Blue Prince

Starting with the positives, the puzzles are INSANELY good, the storytelling, the ambience, everything was really compelling. I found myself taking a lot of notes and screenshots of a lot of seemingly odd things, and theorizing on what those pieces could be and the feeling of managing to solve them was amazing. That being said, I was getting way more frustrated that enjoying because of the RNG. I get the game has a slow start, and as a roguelite you are able to make permanent upgrades across runs. But even with that I had many situations where a very solid run was killed instantly because of one single bad luck draft on a critical square (for example, [spoiler]managing to finally draft a room with an antechamber lever, but then the square that led to that antechamber door deciding not to show a room with a door going there[/spoiler]). I am really frustrated with the fact that this game has such a compelling mystery and puzzles, and the excitement I felt for those is completely overshadowed by the RNG. Those "I GOT IT" moments you have in other knowledge based games where you connect clues and rush to test your theory, are mostly useless in this game because when you have an idea on how to crack something, you have to wait for the stars to align so you can test it.

Above this review, you will see something along the lines of "247.3 hours at time of review." But this does not come close to describing the degree to which Blue Prince has captured my attention and become my obsession. I have dozens of pages of handwritten notes for this game. I have created entire spreadsheets to keep track of patterns, clues, and hints. Even when the game isn't running, I can't help but ruminate over this game's many puzzles and mysteries, and I have a feeling that I will continue to do so for a long, long time. Solving Blue Prince's many puzzles has been a challenge, but more importantly, it has been rewarding every step of the way. Every thread can be pulled, every stone can be turned, and perhaps even every mystery can be solved. It is so rare to find a game that so thoroughly rewards curiosity the way Blue Prince does. This is without a doubt, my favorite game that I've ever played. If you love puzzles, if you love mysteries, if you love games that reward you for obsessively keeping notes on every seemingly meaningless detail you notice... get this game. You won't be disappointed.

The game mechanics are really interesting and the mysteries are genuinely intriguing, but to solve the mysteries you have to rely so much on RNG and it just takes forever to advance.

The game opens on a lie: "I want you to start fresh every day and not rely on previous successes" There is in fact a lot of meta progression, but a lot of it relies on random chance, or absurdly cryptic puzzles. I like the tactical housebuilding and I like at least half of the puzzles that I've seen so far, but it still makes for a frustrating experience when you know what you need to do, but the house refuses to cooperate for over 5 runs. There are 2 good games here and they are strangling each other.

I love puzzle games, but this is more like a rogue-lite tile placement game with puzzle elements. The RNG can leave you with some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ situations and waiting through the annoying daily intro. There's some potential here, but it's not deserving of the praise it's being given. A few things I wish it would change: - Let me reorient tiles on my own. I know there's a way to do it later in the game, but pulling an L-shaped tile only to have its exit go right into the wall of a room I already placed is frustrating. - Let me back out of drafting after the draw. I don't care if you force that particular door/draw after the fact, but realizing that I left currency behind that I could use for this is dumb. - The stamina meter is honestly the dumbest thing in this game. Forcing a player to STOP EXPLORING IN AN EXPLORATION GAME is just mind boggling. Found two things that are connected but they're on opposite sides of the map? If you don't have the stamina, then I guess you're just screwed and you get to wait until the game deems you worthy of seeing both those rooms again (and hopefully in a favorable fashion). I want to like it but there's just too many things that turn this from a challenge into a slog.

Some aspects of this game are a bit frustrating or underwhelming - be it the random nature of the each run or narrative that is only told through notes and hints. However its a game that is like no other, a puzzle rougelike that does not get old. Really recommend if you're into both these things. And don't be afraid to check stuff on the internet if you're not hardcorde about reading every note throughly.

The best game ever. Whether you play for 10 hours or 100, you will always be finding new things. I've seen so many people play this game for HOURS (more than I should admit), and I'm so glad to finally be able to "build my own deck/house" now that the color-blind accessibility setting is in the game!