Blue Prince: Secrets and Tips [Spoilers]

A compilation of tips and secrets to help you get to Room 46 and beyond. Spoilers!

Welcome to Mt. Holly

This guide is full of secrets and tips based on my own journey. It will be updated as I discover more. There will be many spoilers without spoiler tags!

Please consider giving me a like, favorite and rating if you enjoy the guide.

Updates:
April 13: Made it to Room 46! Filling out the route now. Added a full list of achievements and Dare Mode.
April 12: Added West Gate Path, Billiard Room, Drafting Room and Showroom sections.

Drafting Tips

A lot of negative reviews have blamed RNG (random number generation), such as too many dead ends or not having enough keys or gems. While randomness is a fundamental part of the game's design, there are many ways to mitigate and overcome it. Here are some basic principles:

1. Draft rooms in lower ranks first to get more resources and potentially get rid of dead-end rooms. Higher rank rooms are more likely to be locked.

2. Always try to draft rooms you've never seen.

3. In early days prioritize getting permanent unlocks, as detailed later in this guide.

4. You shouldn't consider a day a success only if you get to the Antechamber. Any new permanent unlock, new room or new knowledge you get during the day is a win. Note that this game is deliberately slow-paced, especially compared to an action roguelike.

These strategies are expanded upon by in-game books. Click each image for a larger version.

Here are tips from Drafting Strategy Volume I, found in the Drafting Studio.










Here are tips from Drafting Strategy Volume III, found in the Library.

Apple Orchard

Apple Orchard: The very first thing you should do after starting the game is to turn around and follow the left road, past your tent to the Apple Orchard. Enter the code 1128 on the lock and you will get the permanent upgrade of 20 extra steps every day going forward. This code is found in the Dark Room with the lights on in a photo of the orchard, but you don't need to go there and can unlock it immediately. On the left side of the orchard is a valve to turn on one of four blue flames outside the house. In the back is a shack with a book written by the groundskeeper.

Gemstone Cavern

Gemstone Cavern: Draft the Utility Closet, ideally on day one, and solve the lights puzzle by making the colors 1. Off 2. Blue 3. Green 4. White 5. Red 6. Purple from left to right. Here's a step by step guide:

1. Press each button once to make them all green.
2. Press either the left or right-most button to turn it blue.
3. Press the green button next to the blue button to turn it red.
4. Press the blue button to turn the red button purple.
5. Press on the purple button to turn it blue.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until five out of six buttons are blue.
7. Press the isolated blue button to move it over one spot.
8. Press the gray button twice to make it red.
9. Press the blue button beside the red button to create a purple button.
10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 until five out of six buttons are purple.
11. Press the grey button three times to turn it purple.
12. Press on button 4 once to turn it white.
13. Press on button 5 to turn it blue.
14. Press on button 6 to turn until it turns red.
15. Press on button 5 to make button 6 purple.
16. Press on button 5 until it turns red.
17. Press on button 3 twice — turning button 3 gray and button 2 blue.
18. Press on button 3 once to make it green.
19. Press on button 1 until it turns gray.

You will now start every day with two gems! You can also walk outside to the cave itself and turn the valve instead to light another one of the four blue flames.

Utility Closet

Utility Closet: The Breaker Box is also useful by enabling:

1. Turning off power for the Keycard system. In combination with the Security Room's Terminal, you can unlock all Keycard doors, which appear in higher Ranks. You'll need to set the offline mode to Unlocked in the Security Room. You can also set Security Level to High so you'll see more now unlocked Keycard doors.
2. Turning on the power for the Garage Door, which leads directly to the next secret.
3. Turning off power in the Gymnasium, which will no longer lose you five steps.
4. Turning on power in the Dark Room, which will let you see. Note that power will always go off when you first enter the Dark Room, so you'll have to turn on power afterwards in the Utility Closet.

West Gate Path and Outer Rooms

One of the strongest early upgrades is unlocking the West Gate Path, giving you access to powerful Outer Rooms on your current run and at the start of every day.

It's pretty straightforward but dependent on getting the right rooms: Draft a Utility Closet and turn on power to the Garage door. You can only draft a Garage on the west/left-most column of house. If you get it, press the button above the key rack, which should be lit green. Go outside and south on the path, turn left and open the lock to the West Gate, a permanent upgrade. You can immediately draft one of three Outer Rooms for the day as well, and in future days, you should go to the Outer Room location before proceeding into the house.



Toolshed: Gives special items like Sledgehammer, Metal Detector and Shovel, which can greatly boost your economy.

Shelter: Protects you from the first three Red Rooms you draft. It also has a terminal and puzzle.

Schoolhouse: Adds 8 Classrooms to the current day's pool.


Shrine: Offer any amount of gold for various blessings. Do NOT remove the gold afterwards unless you want to be Cursed. (Though it's possible that being Cursed leads to further secrets, which I'm unaware of. Very possible.)

Note that the number of blessing days counts the current day, so a three-day blessing would last the next two days.



Root Cellar: More likely to find dig spots. Obviously great if you have a Shovel.

Hovel: Rooms now require footsteps rather than gems to draft. Appears to make gems useless for the day, and Bedrooms much more valuable.

Trading Post: Lets you trade items for other items.



Tomb: Gives you 5 gold when you draft a dead end room. More importantly, has a puzzle that is critical for getting to Room 46. And sadly, the final resting place of Herbert Sinclair, who has written you one more letter.

Billiard Room Darts Puzzle

The Billiard Room has a puzzle that has nothing to do with billiards, but rather the dart board on the wall.

It's a math equation that will get progressively harder the more days that you solve it.

Blue: + addition
Yellow: - subtraction
Pink: x multiply
Purple: ÷ divide

The order of operations is based on starting from the center of the board. The closer the colored section is to the center, the earlier you should do it.

Here's how to solve the above image:

20 + 3 = 23
23 - 3 = 20
20 x 3 = 60
60 ÷ 6 = 10

Click on 10 for the next round of the puzzle. After a few rounds, the dartboard will slide up and give you a reward.

Possible rewards include two normal keys, a keycard, the Secret Garden key, a crucial tool for getting to the Antechamber, and the Silver Key, which gives you a draft pool of three rooms with many doors after you use it. To maximize the Silver Key's benefit, use it when opening a door to a slot that doesn't already have its potential doors already blocked by other rooms or the sides of the house.

As you keep solving it, new mechanics will be added.

Square: x² (e.g. 2² = 4)
Diamond: reverse the numbers
Red dots: repeat this step based on how many dots are displayed
Red X: skip this step
Red /: slash your final number in half
Two squiggly lines: round (up or down) to the nearest 1
Four squiggly lines: round to the nearest 10
Six squiggly lines: round to the nearest 100
The section of the dartboard is 1/3 full: divide that number by 3

Getting to Room 46

The most direct path that got me to the credits. Big spoilers. Will add screenshots later.

Unlocking the Antechamber

1. Get the Secret Garden Key through the Billiards Room's Dart Puzzle or a lucky pickup

2. Draft the Secret Garden in either the western or eastern columns of the house

3. Use the valves to make the two weather vanes point west, revealing the lever.

4. Use the lever to unlock the left entrance to the Antechamber.

5. You can also unlock the bottom door to the Antechamber by bringing a Broken Lever to the Greenhouse. You can unlock the right Antechamber door with the lever behind a locked door in the Great Hall.

6. Draft enough rooms to get to the Antechamber. I managed it with huge economy from the Shrine's Blessing of the Gardener giving me eight more Courtyards, which had been upgraded to give me two gems. Upgraded rooms are generally crucial for making progress. Having Shovel, Sledgehammer and Metal Detector are really useful for better economy.

7. Get the Basement Key in the Antechamber. You're only halfway there! Ideally, as I did, store Basement Key with Coat Check so you can retrieve it later.

Moving the Underground Mine Cart

8. Draft the Tomb in your Outer Room. This may take a number of days as it seems rarer than the others. If you want to brute force it, you can check the Outer Room at the start of the day and if you don't get Tomb, Alt + F4 to exit a day without saving and check again.

9. Enter the Tomb and activate the statues in the following order, which is based on the order of the stained glass paintings in the chapel:

A. Gardener - Hat and a hoe
B. Chef - Cook hat and a pizza flipper
C. Farmer - Cowboy hat and a rake
D. Chimney Sweep - Top hat and a brush
E. Maid - Bonnet and a broom
F. Jockey - Riding helmet and a racing whip
G. Queen - Crown and a scepter

10. A door will open next to the Queen, leading to the Catacombs. Spooky! Walk to the Grim Reaper statue and activate it for access to the Abandoned Mine.

11. Go left and drag the mine cart all the way backwards, clearing a path for the penultimate steps.

The Final Underground Antechamber Lever

12. Draft the Foundation room. Important! This special room stays where you draft it permanently, so choose carefully! Mine was in the middle column a few ranks up, which gave me good access.

13. Lower the elevator in the Foundation by drafting a room with a door leading to the left side of the Foundation, which is a blocked-off wall. That wall in the separate room you drafted will have a gear that lowers the elevator permanently, including in future days.

14. Take the elevator down to the Underground and unlock the next door with the Basement Key. Thankfully that door will stay unlocked on future days. You will have to move the jacklift carts to create an elevated path to the green button. That will lead to the Reservoir.

15. You'll see a lever that will rotate a circular platform that has only two walkways. Activate the lever four times so a walkway is connected to the door on your left. Remember the mine cart you moved earlier? You can now go through that unblocked door and access the walkway.

16. Walk straight and you'll see another lever. Activate it five times and you'll reach the level unlocking the northern door in the Antechamber that leads to Room 46!

17. Go back to the second lever and activate it five times. Walk across and you'll see a hidden door to return to the elevator and back to the house.

18. The final stretch! Draft or walk your way back to the Antechamber and enter Room 46 for a moving cutscene. But many more secrets await.

Safe Codes and Passwords

Terminal in Security, Office, Laboratory, and Shelter Password: SWANSONG

Boudoir safe code: 1225, a reference to Christmas

Drafting Room: Press the leftmost candlestick to reveal the safe. Code: 0415

Office: Press the switch in the right-hand drawer of the desk to reveal the safe. Safe code: 0303

Study safe code: 0812

Drafting Room: Studio Additions

The rare Drafting Studio room enables you to permanently add one of three new rooms to your drafting pool. Here are the options I have seen so far.

Casino


Clock Tower


Dormitory


The Kennel


Solarium


Vestible

Showroom

The Showroom is a rare shop with powerful, expensive items. I've only drafted it once so far. Here's what was on sale and their prices.




The Master Key unlocks all doors.

Characters and Lore

Here's my rough list of characters found in various letters, journals and other objects. Will be updated.

Herbert Sinclair: Estate owner whose mysterious Room 46 you are trying to find.

Simon: The player

Daniel, Simon's father, who is pissed about Marion's disappearance being removed from the public record by Herbert

Marion Marigold (pen name) / Sinclair (last name) aka Mary: Author of "Red Prince" and "Swim Bird," Won Herald Literary Honor twice, inspired by son to imagine new stories, accused of red = royalist party

Caleb: Could be Marion’s son? Really likes red, but so do Arje and Freddy and Beny, students in Classroom. Caleb is also the author of a red letter, conspiracy with M(arion).

Anne Babbage: house manager, title confirmed in Hovel

Robert Nogula: Groundskeeper

Mr. Revane: fired Groundskeeper, told to leave hovel on March 20

Anne: commissioned art?

M Lowry

KL

Lord Evanson

Late Lady Clara

Bridgette: staff member, via Pantry: told to buy five apples, bananas and oranges, told in Office to buy a book list.

Hartley: valet

Gabe: fusebox repairman

Mcguire, McKinley and McDougal: estate lawyers

X - anonymous blackmailer and author of a red letter.

Kimberly Thompson: works in Synka lab with Moore

Randolph M: lab technician

Cristoph: driver, gone three times in a month, per letter in Garage

Trophies and Achievements

Full list of Trophies found in the Trophy Room or in the Entrance Hall after you reach Room 46.



Inheritor Trophy: Reach Room 46.


Full House Trophy: Unlocked by drafting a room in all 45 slots of the house. You start with two filled in with the Entrance Hall and Antechamber.

Dare Mode

Dare Mode is a very challenging new save file option that introduces "dares" that are requirements you must be complete each day or you will get a game over screen. This makes you repeat the day but does not delete your save file. It's basically like pressing Alt + F4. Dares will be added each of the first 4 days for a total of 4 days. I believe you need to reach Room 46 first to get the option to unlock it, but not confirmed.



You unlock Dare Mode by spending a whopping 110 gold on the cute bird plushie at the rare Mt. Holly Gift Shop room. I managed to pull it off with Mirror Chamber, two Vaults and a lot of Shovel usage. Note, you have to start a new Dare Mode save file under profiles and cannot switch to it with a normal save file.



If you manage to reach Room 46 on dare mode, you unlock a trophy and achievement. You must have all 4 dares active before you can reach Room 46.

List of Dares seen so far:

You must always draft a Red Room when given the option.
You must buy exactly one item from each shop you draft.
You must buy the most expensive (based on gems) room when you have at least 3 gems. (This one doesn't seem that bad.)
You cannot exit the house through the Entrance Hall. (Oof, can't get Outer Rooms unless you get a Utlity Room and Garage)
You cannot draft all five rooms in a single row. (Oof again.)
You must end every day with 0 keys, 0 gems, 0 coins. (Rough!)
You can never eat fruit again. (Not bad)
You can only press the correct numbers in Billiard Room dart puzzle. (Not bad)

[deKay]

You can prevent the Dark Room going dark before you even visit it - in the Utility Closet flick the breaker off then back on. The room won’t go dark as soon as you enter this way, may save a lot of backtracking.

[Mori]

Randolph M is Randolph Moore

[Mori]

mary is a gal by many names, but according to the family tree her last name was epsen, not sinclair, which does contradict the newspaper clippings implicit statement? she also went by Mary Mattew Jones

[Mori]

i have absolutely NO CLUE who edwin sinclair is, and it is confusing because apart from the statue i couldnt find any reference to him so far.

[Mori]

Caleb also got locked up by the red guard... see newspaper snippets in Archive

[Gorlom[Swe]]

Caleb is not the red prince. Caleb is Marigolds mentor and the author of one of the books in the library.

[Torrix]

Some Dares I've gotten for Dare mode:

Must always have at least 20 steps
Must always pick option one when drawing rooms from the entrance hall
Must open every trunk you come across
Dare to not pick up the blueprints from the entrance hall (I don't even know if this is possible? I lost this immediately since I picked them up before looking at the letter)
Never have more than 2 special items

(If you get "Must buy exactly one time from each shop you draft" DO NOT DRAFT AQUARIUM, IT COUNTS AS A SHOP AND YOU LITERALLY CANT BUY ANYTHING FROM IT SO YOU JUST LOSE)

[Kreggur]

Mr. Revane seems to have been an infiltrator/spy/thief of some kind, considering his attempts to reach room 46 and his termination over the poor perfomance of his duties.

[Ironscale]

Also, the Moon pendant can choose to keep itself, as one of the 2 items.

[Ghost]

Once I got all of that, i went to the next step: getting the First Words of each sheet. I didn't actually get as far as getting all of them, because I figured out what to do before completing the hint.


FIND
AMONG
THE
WHITE
TREES

There's only one place in the estate that is described by this: The White Trees next to the campsite.If you bring a shovel outside to the area between all of the white trees, you can interact with a patch of dirt in the middle of them all, and dig up a SECRET NEW GREEN ROOM: The Conservatory.