It's ENTIRELY Up to Luck

[ALilTeapot89]

My best friend loves this game. I've been playing it side-by-side with him (via Gamepass). I want to love it as much as he does, but I don't. I get that it's a puzzle game. I get that it's a rougelike/lite. I get that you're not supposed to beat the game on the first, or even 50th try. But I've never played a game where EVERYTHING is based on luck and/or RNG. Every other rougelike/lite I've played comes with the ability to eventually master the mechanics in a way that carry you further than the random items/perks you might get. Vampire Survivors is about movement and spacing, Hades rewards you for you ability to read attack patters and counter and so on. Blue Prince says, "Ha! You're not lucky today?! Screw you. Start over."

Yes, you can get items to eventually optimize the RNG in your favor, but even getting those is up to chance. Do you need the magnifying glass and a utility closet to figure out how to open the orchard? Well, pray you get both in the same day or else you'll never open it. Do you maybe need to power the lab so you can solve it's puzzle? You'd better hope the game even allows you to connect the right rooms to it.

Sure, there's more mechanical depth and intrigue to the game, but I'd like it a lot more if at least some part of my progression were actually up to me mastering the mechanics of the game, and not just a roll of a million sided die.

[Aerion 'Alex' B.]

To be fair, the utility room is useful for early runs regardless, so you'd probably want to take it even if you're not sure if you'll draft the dark room.
And anecdotally, I usually draft the dark room eventually on most runs that fill most of the mansion (admittedly, not many runs will, early on. But you've still got a decent chance).
So it's mostly about having the magnifying glass on hand when you get those things to line up. And there's a couple ways to make the magnifying glass (which I'll admit can be frustratingly hard to get when you need it) more reliable.
Try ordering it, for example, if you know how to.
More explicit version of the hint, since you sound frustrated and might not appreciate me being too vague: If you log into a computer, you can ask for an item to be added to the shop, generally in 1-2 days. IMO it's one of the most reliable ways to get a magnifying glass, once you've got a few coins in allowance. I certainly can't manage to reliably get a cloak room when I need it, personally.

[ALilTeapot89]

Originally posted by Aerion 'Alex' B.:

To be fair, the utility room is useful for early runs regardless, so you'd probably want to take it even if you're not sure if you'll draft the dark room.
And anecdotally, I usually draft the dark room eventually on most runs that fill most of the mansion (admittedly, not many runs will, early on. But you've still got a decent chance).
So it's mostly about having the magnifying glass on hand when you get those things to line up. And there's a couple ways to make the magnifying glass (which I'll admit can be frustratingly hard to get when you need it) more reliable.
Try ordering it, for example, if you know how to.
More explicit version of the hint, since you sound frustrated and might not appreciate me being too vague: If you log into a computer, you can ask for an item to be added to the shop, generally in 1-2 days. IMO it's one of the most reliable ways to get a magnifying glass, once you've got a few coins in allowance. I certainly can't manage to reliably get a cloak room when I need it, personally.

Thanks. I do know how to do this, but what I'm saying is, even having the ability to do that is also up to chance. Let's take another, similar game as an example: Slay the Spire.

Sure, what cards I draw in any given hand on any given turn are largely up to chance. But I have the ability not only to manipulate my deck often, but by choosing what I play against various enemies per turn, I learn the most effective way to beat each one. Blue Prince doesn't offer anything like that. You get 3 choices per door, less if you don't have the currency needed for certain rooms. If the room itself is a dead end or the exist doesn't face the right way, you're boned on that path, and the game constantly does stuff like this to the point you play entire days in it having made no progress and gained nothing at all.

That's what makes it unfun to me. It's just constantly rolling the same dice and hoping you get the thing you need in the right place at the right time. There's no ability to change this that ALSO isn't up to chance. I can even get the rooms you're talking about one day, order what I want, and in the next day, never get the room I need to get the item or never get the rooms I need to use the item in. Then it's further up to chance if I get a room that lets me save that item, then another dice roll to get that room again so I can get the item when I need it, then another one to get the rooms it will be useful in, and so on.