The tricky thing about puzzle games is that the interesting part is usually figuring out the solution to a puzzle, after that you have to actually execute the solution which is generally less interesting. For example, if a game gives me a coded note and I decode it and it says "Go to X room, jump twice, and do a 360", the decoding was the interesting part and now going to the room and doing the ♥♥♥♥ it told me to do (executing the solution) is a matter of me remembering which button makes my character jump. Sure, I'm interested in seeing what happens after I execute the solution, but the longer the time between figuring out the solution and executing it, the more my interest turns into annoyance. So, a smart dev should probably try to minimize the time between these two steps of the puzzle solving process.

Blue Prince spits in the face of this convention by wasting the player's time at every possible turn. Things start out fine, the focus of the game is the roguelike and you have to learn drafting strategy while also figuring out how to enter Room 46. You'll also notice a lot of strange things that you think are worth investigating. Continuing these investigations often requires you to find specific combinations of rooms or items, which requires some amount of luck. For example, some puzzles require you to light candles. In order to light candles, you need to find two specific items in a single run. If you don't find those two items and the room that allows you to combine items, you can't light candles. This is annoying. However, because there are so many different things to investigate, you can just kind of take things as they come and continue investigations based on the rooms that appear on a given day. However, you'll eventually reach a point where you don't have very many things left to investigate, so you enter a hell of knowing what you have to do but not being able to do it simply because you have bad luck.

Here's an example: I've spent about 20 hours trying to open safety deposit boxes in a particular room. In order to open a safety deposit box, you need to find a key for one of the boxes. These keys appear randomly throughout the house and as far as I've been able to tell there's no way to guarantee one appears. Finding the key isn't enough, though, because you also need the room with safety deposit boxes to appear during a run. If that room doesn't appear and you're holding a key, you either need to find a Coat Check or end the day and lose the key. I don't even remember the last time the room appeared for me. I've had a key waiting in the Coat Check for maybe the last 5 hours I've played, but the room I need has never shown up. And you need to do this multiple times, I've unlocked three safety deposit boxes but haven't gotten the item that I know is in one of the boxes and need to solve a large meta puzzle. So, I know the solution to the puzzle (an item I need is in a safety deposit box), I knew this 20 hours ago, but I haven't actually been able to get the item because I have bad luck. Every person who plays this game will have at least one problem like this, maybe the Boiler Room refuses to connect to other rooms, maybe the Pump Room won't appear, maybe you can't get a Workshop. Like I said it's excusable at first, but as the hours pass and you're still trying to find a certain room you're just gonna get pissed off.

This ties into the game's other large issue, which is that even when you've moved on to the game's larger meta puzzles you're still forced to deal with all the roguelike ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that you've already shown a mastery of. This, again, feels like a massive waste of the player's time. I've played 45 hours of this game but I think at least half of that involved doing time-wasting ♥♥♥♥ like Parlor puzzles, searching for sledgehammers, and holding W while watching my character move at a snail's pace. It's possible to change the rarity of rooms, but there are very specific conditions for doing so and even then the rooms that you can actually change the rarity of are randomly selected, so if the room you've spent the last 5 hours looking for never shows up as an option whoops too bad! There are permanent upgrades that make the roguelike section easier, but they only somewhat cut down on the time spent on trivial ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Why do I still have to solve these box and darts puzzles when I've already gotten a trophy for doing them 40 times each? Why can't I pick the rooms to adjust the rarity of? Why can't the Coat Check hold more than one item? Why does the game have to tell me what every item does after I've picked it up for the hundredth time? Oh, you're telling me the magnifying glass allows me to magnify text, that's completely new to me, thanks for letting me know! By this point in the game I don't care about the roguelike part at all, I'm trying to solve bigger puzzles, so why is the game still dragging me down with it? I can't answer that question, either the devs were too busy huffing their farts to consider wasting less of the player's time or they just don't see the inherent problems that come when you introduce RNG into a puzzle game.

I imagine most people playing this game will have a honeymoon phase where they think it's like the coolest puzzle game ever but eventually things will gradually sour until they finally tap out. You, the one person who read this entire review, how long will you last before you tap out? Do you think you'll make it all the way to the very end? I thought I could and I have both roguelike AND puzzle autism, but I've reached the point where I'm ready to waste my time on another game. Wasn't Meet n' ♥♥♥♥ Kingdom supposed to be on Steam? What happened to that?

Taster's score: C-

The tricky thing about puzzle games is that the interesting part is usually figuring out the solution to a puzzle, after that you have to actually execute the solution which is generally less interesting. For example, if a game gives me a coded note and I decode it and it says "Go to X room, jump twice, and do a 360", the decoding was the interesting part and now going to the room and doing the shit it told me to do (executing the solution) is a matter of me remembering which button makes my character jump. Sure, I'm interested in seeing what happens after I execute the solution, but the longer the time between figuring out the solution and executing it, the more my interest turns into annoyance. So, a smart dev should probably try to minimize the time between these two steps of the puzzle solving process. Blue Prince spits in the face of this convention by wasting the player's time at every possible turn. Things start out fine, the focus of the game is the roguelike and you have to learn drafting strategy while also figuring out how to enter Room 46. You'll also notice a lot of strange things that you think are worth investigating. Continuing these investigations often requires you to find specific combinations of rooms or items, which requires some amount of luck. For example, some puzzles require you to light candles. In order to light candles, you need to find two specific items in a single run. If you don't find those two items and the room that allows you to combine items, you can't light candles. This is annoying. However, because there are so many different things to investigate, you can just kind of take things as they come and continue investigations based on the rooms that appear on a given day. However, you'll eventually reach a point where you don't have very many things left to investigate, so you enter a hell of knowing what you have to do but not being able to do it simply because you have bad luck. Here's an example: I've spent about 20 hours trying to open safety deposit boxes in a particular room. In order to open a safety deposit box, you need to find a key for one of the boxes. These keys appear randomly throughout the house and as far as I've been able to tell there's no way to guarantee one appears. Finding the key isn't enough, though, because you also need the room with safety deposit boxes to appear during a run. If that room doesn't appear and you're holding a key, you either need to find a Coat Check or end the day and lose the key. I don't even remember the last time the room appeared for me. I've had a key waiting in the Coat Check for maybe the last 5 hours I've played, but the room I need has never shown up. And you need to do this multiple times, I've unlocked three safety deposit boxes but haven't gotten the item that I know is in one of the boxes and need to solve a large meta puzzle. So, I know the solution to the puzzle (an item I need is in a safety deposit box), I knew this 20 hours ago, but I haven't actually been able to get the item because I have bad luck. Every person who plays this game will have at least one problem like this, maybe the Boiler Room refuses to connect to other rooms, maybe the Pump Room won't appear, maybe you can't get a Workshop. Like I said it's excusable at first, but as the hours pass and you're still trying to find a certain room you're just gonna get pissed off. This ties into the game's other large issue, which is that even when you've moved on to the game's larger meta puzzles you're still forced to deal with all the roguelike bullshit that you've already shown a mastery of. This, again, feels like a massive waste of the player's time. I've played 45 hours of this game but I think at least half of that involved doing time-wasting shit like Parlor puzzles, searching for sledgehammers, and holding W while watching my character move at a snail's pace. It's possible to change the rarity of rooms, but there are very specific conditions for doing so and even then the rooms that you can actually change the rarity of are randomly selected, so if the room you've spent the last 5 hours looking for never shows up as an option whoops too bad! There are permanent upgrades that make the roguelike section easier, but they only somewhat cut down on the time spent on trivial bullshit. Why do I still have to solve these box and darts puzzles when I've already gotten a trophy for doing them 40 times each? Why can't I pick the rooms to adjust the rarity of? Why can't the Coat Check hold more than one item? Why does the game have to tell me what every item does after I've picked it up for the hundredth time? Oh, you're telling me the magnifying glass allows me to magnify text, that's completely new to me, thanks for letting me know! By this point in the game I don't care about the roguelike part at all, I'm trying to solve bigger puzzles, so why is the game still dragging me down with it? I can't answer that question, either the devs were too busy huffing their farts to consider wasting less of the player's time or they just don't see the inherent problems that come when you introduce RNG into a puzzle game. I imagine most people playing this game will have a honeymoon phase where they think it's like the coolest puzzle game ever but eventually things will gradually sour until they finally tap out. You, the one person who read this entire review, how long will you last before you tap out? Do you think you'll make it all the way to the very end? I thought I could and I have both roguelike AND puzzle autism, but I've reached the point where I'm ready to waste my time on another game. Wasn't Meet n' Fuck Kingdom supposed to be on Steam? What happened to that? Taster's score: C-