Every year, there seems to be one indie game that really captures the imagination of the mainstream. Last year, it was Balatro (LocalThunk) and this year, it’s Blue Prince (Dogubomb)–a first person roguelite-like puzzle game. I have included the release trailer below.
I satrted hearing murmurs about it several days ago. I listen to Kinda Funny Games on the daily, and they had a fairly lengthy discussion about it with Jason Schreier from Bloomberg about it. Jason was raving about it after putting nearly 200 hours into it (and finishing it), and he said more games should be this smart and engaging. The Kinda Funny guys were also raving about it and how it has that ‘one more run’ feeling to it and how it’s definitely big brain energy.
Oh, and you need a notebook while you’re playing it. I am of two minds about that, which I’ll get to later.
The game is on Game Pass, so I installed it. And, here’s the thing. It’s first person. I get nauseous/sea-sick when playing first person games. I can mitigate it sometimes by fiddling with the FOV slider and other tricks of the trade, but I assumed this game wouldn’t have any of that. I don’t know why. Maybe because the last time I tried to play a first person indie game, it was What Remains of Edith Finch (Giant Sparrow) for the same reason. This was 2017, and everyone was gaga over it.
I knew better. I really did. I had watched the trailer and felt sick watching it. But I wanted so badly to be in on this because dark, brooding indie games are exactly my jam. I struggled along, dealing with the nausea until, uh, *spoilers* for a nearly-decade old game the flying bit. If I remember correctly, I got turned into an owl and had to fly. I instinctively retched compulsively and came thisclose to throwing up. I immediately quit the game and got a refund. I tweeted about my experience, and Giant Sparrow suggested using the reticule. I thanked them for the suggestion, but there was no way in hell I was touching that game again. The feeling I got while playing it was horrid. Funnily enough, Kinda Funny mentioned a fairly recent patch to that game. I looked it up, and the last patch was in 2022. It had nothing to do with accessibility, unfortunately.
Anyway.
I mentioned in the RKG Discord that I had a hard time with first person games and ruminated that Blue Prince would not have an FOV slider. Much to my surprise, someone replied that the game had it and a mouse sensitivity slider as well. That’s what got me to install it, and I spent the first half hour just messing with the FOV slider, the mouse sensitivity slider, and looked at the other options.
I unchecked the ‘smooth look’ option. I put on vsync. I moved the two sliders endlessly to find the perfect combination (though it’s not nearly wide enough to actually make a difference–the FOV slider, I mean).
And I felt nauseous the second I stepped into the game. Here’s the basic premise. Oh, by the way, if you have any interest in it, then do not read any reviews about it. Honestly, don’t read the beginner tips articles, either. Go in fresh and just enjoy the experience.
I will say, the premise of the game is underwhelming. Your rich and eccentric great-uncle dies, leaving his estate to you, his grand-nephew. The catch is that there’s a hidden room that you have to find. The reason I don’t like this is because it’s so overplayed. Ooooh eccentric old rich (white) man being so eccentric and whimsical with his will! Yeah, I’m not down with that at all.
I pushed it away, though, beacuse it’s just the premise for the game. It doesn’t matter, and it’s not the purpose of the game at all. I’m only on day…five I want to say so I can only talk about the very basic gameplay. The house is magical in that the rooms are never the same from day to day. Because reasons (game), you can’t stay in the house overnight, and the rooms are completely different the next day. The items you collect during the day are gone at the end of the day, too. I have seen in the Discord that there are some permanent upgrades.
You get a certain amount of steps at the beginning of the day (50 is default), and every time you go into a room, you lose a step. There are ways to get more steps. In my first run, I kept getting more steps. There are doors and when you open one, you choose one of three rooms you want to go into. Different rooms have different requirements (gems, keys, and coins are all things you can use to buy special room and other things), and I’ve only scratched the surface of the game.
Unfortunately, I was feeling nauseous and sick from the start, and it didn’t get better. The game was so good, though, that I had to play another run (another day). At the end of the second run, though, I had to quit because I felt ill. I wanted to play the next day, but could not. It’s the Pavlovian response that putting the game on gives me literal pain.
I played another run today. It’s still so good, but I felt ill again. I messed with the options again for fifteen to twenty minutes before I started, but there is no sweet spot, sadly. There are two puzzle rooms that I have come across so far. They have been very easy puzzles so far in the one room (though I messed one up, but that was on me). In the other room, there was a darts puzzle that I was quite proud to figure out and not just brute-force.
At the end of the second run, though, I knew I could not play another. I wanted to, believe you me, but my brain was screaming at me. I told myself that I could go back later that night, but I did not want to.
This is the sad to me. My first run, I was not really gelling with the game at first. Was that in part because of the nausea? Probably. But I’m also not a huge puzzle game person because while I like puzzles, puzzle games don’t usually click with my brain. Somewhere into the second run, though, this one did click. By the time I figured out the dart puzzle in my fourth day, I was firmly hooked.
And I don’t think I can keep playing. I tried to tell myself I’ll only do one run a day, but I know me. I won’t hold myself to that. And even that one run made me feel terrible.
Oh, by the way. Let’s get back to the journal thing. That’s the one thing that people say you must do. I didn’t for the first two runs, but on run four, I needed to write things down for the darts puzzled. Then I came across a memo that told me something about the notes I’ve found. I knew I had to write it down because I would not remember it. So I found a notebook and wrote it down.
I really like this game and think it’s very creative. It has that addictive ‘just one more run’ feel to it. Yes, the base lore about it is eye-rolly, but it doesn’t matter in the actual gameplay. It’s already being called a game-of-the-year candidate, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes puzzles.