The "game" I finished was good. Should I say, I stopped once I realized after the THIRD successful house completion that it was impossible for me to complete the run due to RNG I never overcame...And that each run would result in such a failure unless I rolled for it inevitably. The concept of making a puzzle based dungeon building rogue-like is fascinating to me. In a lot of ways they got it right. This is the presentation, the visual story telling, the early on "a-ha!" moments, set pieces, and very generally/broadly the progression mechanics. Unfortunately, you as the player can do everything right and fall incredibly flat; whilst having little to no ability to retry or reconfigure your luck without starting anew. I've read a handful of the reviews here, and anyone arguing that you can directly overcome these gimmicks - especially early on - is lying to you. And it's not a challenging "get gud" issue. It's just straight up luck. Luck where you won't know if you hit the jackpot until an hour later once you've finally reached the deepest chamber; only to realize you're missing a key piece that never unlocked for you. There is no save system here, outside of a few niche mechanics at play that you unlock as you complete lateral puzzles less directly tied to the game's first story. This is why a lot of people get torn up on this work as a whole. Parts of it are award winning. The rest of it is masochistic and self flagellating in order to pad out a story which is neither rewarding or imminent.
I do think there are parts of Blue Prince that are deeply engaging and worthy of sincere appreciation and investigation. Why the Devs found the need to then blow the foot off of curious onlookers mid journey makes no sense to me. I've played many puzzle games throughout my life. There is the DNA of Myst, with some crazy multiple story over-arching thematics akin to something like Antichamber or Blake Manor or Obra Dinn, with The Witness interactions reconfigured as a build your own Cube (1997) escape room. It SHOULD be a game in my top 10 given this overlap. Ultimately this work about time and space respects neither of yours. It soils what could be an incredible work by not allowing for knowledge influenced direction or mechanical autonomy in a substantive way. Only go in if you're willing to be a slave to its rules, under its conflicting - confusing - red flags and various misdemeanors against knowledge's progression as its new standard. Blue Prince at its core shifts from historical/occult bewilderment into frustration and tedium once you learn its tricks. The journey to test out theories or lines of gathered information just wasn't worth it for me, and I would argue that I'm a target audience member for such a game. Shameful, and I'm sad I'm unable to recommend it to most people.
