Blue Prince

Blue Prince is a puzzle-adventure game about finding the elusive 46th room within a mansion that changes layout every day. Each time you open a door within the Mount Holly Estate, you choose which room to place on the other side, strategically exploring as widely as possible and discovering new information. Underneath this roguelike room-drafting gameplay are many layers of cryptic mysteries.

In Blue Prince, you play a young heir who has inherited a vast and possibly magical manor from an eccentric great-uncle, but to prove your worthiness, you must find the secret 46th room of the estate. Each day, you have only a limited number of steps, where moving from one room to another costs precisely one step. You can’t stay overnight, you can’t take anything home with you, and the mansion’s layout rearranges every night.

You explore the mansion in first person, but are equipped with a blueprint of the entire manor arranged in a 5x9 grid layout. At the beginning of each day, only the Entrance Hall, where you start, and the Antechamber, a mysterious room at the far end of the house, are filled in. Whenever you open a door, you draft three options for rooms to place on the other side and must choose one, which you can then enter and explore.

While this strategic room drafting forms the core gameplay, it primarily serves as a means to discover new rooms, find information and items, and uncover larger mysteries hidden throughout the manor. When placing rooms, you may need to balance different priorities. For example, some rooms have many doors or items like keys, coins, and gems that will help you explore further, while others may be rooms that you need for a particular objective.

This room-drafting gameplay has a lot of depth and, as you progress through the game, you'll discover new strategies and permanent upgrades to help navigate the manor more efficiently, preventing each day from feeling like a complete luck of the draw. However, randomness remains a major factor, which may dissuade some thinky gamers. To minimize any potential friction, take a look at our spoiler-free tips and tricks for new players.

Beneath all this, Blue Prince hides many layers of secrets and discoveries, revealed by solving puzzles throughout the manor. These puzzles are generally quite cryptic, although varied in form, requiring the player to discover clues and identify patterns across the entire house. With some rigorous note-taking and attentiveness, the player will make significant discoveries and learn more about the surprisingly detailed world in which the game is set.

Blue Prince’s rich visual design also enhances the experience. The rooms are highly detailed, and the cartoon-style line-art shader gives the visuals a stylized feel. Occasional photographs, notes, and books provide further context to the story and the world's lore. Its ambitious combination of strategic planning and deep, cryptic puzzling led to Blue Prince sweeping both Most Anticipated Game and Community Choice: Most Anticipated Game at the 2024 Thinky Awards.

This description was written by Gwen C. Katz with additional contributions by Joseph Mansfield.