This is a judgement-free zone for those of us who suck at Blue Prince, the hit puzzle game about exploring a weird mansion. Critics and puzzle fans say it might be one of the best games this year, which is surprising because it makes you do math. And it’s not even just regular math; it’s math with made-up rules. But I’m here to tell you that there’s no shame in looking up those rules, or anything else that stumps you in this game. It won’t ruin the experience.
I came into Blue Prince thinking it would be more like Outer Wilds, a game where the puzzles help you unravel what’s going on in the story. Blue Prince is sort of like that, but it’s also sort of not. Discarded notes and newspapers help fill you in on what happened, but the focus of the game is on outsmarting its clockwork mansion. There are puzzles everywhere that only tangentially have to do with the story. Some of them only exist to help you progress through the mansion each day.
While there is definitely a joy in figuring out every puzzle on your own, there are times where you could have more fun by cheating a little bit and looking up the solution. Blue Prince isn’t the type of game that can be ruined by reading a guide or two. Most of the time you’re only going to spoil the logic of a puzzle — the order of operations or what to look for. The math puzzle, for example, changes every day. The answers can’t really be written down in a list — even once you learn what each color means, you still have to solve the equation itself on your own.
Other puzzles aren’t randomized, but they rely on you knowing what to look for before you’re even aware there’s a puzzle to solve. Reading just enough of a guide to understand what’s involved can be a great way to push through periods where you can’t seem to progress. It’ll also help you understand how the game is structured when you’re just starting out. On day 30 or so, I noticed a pattern with each room and hit up Google to see if I was on the right track and I saw a bunch of results about that specific thing. Instead of investigating any further, I continued playing knowing that something would come of it later on (and it did).
Blue Prince can be frustrating when a run doesn’t amount to any tangible progress. Until you understand how to draft rooms strategically, you’re going to end a lot of days with dead ends and no leads. This gets easier to handle with time, but unlucky runs never fully go away. Unique rooms tied to specific puzzles don’t always show up when you need them, and you won’t always have the right items with you to do what you want.
In those rare times where things line up and you’re desperate to make some kind of progress, take a peek at a guide or ask a friend to give you hints at what to do. There are people who have discovered new things over 100 hours into the game. Not every puzzle makes sense to every brain, and sometimes you just need a little nudge in the right direction.
