yeah the room type counts are obvious from the in-game room directory. I see a link between the counts and the possible arrangements of exits
thinking how fun it would be to unlock new tiles by solving relevant puzzles, forcing tiles to appear in the draft by placing themed rooms in patterns, or rooms with specific exits if the draft was always guaranteed to include a tile that matched existing doors
I havenāt seen any sheet music. I have seen that the polygons in the coffee pot in the security room arenāt marked as double sided so their back sides get culled, and that the secret passage room says it can go to a room of a colour of your choice but is missing a blue option
I found a sheet, will look at it later. and now I know where to find a west south and east way into the Antechamber
Iāve worked out a few more puzzles (Boiler Room, Garage, Foundation) and want to solve them but donāt want to manage the draw pool to beat the RNG
can get to the Library relatively easily, not a fan of how it spoils the Garage puzzle. tho not quite sure how much of a puzzle ādraft this specific room then go to the Garageā is. especially when that room hints very explicitly at the Garage
yeah, Iām not sure what all is considered a puzzle really. I am curious if you put the garage way at the top if there are any cool exterior pieces you can fuss with like the foundation has
likewise thereās a piece of paper in another room that spells out the foundationās entire deal
You canāt put the garage in the top corner but you might want to put the secret garden on the same side of the mansion as the garage and look around outside when you do
oh I had the same thought but again
Itās purely optional
it only gives you early access to something youāll find another way to access eventually that doesnāt require this room combo
got to the Antechamber, oh boy. at least itās time for some real puzzles (Cyan Worlds).
found the remaining sheets on the way & read the message. the reward seems pointless at the moment (day 19), best I can use it for is maybe to get the Boiler Room and Laboratory near each other
Iāve drafted the music sheet rooms once, and the billiard room twice. Iāve never passed them up, they just never showed up in the draft. am beginning to suspect something about how the RNG is managed
and another thing: why canāt I save mid-session? something about intentional crashes to savescum? thereās the traditional ways around that (seed each doorās RNG on draft)
huh thatās an interesting puzzle
That is the big one, yeah, though there are other puzzles which are simplified if you can be more intentional about where and when you draft specific rooms. But itās worth underscoring just how difficult some players have found getting steam power to the labāmany people confessed that they still hadnāt accomplished this yet in a stream I was watching last night, and I know of at least one player who quit playing because he couldnāt get these rooms connected.
Thereās a note in the conservatory that mentions another factor that could be interfering with your ability to get rooms to spawnāsome rooms have specific areas of the house that they will not appear within. But I think the infrequency with which youāve seen the billiard room is just bad luck.
I read that note. I read all the notes! and the letters, looking for things to solve
I collected the sheet music reward as soon as I got the last sheet, then drafted it in the same run. really disappointed that it spoiled the last bedroom, I had just seen it once in an unusual place and the note just straight up āyeah lol hereās how you do itā
no mystery left concealed. kind of gauche
thinking about puzzle design
I reckon puzzles have most of these:
take Minesweeper:
Goal: uncover every cell that does not have a mine in it
Solution: the specific cells that contain mines
Clues: the numbers shown in cells that do not have a mine
Rules: fixed number of mines, fixed grid, the number in a cell is the count of mines in the adjacent cells, first cell clicked is always empty
Hints: none
Reward: game ends
(this isnāt a comprehensive definition, just what Iām using to work out what I donāt like about the puzzles in The Blue Prince)
games sometimes have puzzles. usually the goal is obvious, the solution hidden, clues given, rules known, no hints. and the reward may be known or not. this is the āpurestā type, like in Simon Tathamās Puzzle Collection. plenty of games mess with this, concealing rules or clues or goals. when the rules arenāt known, the player uses inductive reasoning to discover them. when the goal isnāt known, the player guesses.
sometimes games have something else like puzzles
mysteries have goals but donāt have rules or clues (evidence). they can be explicit mysteries, like finding the secrets in Doom E1M1, or implicit, like finding the red keycard in E1M2. you see somewhere you want to get to, and you take regular actions without having to be too intentful, and you get to it. these barely register as puzzles, more like problems?
trivia is when you have to know something to proceed. if you know the answer, theyāre trivial. if you donāt, theyāre impossible. theyāre like a puzzle with no goal, rules, or evidence. you have to find the right sequence of hints. a lot of real-life puzzles are like this, like indexed messages in text. or keys in games (opening the red keycard door, or 0451 keycodes). or work. sometime the hint isnāt available in the game, and you have to find it in an external source (real-like trivia quizzes)
treasure hunts are just rewards. you look, you find it. you donāt look, you donāt find it.
I think good puzzles are self-contained, where everything you need to solve it is available to you. maybe not recognised yet, or hidden, but easily at hand. and that the best puzzles start off looking like trivia questions, completely stumping the player āhow could I possibly work this out?ā. and that solving the puzzle is enjoyable. how fun is it to close the line on a snub-square game of Loopy? I get some small satisfaction
the opposite of good puzzles are brainteasers, like puzzles but not at all interested in if you solve them or not. good puzzle designers want you to solve their creations, by working them out and hitting that āa-ha!ā moment. and the player can rely on their good intentions to rule out impossible solutions
so far Iām finding most of the things in The Blue Prince are mysteries solvable by playing the game as normal (opening the Garage) or trivia, where you hunt for the hint that gives the solution (safe codes), or both (music sheets). the main puzzle is drafting a floorplan that gets to an open side of the Antechamber, and the operation is so difficult from random tiles in the draft. managing the randomness like a deck builder is a bit effective, but itās not much of a puzzle
puzzles are successful when they can be solved by the intended audience. I think The Blue Prince has an audience in mind who arenāt true murder puzzle heads, and relies on hints to make puzzles solvable. rather than leaning on the playerās insight āthis puzzle is solvable, the designer has intended it to beā. because of the random draw, you might not see the evidence needed to solve a puzzle. and may not know thereās a goal to strive for. lots of the puzzles are hidden, and lacking much evidence to find, and the rewards so underwhelming
putting hints everywhere helps make puzzles solvable, since if someone keeps playing eventually theyāll see all the draftable rooms and presumably read all the notes. hints also work instead of evidence (which may be overlooked), since they tell you: thereās something to do, and what. but they remove the āa-ha!ā
most of the game so far is treasure hunting
i would categorize this game as a gameified walking sim rather than a puzzle game or rogue like-whatever
Good post. Except one of my favorite qualities is mystery, and Iād define it a different way. I think the essence of mystery involves trying to understand a reticent mind via the traces it has left behind. Thatās why the core mystery genres are psychological and paranormal (ā some sort of spirit is involved). And why the rules are vague and the clues nonconclusive.
The intuitive association of mystery with mind is why mysteries have a way of bringing on a mood of spiritual wonder. Even (or especially) when only objects are in sight, and it is unclear what mind exactly might be involved.
i started playing this game because i was curious. about 3-4 hours in i admit the loop is starting to feel kind of boring and starting to wear on me a bit. someone on bsky also said theyāre on day 112 which freaked me out a bit as someone who has only done 17 days and felt like thatās already a lot. probably going to look up a walkthrough for what iām stuck on and just see how much more i really want to play it. iāve heard it is one of those games that has hidden meta levels that you have to do a bunch of bullshit to get to and iām not sure how absorbed i really am into the core parts to do that. but iāll come back to it later.
My problem is that I just enjoy tile laying gamesā¦ I enjoy them out of all proportion. Iām a simpleton that way. Let me put two rooms next to each other so one of them enhances the other one and itās like a big relaxing sauna to me. So thatās why Iām enjoying this game more than everyone else here. It lets me lay tiles! Iāll admit that tile laying could be a bit more robust in its design, but hey, Iām layinā and lovinā it! Solve a few puzzles along the way? Sure, why not. Would I rather be playing Castles of Mad King Ludwig? Yes, but I donāt always have 3 other tile laying dullards around for that.
itās not bad to lay tiles, i mean i like that as a core idea. i just should have known this was going to be one of those games that get raves that ends up being a lot more simplistic and time consumey than iād like. i pretty much never fail to feel baffled by the critical consensus around a lot of indie games even if i can at least get where people are coming from more with this. this sorta feels like the prestige indie game version of second screen content tho, along with other games in those vein people mention a lot (Balatro, Vampire Survivors etc)
i think i also primarily enjoy it as a tile laying game where sometimes if you put two tiles next to each other another tile places itself in a sewer
yo lets play ludwig next time you go to an sb meetup, I love that game
Iām down! Great game. Suburbia by the same designer is excellent too.