Blue Prince is a pretty divisive experience. It's not for everyone, as each player's mileage will vary. The game has some pretty clear flaws and issues, but it also has moments that are a bit hard to come by in games. Aha moments where you discover something or context is given that makes things all fit into place. The sense of discovery and intrigue is genuinely there and rather compelling, for me at least.

But this isn't that much of a puzzle game. Not like Portal or Talos Principle. It's a strategy rougelite with mystery/detective gameplay beneath the surface, that uses puzzles as knowledge checks for said detective gameplay. The puzzling isn't really streamlined and the brain teasers tend not to be too challenging. They're like cognitive breadcrumbs to keep you engaged, enjoyable but not really the core of the experience.

The core that is there is picking from a set of 3 rooms over and over, weighing your resources, what you want to check out, where the rooms lead, etc. etc. That's what most of your time with the game is spent doing. You'll be investigating as you go, and there'll be moments where you unlock something new or figure out a mystery, and that's truly the highlight of the game.

But, that's also where the divide in player experiences comes from. Your ability to explore and investigate is restricted by the rng of the roguelite. And how much you enjoy the game at any given point is how tolerant of that gameplay you are combined with how well discoveries are being drip fed to you, and how motivating/rewarding those discoveries are for you.

I'm recommending it because I've had fun with it, but I wholeheartedly acknowledge that it's not for everyone.

With 50 games, it's almost garaunteed there's something here you'll enjoy.

A beautiful, densely packed puzzle game with very slight 2D Zelda vibes. As you explore and progress you unlock new puzzle elements to appear across the islands and tools that enable new approaches and further exploration. A good deal of the puzzles prove the be rather tricky, but it's likely most of them are optional/avoidable.

It's a fun game that plays around with various concepts.

Idle game with Anno vibes. I like how approachable the tile based building system is for space management.

The gameplay loop is just really fun. Solve puzzles so you can open chests safely so you have the loot you need to beat the dungeon. There's a decent bit of replayability as there's 7 dungeon types with different rules and types of clues to deal with, and each of those has at least 3 levels of dungeon to complete if not more. For 4 bucks, it's worth picking up if you enjoy logic puzzles.

I've enjoyed my time with the game thus far, and that's only really playing one character I accidentally picked as my starting freebie. The fact I could do 3 games with him back to back, using relatively similar strategies each time, and still enjoy the process of it is actually remarkable. The possible card combos are open ended enough to create slight variation, but limited enough with so many pulls that you can really focus on and aim for a strategy, making perfecting that strategy over several games fun.

The game's two biggest issues for me right now are translation and connectivity. I think once you establish a connection to the server by trying over and over again it's fine, it's just a bit tricky to do so upon launching and trying to get into the game. The translation is passable, I only feel confused about what's being said about mechanics on rare occasions, but I absolutely have no interest in reading the more superfluous content like story since it's barely coherent. I also turned voices all the way down because whenever a character spoke I just felt like I was watching that one frog speaking Chinese meme without the frog, the lack of subtitles makes that aspect more annoying than engaging.

A very fun synergy focused roguelite. I do think the tutorial doesn't really teach you the game too well. It took me a bit of just playing for some things to click into place. I still don't entirely understand the passenger system, and I think the game would benefit from a glossary in the menu. Something to pause the game and go look at to have mechanics, landscapes, and train types explained in greater detail.

I only played the one run, but I already see other routes you could take through the game. There's probably not enough different factions in the game right now to make the game super replayable, so I certainly hope the full game intends to add more to be unlocked as you complete runs. Maybe having the player pick a certain number of factions to appear, with some slots always being something random from whatever else is unlocked, would allow more content to be added without bogging down the pool of options making it hard to find cards you want.

Regardless, I'm excited to see where the game goes from here.

If you like deckbuilding roguelites this is well worth a try. The character permadeath and added complexities of the combat are both exciting and take some adjusting to. But once you've become acquainted with them it makes for a more in-depth and layered experience. This also means that for those new to the genre this might not be a good choice. The learning curve would be far steeper when compared to something like Slay the Spire, but if you're up to the challenge even then it's worthwhile.

Unique feeling puzzles that slowly ramp up in complexity, set in an adorable world with a charming cast of characters. The difficulty curve isn't 100% spot on but rarely do the puzzles feel unfair nor painfully easy. If it looks like something you'd enjoy, then it's worth trusting that instinct and going for it.