What are some other games like this?

[Peebus]

I've been playing this with my partner and we absolutely love it. I'm looking for something that is like this to play once we "finish" this game. Something that is engaging even though she might not be actively playing with the controller.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

[Lactose Intolerant Volcano God]

What are the aspects of Blue Prince that you love?

(Blue Prince is such a hybrid that there are many different directions you could go in when looking for similar games. Narrowing in on which bits you like might help to get relevant suggestions.)

[pelrun]

If exploration, puzzles, and the pursuit of incremental knowledge excites you, then Outer Wilds and it's DLC, because nothing else comes close in the modern video game format.

[Fran]

Originally posted by pelrun:

If exploration, puzzles, and the pursuit of incremental knowledge excites you, then Outer Wilds and it's DLC, because nothing else comes close in the modern video game format.

They are going to be disappointed with that description, it's going to create the wrong expectations. Outer Wilds core is not puzzles, it focus is on the story. Yes, there some puzzles but that's secondary, the core is you gathering clues (pieces of the story) that points you to the next one and give you context to understand other clues.

[Minneyar]

If you're looking for games which themselves are puzzles and part of the game is slowly uncovering how the game works so that you can solve deeper puzzles underneath the surface level ones, I cannot recommend Void Stranger highly enough. What looks like a simple little black and white tile puzzle game was my favorite game 2023. There's also a lot more to the story than what you will assume at first glance.

Tunic is also fantastic, although it has a slightly heavier emphasis on combat -- but again, it's interesting how what seems like a Zelda-like adventure game eventually becomes an incredibly complex puzzle box.

And if you like Metroidvanias, I'd also strongly recommend Animal Well. It's not quite as open at first as the other games mentioned are, as it does revolve around finding items that you use to access new areas, but like the other games mentioned here, it was intentionally designed with multiple layers of puzzles, and there's still a lot to discover even after it seems like you've "beaten" the game.

(I'll also add that all of these games are ones that my wife enjoyed watching as I played through and she helped solve puzzles)

[Slackerdude74]

This game seems very unique, so I don’t think that there is really anything like it.

[Minneyar]

Actually, I think it's also worth noting that if you like the random tile-placing mechanic, there are a lot of board games where you build the board that you're exploring by placing randomly-drawn tiles. Betrayal at House on the Hill is great, as are Forgotten Island and Forgotten Desert, and many more. Obviously they're designed with multiple players in mind and they don't typically involve solving overarching puzzles over multiple playthroughs, but you can definitely see how they inspired Blue Prince.

[cheshire.panther]

Fortunately, none.

[dmeister]

Originally posted by cheshire.panther:

Fortunately, none.

Why would that be "fortunate"? I'd think you'd want more games like this.

[dmeister]

They're not tile laying rogue-like games but The Witness and The Talos Principle both kind of give me a similar vibe in terms of how the game layers out puzzles that play out in more complicated and meta ways as you progress and that the more you solve the more backstory tidbits the game provides in the process. Also the Room series of puzzle games are great for fun puzzles that ultimately tell a story as you go.

If on the other hand you're looking for fun tile laying games, but not as much for story or puzzles, there's quite a few of those around. (Dorfromantik is one of my favorites in that genre.)

[MorpheusLunae]

Reminder to play the Myst series since it was the most direct influence since the dev is a fanboy.

[Perseus]

Originally posted by dmeister:

Why would that be "fortunate"? I'd think you'd want more games like this.

Personally, i wish that games like this would be made by devs who have at least somewhat played other similar or similar-ish games and learned from their successes AND mistakes.

For example, if we're talking about adventure puzzle games:

- Outer Wilds is pretty much the best one, though it still has a few flaws.
To not have played it, especially when making a game like Blue Prince, is a mistake.
Blue Prince could seriously benefit from some form of progress log.

- La-Mulana is a great game that's also very flawed. Attempting to play it unspoiled and without hints is something i've successfully done (mostly; i was vaguely spoiled on a few things, though "fortunately" they always misled me somehow).
Attempting to play it with as few hints as possible is a pretty good way to find La-Mulana's flaws, as they become that much more obvious and annoying.
Some of the relevant flaws are ambiguous/obscure clues,
and the classic "world tours" where a player would go through every place they'd visited to try to find somewhere to progress, which are fairly tedious to do, but still far, far, far less than Blue Prince's extreme "almost everything is tedious, including the right thing".

- Animal Well has several layers of puzzles. The third is the relevant one to learn from, as it makes the very big mistake of having some puzzles being reasonable to solvable by a player on their own, but several puzzles are not. At all.
It should really have made it clearer what was and wasn't meant to be reasonably solved by one person.
Though hopefully that lesson isn't relevant to this game.

Also, all of those games have somewhat quick movement (especially compared to Blue Prince's), with Outer Wilds' being the best, as it depends on your proficiency with it, which in turn makes it fun to move around, which lessens tedium.
La-Mulana's isn't as fast and can be somewhat frustrating, but also has the same benefits as Outer Wilds', to a slightly lesser extent.

Originally posted by MorpheusLunae:

Reminder to play the Myst series since it was the most direct influence since the dev is a fanboy.

I wonder, is that where the obnoxiously slow movement speed comes from?

Originally posted by dmeister:

They're not tile laying rogue-like games but The Talos Principle

While it isn't an adventure puzzle game like the ones i mentioned, it is a game with a decent non-complex movement speed (in other words, you walk and run very fast);
Even its slowest movement speed is faster than Blue Prince fastest movement speed. The Talos Principle 2, however, has larger spaces (and also no fast-forward keybind) which make its fast movement speed insufficient to prevent travel tedium.

[Gorlom[Swe]]

Fez?

[Kamil118]

Tunic, Animal Well, Void Stranger

[Polyurethane]

Animal Well, Tunic, Fez, and The Witness are probably the most similar I've played. Each has their own blend of the genre. Animal Well is a Metroidvania, Tunic is a Zelda-like (but don't let that fool you), and Fez is a puzzle platformer. The Witness is a logic puzzle game using lines as a medium. They're all packed full of secrets and things hidden in plain sight.

There's a couple of other really good "one-shot" puzzle games that are fun to play through but aren't as layered. Isles of the Sea and Sky, Inscryption, Pony Island, Cocoon.

If you really are a sick ♥♥♥♥ you might like Baba is You. I've never felt dumber than trying to play that game.

[dmeister]

Originally posted by Polyurethane:

...
If you really are a sick ♥♥♥♥ you might like Baba is You. I've never felt dumber than trying to play that game.

Oooh, Baba is You is good. It doesn't have quite the epic story feel of Blue Prince and Witness, etc, but the puzzles are great. Another one along those great little puzzles with no story line is Patrick's Paradox.