Blue Prince Hands-on Preview – Wonderful First-Person Puzzling
[summaraize]
First-person puzzle game Blue Prince has been in the works for a staggering eight years, by developer Dogubomb. Publisher Raw Fury invited MP1st to get some hands-on time with this upcoming first-person puzzle game, and we happily obliged. Having spent some time drafting up rooms in a mysterious, ever-changing manor, we have our initial impressions ready to see how the game is shaping up.
All Ya Gotta Do Is, Find a Hidden Room
The title is a play on words: a major goal in Blue Prince is to find blueprints that add permanent upgrades to the manor, which persist, roguelike style, between days. The setup of the story is that you have been named as the heir of Mt. Holly, a manor set in some idyllic cliffs in a nondescript country. However, as part of their will, your dearly-departed family member has tasked you with finding the 45-room mansion’s heretofore unknown 46th room. How this mysterious room can be found is something that will be explained only by playing the game.
The mansion’s internal structure isn’t set until the player opens a door, and picks the next room to enter from a set of three options. Each room has a certain number of doors, from which more rooms can be drafted and created. Some rooms, such as storerooms, offer no additional doorways, meaning they are a dead-end. But this usually means they will contain resources. Rooms also have attributes such as color, while some generate resources including gems or coins, currency that can be spent in yet more varied rooms.
Each day, the player begins with a set amount of steps, one or more of which is spent each time they walk into another room. Some rooms, such as bedrooms, can restore a couple of steps each time they enter it, which means those rooms should be strategically placed whenever possible, to extend how long the player can walk around each day. If the player runs out of steps or otherwise chooses the end the day, the manor loses all of its rooms and the house must be re-drawn, basically starting over from scratch, unless the player happened upon some blueprints which permanently upgrade the mansion in some way.
Puzzling Room Drafting
During my demo session, we were quickly taught the mechanics of the game, which is a first-person puzzler where, for the most part, you’re simply moving around and interacting with objects. It was easy to learn how to choose what room I was going to walk into next, with a map that served as a quick way to preview how each room choice would affect the overall layout of the mansion. One room even included a puzzle involving a trio of boxes that had statements on them. My job was to figure out which of the three to open for my reward. In the interest of time, I was given the answer since there was no second chance, but I could see how Blue Prince encourages you to play with others, because writing out all three statements and coming to a group conclusion about which box to open would be entertaining.
While we only got a small sampling of the whole game, there were already multiple mechanics at play here. I managed to draft one room which caused all green-colored rooms to generate a gem, used as currency to draft some special rooms. This not only affected rooms I built in the future, but also affected the rooms I had already placed. I imagine at later stages in the game, you’ll have to do the calculations to see if you have enough steps left to re-visit all of those rooms, or if that energy might be better spent elsewhere.
Curiously, the steps are not affected while you are outside of the mansion. While stepping outside does cost one step, that’s all you’ll pay as you are free to explore the grounds surrounding the manor. It’s here where some evidence of your progress may be found, including a campsite to rest at/end the day inside as the mansion resets, and some areas which were seemingly inaccessible…for now. There seems to be a good amount of lore to read through and uncover, and I’m sure more of the story will be unveiled after multiple in-game days and many manor rebuilds.
High Quality All Around
When our time with Blue Prince was just about up, I happened to draft as my final room one that included a fortune teller machine. Thankfully, I still had at least one gold coin in my possession, which I fed to the machine. A cinematic, narrated by the mechanical fortune teller, then played, telling of my failure to find the 46th room. I’d love to come back and laugh destiny in the face as I find that coveted room after countless resets of Mt. Holly.
My time with Blue Prince gave me every indication that this is one puzzle game that most gamers will enjoy. It struck me as being very well-polished, thought out, unique, and refreshing. The roguelike mechanic where the mansion mostly resets with each passing day will provide with countless combinations of rooms that can be drafted up, while the upgrades found will ensure steady progress towards the overall plot, which any good roguelike game does these days. From what we saw recently, though, all signs are pointing to a great game most anyone can enjoy.
Stay connected to MP1st and the latest news by following us on Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Google News.
