Fair warning: the rest of this post has mild player character capability spoilers and a judgemental tone. No mention of puzzles or solutions, just observations about how people are playing the game and some talk about my own experience with it.
spoilerUncle Herbie must be posthumously disappointed in so many parallel universes. Looking through this thread, many people are quitting before finding out there’s multiple methods of not just mitigating, but almost entirely removing the randomness of runs. It’s understandable to some degree, but it baffles me to see so many people not knowing about nigh infinite drafting rerolls, room rarity manipulation, items that literally do a function they’re implying isn’t in the game like automatic collection of common objects, and more.
spoilerI had ready access to all this at 30~40 hours invested and some of the further puzzles really require them; unless you’re literally just looking up solutions to each puzzle as you encounter it I don’t see how you’d be wanting these things without encountering them outside of maybe not knowing what to do to get a magnifying glass to spawn. Patience with investigative process and understanding of the drafting pool seem to be lacking among people who heard the game was good and tried it on a whim.
Like Outer Wilds, this game involves a lot of reading and connecting the dots on one’s own. Unlike Outer Wilds, a lot of the puzzling happens outside the game entirely, providing you no in-game method of remembering things or solving some puzzles. Very early on, the game tells you to keep a notepad for it, and it quickly becomes more than a suggestion. In my hubris, I didn’t take any notes until a fair way into the game, and had to basically repeat some of my earlier forays to get information I had thought to be extraneous.
Anyway I’m approaching 120 hours spent and having a blast with it still. I feel like I’m approaching or in the late game, as some of the things I need to do involve having already solved and re-used info from previous puzzles, sometimes more than once.
spoilerI’m aware of the electromagnet. I think it’s ridiculous you need to find a compass, a battery, and a workshop in order to make it work. By the time you have all those are you really going to run around the house to hoover up items? If you want it on another run is that what you’re waste a coat check slot on? Also, it doesn’t collect gems or dice, which is stupid. That’s something you should just get permanently at a certain point
Blue Prince is an awesome game, but it confirmed for me that I can’t stand roguelikes. Any game that’s based on repetitive loop where you do the same thing over and over for small progress is just not my jam. That includes multiplayer grindathons, MMOs and roguelikes/lites.
I guess as I got older, time became more and more of a previous commodity and feeling like I’m not moving forward in an experience kills it for me.
I love rougelites/likes, but for me the issue was the RNG. When you have the knowledge to solve a puzzle, but can’t get the resources or rooms to line up right it just feels stupid.
The game wouldnt be half the length if I could just define the layout myself each day.
I thought I was the same, but I quite enjoyed hades. Though it’s not a traditional roguelike.
It has a good mix of mindless fun that doesn’t punish you when you lose and don’t make progress. The story does heavy duty in making sure each run, no matter how successful it is, is fun/interesting.
I guess I still don’t like rogue likes that much but I do like hades.
I keep wanting to love Hades but keep bouncing off it. It has all characteristics of what is want - great art, good story, solid voice acting… I think I am not into the combat mechanics though. Diablo, at least I would enjoy until I finished all the story and quests…
I helped a friend with exactly one puzzle, and thought the artstyle was cool. Am browsing this thread because I’ve heard about the hype and want to see if I ought to check it out myself.
It’s not a perfect game as I’m sure you’ve gleaned from this thread. It varies from individual to individual how much the RNG affects your enjoyment but I can understand some people’s frustrations.
That being said: it’s not a full price game, it’s an incredibly interesting and unique concept and it’s put together with an incredible amount of detail and care. It’s also made by a small indie studio, and I love supporting those. If the puzzle you helped solve seemed interesting and you like puzzles and escape rooms and piecing things together then you should absolutely buy it, in my opinion.
I’m not sure if I agree on the “full price” comment, it’s not much different in quality than Myst or Outer Wilds.
Outside of that I agree, the real deciding factor is how much RNG annoys you. I loved the puzzles and gameplay, but gave up after the “first” ending because there were a ton of puzzles I knew how to solve, but couldn’t get back to or get the right resources for them. Some might argue the RNG is part of the puzzle, but for me it felt more punishing than it should be.
I loved it, but I had frustrations. I think there are two almost perfect games in here, the tile based mansion builder and the myst like mansion explorer. Somehow I found that putting them both together resulted in a slightly lesser experience than either of them functioning alone. It’s a very minor blemish on a fantastic experience though.
Hadn’t thought about it that way. I would had enjoyed it more if the rogue like aspect was gone and you could just rearrange the mansion at will, unlocking and storing rooms whenever to try things out to solve the puzzles.
Ghost of Tsushima would’ve rocked even harder with a system like this.
maims a mongol/ronin/bandit
“YOU! GHOST! It seems I too am now a ghost! I’ve learned your style after my defeat, and through more practice, am ready to take you down. Fight ME, you weakling!”
Or something like that would’ve made that masterpiece even better. :'-]
Absolutely baffling that this isn’t free. I watched RTGame play it on YouTube and can’t imagine how ripped off I’d feel if I paid cash money for it. I had 1 2 Switch with my switch at launch and was instantly bored by it, but at least it was actually a game.
My SO and I have been obsessed with this game for the past few weeks now. Unlike any other game I’ve played, this one makes you feel smart for remembering small details about things you spotted earlier, or when you look back on a note you took that is suddenly relevant.
That said, we are at a point now where we know roughly what we have to do, but we still need to slog through multiple days to get the rooms we want to appear.
We’ve built enough starting bonuses that reaching 46 isn’t really a challenge, so now the drafting just feels like a slog.
I think from here on out we’re going to be looking up hints just to get to the finish line. [Edit: spoiler tags aren’t working for me, removing them for now]
Hey! Not sure if you’re on an app or browser. I’m currently on the Lemmy browser. Doing
<span style="color:#323232;">::: spoiler An example spoiler
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Something happens at the end of the game!
</span><span style="color:#323232;">:::
</span>
works for me to make
An example spoilerSomething happens at the end of the game!
I’m curious to see if copy/pasting that on your end will look correct on my end, even if it looks wrong for you.
I found it to be a beautifully frustrating experience. There clearly are a ton of layers and puzzles can help you solve other puzzles. I appreciate the effort it took to make it, but it doesn’t feel like it respects the effort it takes to play it. Here’s some of my frustrations:
At a certain point you should get a magic vacuum upgrade to pick up all common items in rooms. Hunting for gems and coins in rooms on my 25th day sucks and adds nothing
I should be able to move at least three times faster. Fuck, navigating the house is slow
It really sucks that the first time you “solve” the primary puzzle you actually can’t progress until you solve a separate other puzzle that is dependent on finding one room and then another, and that is not clearly indicated at all
While footsteps eventually become trivial it’s an annoying resource when you don’t have full control over the layout of the house. So you can build a maze through no fault of your own and then you don’t get the steps to explore them
Eventually there’s a special room you can pick every run. Why do you make me actually traverse to that room? It burns useless steps and again, is slow as fuck
Additionally, the only “permanent” room you can place (to my knowledge) you can get way too early. So if you put that in a crappy spot you just kinda fuck yourself for the rest of the game
Sometimes you will think you have solved a puzzle but need to assemble the rooms to implement the solution. So you can: spam runs and rooms to get lucky and find it, do normal runs and just hope you find it, try to manipulate RNG to maximize the chance of solving that puzzle. None of those are fun when you have a couple of solutions to try and you spend multiple in game days manufacturing that opportunity
The items are kind of crazy. There is a puzzle that requires you to assemble three items in a specific room, then discover a separate other room, then get to that room to use that item. There’s like 15+ items in the game, how are you ever supposed to organically put that together? Also finding a metal detector in my first 5 days made me paranoid that every room was hiding keys and coins on the floor even when I didn’t have it
Some of the puzzles are so obtuse and have so many layers that if you ever happen to solve one that you suddenly think all puzzles could be that crazy. I solved the chess puzzle before the periodic table puzzle and was building this wildly complicated solution to that puzzle when it was actually really simple
Despite my gripes I do think it’s a good game with incredible puzzles and a very unique design. I just think it doesn’t account for people actually playing it. I would bet there’s a really intriguing story under this but eventually I got so hung up on performing solutions I had already discovered I couldn’t be bothered to also discover the plot. I did read a summary after that helped contextualize things. Honestly what I’m looking forward to is when someone else takes these mechanics and refines it into a really cool rogue-like
Just here to agree with your thesis. It feels like Blue Prince doesn’t respect my time. So much of the game relies on luck but each round is 30+minutes long.
I got credits and uninstalled. I respect this game, but I’m not sure I enjoyed it.
If you got credits, thats you completed the tutorial. The game has ridiculous depth and story to discover. I can totally see how not every one gets that
You’re not wrong. I’ve had most of these thoughts. I would appreciate more permanent upgrades to save time.
I won’t say it’s a flawless game. The depth is just so unexpected.
I played through the credits run solo. Now that I’m passed that, I’m bouncing ideas off a friend because it might take either of us ages to discover things like how to create certain items, etc.
I played at 1080P and Medium Settings with Raytracing on low and it ran at around 60 FPS. I hear there’s a mod to disable Ray Tracing though that makes it run a lot smoother, especially on Steam Deck. I believe the benchmark i heard with the mod was around 60 FPS on low on Steam Deck.
I played a ton of it, and it basically consumed everything I did, but after a while I just dropped it. I technically beat the game, but I think it’s probably the worst-kept spoiler that finding the 46th room isn’t finding more than a fraction of the puzzles the game has to offer.
At this point, it’s less of a fun payoff and more of just a feeling of “finally” for the puzzles. There’s a room that allows multiples of another room whose puzzle I never managed to figure out after multiple tries, even with heavy RNG manipulation. I have another puzzle that I have to have specific rooms to place as well, which means more RNG. When it’s giving good puzzles, the game is a wonderful onion. When you’re stuck on a bad one, you’re either cursing the RNG required for it, or wondering how the hell the devs could ever have expected that to be solved (looking at you, Room 8’s predecessor).
I’ve got what feels like a ton left to find, but it kind of feels like I’m at the point where the satisfaction is outweighed by the tedium or the sheer confusion the puzzles have. All that to say that this game has totally been worth it, even if I couldn’t find myself finishing it.
Up to room 46, it felt like every failed run built up to your eventual success, like any good roguelite. You failed, but at least gained a bit of knowledge, a permanent upgrade or improvement to the state.
Then you get to a point where each run is less and less rewarding and eventually give up. There’s nothing left to learn or upgrade, it’s now a fight with the RNG.
My opinion is that in the game you should have collected rooms over time, but be able to build the house with whatever tiles you have.
This would still require multiple playthroughs, as you need to rebuild the house for different puzzles, but also removes some of the RNG by tying it to finding new rooms rather than at every door.
Good news, Ferb! I know what we’re going to do this weekend! I don’t know much of anything about this one, which is usually best, but I’ve heard the name mentioned many times, and your “review” just convinced me to give it a shot.
I don’t get much time to play, but being able to try out gems I otherwise wouldn’t have spent money on really makes Gamepass worth while for me.
Well if you don’t get much time to play, be prepared that this one is an onion that takes time. If nothing else dive in long enough to see how much time the dev must have spent putting this together.
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