter a new room. Because these are the only ways to fail, the game encourages you to try new things, like exploring unknown rooms or searching the mansion grounds for hidden secrets.

Blue Prince features optional ways to improve your experience. You can find discs hidden in rooms to upgrade them, giving you access to better items and healing. There’s also an observatory where you can discover constellations, which provide both helpful boosts and challenging drawbacks during your run. However, these upgrades aren’t essential – success in Blue Prince mainly depends on skillfully arranging rooms and solving its puzzles.

It’s surprisingly simple to get stuck in a situation where you have no options left.

Blue Prince stands out because it cleverly combines puzzle-solving with the roguelike format. Each attempt feels valuable, as you’re always discovering something new. Reaching a key area like the Antechamber unlocks a fresh set of puzzles, and you’ll need to explore to find the specific rooms required to solve them. The game also features subtle storytelling through letters and the design of the mansion, belonging to Herbert S. Sinclair. There are so many small details to uncover that the game even suggests keeping a notebook handy to jot everything down!

The game’s presentation greatly enhances the fun of playing *Blue Prince*. It has a charming fairy tale aesthetic with bold outlines, beautiful lighting, and striking colors. This makes it easy to spot interactive objects without sacrificing detail, which contributes to the game’s world and story. A neat feature is the rough sketch you receive at the end of each playthrough, showing what your designed manor looks like based on your choices. For example, focusing your exploration on the western side of the estate will result in a west-facing manor, and building an observatory will show its dome in the final sketch.

“The presentation also goes a long way in making Blue Prince an absolute joy to play.”

One great thing about the game’s art style is that it doesn’t need a powerful computer to run well. Even on my PC – which has an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor, 32GB of RAM, and an AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT graphics card – I consistently got high frame rates while playing at 2560 x 1440 resolution.

Honestly, the sound design is really clever. It’s all about not being distracting. There’s some quiet music that just adds to the mysterious vibe without getting in the way when you’re trying to solve a puzzle. And the voice acting, even though there isn’t a ton of it, is really good. They especially nailed Sinclair’s voice in the letter that starts everything off in *Blue Prince*.

Blue Prince offers a truly original experience, blending puzzle and roguelike elements in a way we haven’t seen before. Plus, the puzzles are challenging but not frustrating, making it a great game to pick up even if you don’t usually play puzzle games.

This game was reviewed on PC.

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2025-10-14 21:42