Found this on game pass (which I keep meaning to cancel, but here we are). Holy. Shit.
It’s a cute little cell shaded board style game. Might be fun to toy around with… Maybe just a couple more tries…wait what…?
It’s a masterpiece. It’s genius. It’s madness. It’s like Myst shot up the 7th guest and started snorting riddles.
Did anyone else stumble into this labyrinth? I’m obsessed.
Well… A puzzle is a challenge. In Blue Prince, part of the challenge is that you need to engage with the clues you have available, not necessarily the clues you hoped for. Removing that challenge is to remove part of the puzzle.
You’re fully within your right to say that’s not your cup of tea, but I think it does contribute something meaningful to the puzzling.
Putting a jigsaw puzzle together is a challenge. You could increase that challenge by requiring yourself to roll a die and getting 6 five times in a row before you’re allowed to try to fit a piece. Does that sound like good game design to you?
No, that sounds like a terrible game. How exactly is this relevant?
Adding bullshit RNG to a puzzle game to make it take longer might make it more “challenging” but doesn’t make it better, is my point.
Is RNG always bullshit?
Do you feel like that’s the case in Blue Prince?
To me, the RNG feels fundamental to the puzzling in Blue Prince, not something that could be removed to make a better game. And Blue Prince is undeniably an interesting game.
Is RNG always bullshit? No; only a sith speaks in absolutes. There are appropriate uses of randomness in video games. Is RNG very often a source of bullshit? Absolutely. Do I feel like that’s the case in Blue Prince? ABSOLUTELY
“I got the pump room but not the boiler room again so I still can’t try doing the thing I’ve been trying to do.” Said players of a game designed to disrespect their time.
If, at the start of each in-game day, you were given all of the rooms you’d unlocked so far, and were allowed to arrange them however you like right then and there, and were then free to move around in it however much you please, would the game be worsened? I’m convinced it would only be improved, because pretty much all you would do is remove “Welp, for the fifteenth time, I know what I want to try, but random chance prevented me from doing so.”
The presentation is charming and the puzzles are intriguing but I think the community is putting up with the deeply terrible mechanics out of sheer novelty, and another game made like it isn’t going to be well received.