Reviewed on: PC
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Publisher: Raw Fury
Developer: Dogubomb
Release: April 10, 2025
Rating: Everyone

Mysteries are one of my favorite elements in storytelling, and that goes double for video games. Whether you look at its roguelike, puzzle, or narrative design, Blue Prince expresses utter mastery over mysteries. The act of hunting for clues, unearthing secrets, and piecing leads together on the mental equivalent of a red yarn-covered corkboard is an unmatched thrill. It's a game that has consumed my every waking hour, and even after hitting credits, I'm eager to play a hundred more runs.

Simon, the star of Blue Prince, is a young teen who has potentially inherited his late great-uncle's 45-room estate, Mt. Holly, on the condition that Simon locates its mysterious 46th room. The vague and daunting task is complicated further by the manor's mysterious nature; every time you open a door, you have to select a room from a randomized pool to take its place, and every morning, the house completely resets. The day-based schedule gives the game a roguelike structure, where each run is spent drafting rooms in an attempt to fill out as much of the house as possible before running out of resources and starting over the next morning.

The chapel is a room with two exits – but it costs you a coin each time you enter it.

This fusion between the puzzle and roguelike genres turns out to be highly complementary. A roguelike's greatest goal is to hold a player for "just one more run," and Blue Prince's mysteries held me in a seemingly unending run-repeating cycle. Whether it was a one-room riddle I spontaneously cracked hours later in the shower or a multi-room puzzle with clues to pick up all around the house, it became difficult to resist the allure of one more trip into Mt. Holly before bed. It can become frustrating to lack one specific tool or location due to the game's randomized elements, but mysteries are so common that the hunt for one solution will lead you to discover several other problems to solve on subsequent runs. There is always something else to investigate.

The surface-level gameplay is a puzzle in and of itself. Blue Prince has you draft rooms, each with a different number of exits and effects, on a grid to create a path from the entrance to as many other open spots as possible. Each door gives you three options, and (with some exceptions) you can only draft each room once. With only 50 steps (which you spend when exiting one room and entering another), you must be mindful of how much you're backtracking, or seek out rooms or items to replenish your movement. You'll also need to find keys to unlock certain doors, gems to draft certain rooms, and items to help you investigate and manage resources.

A selection of three rooms: a bedroom, a storeroom, and a hallway.

Some rooms are dead ends, but might offer beneficial items or resources. Others have many exits, but force you to sacrifice steps or the ability to choose future floor plans. And sometimes it's a good idea to draft a particularly inconvenient room early in the run to remove it from the pool later on. Crafting the perfect layout remains thrilling and consuming for a full playthrough, even after the two dozen runs it took me to reach the credits.

Blue Prince's other puzzles take many shapes and sizes. The Parlor hosts a logic problem tasking players with finding rewards within three boxes, one of which always lies and another which always tells the truth. Another common room, which I won't spoil, has players solve increasingly complex algebra problems. Other puzzles involve secret levers, wordplay, cracking safes, water pumps and tanks, more wordplay, colorful buttons, and so much more. They are as varied as they are satisfying to solve. It's exciting to look back and think about how many I've mastered and how many more I've yet to figure out.

I played the majority of the game with my partner taking notes on the couch beside me, a setup I cannot recommend enough. Having a second person to talk with when I got stumped made a huge difference, and there are several puzzles we never would have gotten on our own. Note-taking is also vital, especially further in the game, when puzzles become grander and reference specific details across several rooms that you could never hope to remember otherwise. During the run I finally won, I pumped my fist in the air and hollered with joy at finally cracking one particular safe that had plagued me, a common occurrence when playing Blue Prince. These eureka moments would never have come without a partner and a notebook.

The notebook my partner used to take notes during our playthrough.

It's fitting that Blue Prince's story is also a puzzle of sorts, and its quality holds up to the rest of the game. Aside from the opening cutscene, the narrative is conveyed through notes left in the manor, often letters or memos written to or by the protagonist's great-uncle. What starts as a simple explanation of the events leading to the game evolves into a grand political story that stretches across generations. By the time I hit Blue Prince's credits, my initial interest in Room 46 was far surpassed by my interest in the game's other narrative mysteries. Even though storytelling is almost exclusively done passively through the environment, it's fascinating and emotionally compelling.

Blue Prince is everything I want in an indie game: a unique, creative idea brought to life with expert execution. Its combination of roguelikes and puzzle games feels effortless, with each aspect boosting my enjoyment of the other. Like the best puzzle games, it makes the player feel smart, and like the best roguelikes, it makes the player infinitely hungry for another run. Ultimately, Blue Prince is about mysteries. It harnesses the innate, burning curiosity one feels when seeing a closed door at the end of a hallway and crafts it into an unforgettable experience.

Score: 9.5

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