I unfortunately cannot recommend this game.

I bought it after seeing some very high praise from acquaintances and some very flattering comparisons to Outer Wilds, which is my favorite game of all time. I really enjoy the 'meta-knowledge puzzle game' genre more generally, which includes games like Lingo, The Witness and to a lesser extent Return of the Obra Dinn - games that you can really only experience once because they're about learning the overarching rules with which you can solve the puzzles moreso than the moment-to-moment puzzles themselves. Blue Prince also belongs to this category; each run is different because you draft a random collection of rooms that fit together in random places, but the real game is about discovering meta-knowledge from one run that you can use to actually progress towards the end goal in the next run.

Where Blue Prince fails compared to its aforementioned genre-colleagues, in my opinion, is in the RNG inherent in the roguelike genre. You will *frequently* learn something new and be unable to use that knowledge for a dozen, two dozen runs because you just don't draft the right combination of rooms. You will discover items, know *exactly* what to do with those items, and then end the run with a tired and frustrated sigh because you never drafted the room you needed to use that item in. You will discover those items again, and fail to draft the right room again. And again. And again. You will have runs end three rooms in because your draft pool consisted exclusively of dead end rooms and gem-cost rooms you can't afford because you failed to draft a gem-providing room. You will have a run that *almost* gets you into the final room and then fails because you got unlucky and only drafted rooms with exits that were turned away from it. You will be on the verge of reaching a long-awaited puzzle solution and get shafted in the last minute because you ran out of "movement points" two rooms too early, or have a promising run die because you ran out of keys, or because you never ran into the (for some reason absurdly rare) keycard that is the only way to open the (for some reason fairly common) keycard doors. [Edit: People have been fixating on this point, so I would like to clarify that I *am* aware of several alternative methods to open keycard doors... probably. I think. I don't actually know if any of those methods work as I think they do because RNGesus has never seen fit to let me test those theories.]

I could go on, but I think I've made my point.

The beauty of games like these is in making discoveries, and then testing what you've learned to make progress. Blue Prince will happily let you discover things, but testing your discoveries is firmly in the hands of RNGesus, and sometimes he just says "No. No you do not get to make any progress. Go do another six runs of nothing but repeat dead ends, the same puzzles and the same notes, and *maybe* on run 7 you can have a tiny crumb of forward progress." And maybe in run 7 you'll learn that your theory was wrong and you don't get to make any progress after all.

My time with Blue Prince has been dull, repetitive and deeply frustrating, and while I don't plan to give up quite yet, I don't think I'll ever be able to recommend this to my friends.

I unfortunately cannot recommend this game. I bought it after seeing some very high praise from acquaintances and some very flattering comparisons to Outer Wilds, which is my favorite game of all time. I really enjoy the 'meta-knowledge puzzle game' genre more generally, which includes games like Lingo, The Witness and to a lesser extent Return of the Obra Dinn - games that you can really only experience once because they're about learning the overarching rules with which you can solve the puzzles moreso than the moment-to-moment puzzles themselves. Blue Prince also belongs to this category; each run is different because you draft a random collection of rooms that fit together in random places, but the real game is about discovering meta-knowledge from one run that you can use to actually progress towards the end goal in the next run. Where Blue Prince fails compared to its aforementioned genre-colleagues, in my opinion, is in the RNG inherent in the roguelike genre. You will *frequently* learn something new and be unable to use that knowledge for a dozen, two dozen runs because you just don't draft the right combination of rooms. You will discover items, know *exactly* what to do with those items, and then end the run with a tired and frustrated sigh because you never drafted the room you needed to use that item in. You will discover those items again, and fail to draft the right room again. And again. And again. You will have runs end three rooms in because your draft pool consisted exclusively of dead end rooms and gem-cost rooms you can't afford because you failed to draft a gem-providing room. You will have a run that *almost* gets you into the final room and then fails because you got unlucky and only drafted rooms with exits that were turned away from it. You will be on the verge of reaching a long-awaited puzzle solution and get shafted in the last minute because you ran out of "movement points" two rooms too early, or have a promising run die because you ran out of keys, or because you never ran into the (for some reason absurdly rare) keycard that is the only way to open the (for some reason fairly common) keycard doors. [Edit: People have been fixating on this point, so I would like to clarify that I *am* aware of several alternative methods to open keycard doors... probably. I think. I don't actually know if any of those methods work as I think they do because RNGesus has never seen fit to let me test those theories.] I could go on, but I think I've made my point. The beauty of games like these is in making discoveries, and then testing what you've learned to make progress. Blue Prince will happily let you discover things, but testing your discoveries is firmly in the hands of RNGesus, and sometimes he just says "No. No you do not get to make any progress. Go do another six runs of nothing but repeat dead ends, the same puzzles and the same notes, and *maybe* on run 7 you can have a tiny crumb of forward progress." And maybe in run 7 you'll learn that your theory was wrong and you don't get to make any progress after all. My time with Blue Prince has been dull, repetitive and deeply frustrating, and while I don't plan to give up quite yet, I don't think I'll ever be able to recommend this to my friends.