{"id":4095,"date":"2025-04-09T00:10:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T00:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/?p=4095"},"modified":"2025-04-10T18:20:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T18:20:28","slug":"blue-prince-review-the-best-puzzle-game-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.isshicare.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/09\/blue-prince-review-the-best-puzzle-game-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Prince review \u2013 the best puzzle game of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\"Blue\t<\/div>
Blue Prince creates a different manor every day (Raw Fury)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The latest indie hit is also a surprise game of the year contender, as you try to discover the secrets of your great uncle\u2019s mysterious manor.<\/p>\n

Since the early 1990s, when Myst<\/a> and Riven wowed gamers with their pre-rendered CD-ROM graphics, puzzle games have been perfectly content not to explain themselves, letting players infer far more about their plot and setting than they\u2019re explicitly told. And that\u2019s certainly not something that\u2019s gone away in the last few decades, with titles like Gorogoa<\/a>, Return Of The Obra Dinn<\/a>, The Talos Principle<\/a>, and Lorelei And The Laser Eyes<\/a> proving utterly inscrutable for most, if not all, of their play times.<\/p>\n

It adds to the air of mystery and helps keep an open mind when you go about solving what can be pretty oblique puzzles. Blue Prince is a little different. It begins by setting out exactly what you\u2019re doing and why, even if its explanation poses more questions than it answers. Baron Herbert Sinclair has died, leaving his estate to you, his grandnephew, with the single stipulation in his will that you will only inherit it if you can locate the 46th room in his 45 room mansion.<\/p>\n

There are other rules. You\u2019re not allowed to stay overnight, all the items and tools you need for your exploration must remain inside the house, and you\u2019re not allowed to bring anything in from the outside world. You swiftly discover that\u2019s because Blue Prince has a roguelite structure, and that the house is completely dismantled at the end of each day, ready for you to help build it again from scratch the next morning using a special blueprint.<\/p>\n

That means you begin each session with just an entrance hall, its doors facing North, East and West. Played from a first person perspective, when you approach one of the doors you\u2019re presented with three random rooms. Some have useful items, others have plenty of doors so you can expand your map more easily, while others have debuffs that in most circumstances you\u2019d want to avoid.<\/p>\n

Placing a room on the house\u2019s blueprint instantly builds it, so when you walk through the door, it opens into the room you\u2019ve just designated, letting you collect anything inside and use its doors – if it has any – to build new rooms, corridors, and store cupboards. You\u2019re limited in your house building endeavours by the number of footsteps you take. Starting each day with 50, you use one each time you enter a room, with some knocking more from your total depending on their type.<\/p>\n

While you can top them up by eating food you find around the house, or receiving buffs from certain rooms, the number of footsteps you\u2019ve taken is a constant consideration in your travels and discourages unnecessary backtracking. Run out of steps and it\u2019s time to end the day and start again from that lonely entrance hall, but that\u2019s just one of the things that ends runs that typically last 30 to60 minutes.<\/p>\n

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