I’ve played a ton of puzzle games. I’ve watched people play through them too. This may unequivocally be the best one ever made. It is incredibly difficult to design an abstract puzzle game well. There’s so many little facets to the design where frequently games, both old and new, show cracks. This game has that level of polish that takes it to another level. That’s really the review. If that has sold you on this game, stop reading, shut yourself off to the rest of the world, and certainly avoid spoilers/hints and enjoy something truly special.
Like, seriously, why are you still reading? Go get the game : https://store.steampowered.com/app/1569580/Blue_Prince/
So I define puzzle games as two distinctly different types, iterative puzzle games and abstract puzzle games. Iterative are sudoku puzzles, Baba Is You, crossword puzzles, etc. If that’s your jam, awesome! The key component is the logical methods of the game are consistent and it’s merely a matter of going through a set of logical steps in your head to solve puzzles. The primary difference between levels is a matter of additional rules or logic within the same bounds of the game.
Abstract puzzle games are different. They are games like Myst, Riven, La Mulana, internet riddles such as Notpron, and Ur-Quan Masters. (UQM is a bunch of genres at once, but let’s focus on the puzzle aspects) You’re thrown into a world (even old Zelda games work on this premise to some degree) and the object is to figure out the puzzle to solve and how to go about solving it. A lot of interesting types of things happen in these games that don’t really happen in other genres. For one, it’s a serious challenge to a riddle solver. There’s usually several different strategies to go about solving puzzles. It really tests your brain and the more you play them and think about how to work the problems within the game–you get better at them. A lot of players, an unfortunate massive amount, are quick to give up and look up hintbooks or complain the puzzle was too hard or something. The best games have well thought out logic and yes, some old adventure games, especially before PC gaming had consistent GUIs and design patterns, a lot of games had things some players thought of as unfair.
I’m used to being stuck on puzzles for months on end. It happened a few times doing notpron, and it happens from time to time. I usually have several puzzle games in the air at once and when I get an idea or just some time, I see where I can get. The trick is something happens when you get stuck in puzzle games. You get to be lost. Every where in life today especially, we live in a world where everything has a place to be, points to be scored, things to accomplish on a time line. How often do you go get lost in the woods and try to find your way out? There’s no actual danger of course in solving a puzzle, but you start to learn a lot about yourself. It’s unnerving sometimes, sometimes you just enjoy the scenery, you learn how you think in situations where you aren’t really sure what to do. It’s completely different and unusual compared to other games. There’s usually some strategic formula to follow, or you just keep trying a jump on a platformer. You really have to learn to think like a problem solver to do well in puzzle games. It’s not some magic skill, like anything, it’s learnable with practice. But you have to be a bit willing to get a little lost along the way to find yourself.
Some tips to the budding puzzle solver.
- Don’t apply your own logic to the game. I frequently will watch people play puzzle games and they may be given an item or shown something and they make a massive assumption about its use, completely missing some reasonably logical decision that solves the puzzle.
- You’re playing something someone else or a team of people designed. Games with logical puzzles, tend to have many logical puzzles. We sometimes call this ‘antiriddling’ or getting into the developer’s head about how they might do something. So if you can get a bit in their head or simply just follow the logic presented, solutions will follow.
- Corollary to this–once you’ve played all these classics and you get into this deeper, you’re going to start playing puzzle games that are a bit troubled where the logic is inconsistent. That doesn’t make them bad, but you need to be more thorough. Generally you still can figure out when you know something is certainly the solution, or you know it MUST be in the room…that’s where pixel hunting or as I say, ‘being persistent when you know you have the correct answer’ is critical. The number of times I’ve abandoned what was the right answer and came back to it hours later, a bit humbling and a bit grumbling.
- Likewise, if you’re stuck, usually you’re missing a clue or interpreting a clue wrong. One of the hardest things to learn as a riddler is walking back up a depth first search and get more breadth to what you’re doing. It is a critical skill to unlock to be able to take a break and actually start fresh without having assumptions about what to do or to scan for clues in a different pattern. Having friends to riddle with is a great idea and can help you discover traps you may fall into. It took several years to break and be aware of a lot of these different habits.
- Take copious notes. I get it; it can be annoying. Sometimes I start a game for an hour or so and try to ascertain how much the game tracks for me and what is a reasonable assumption to make about what I need to record. Old interactive fiction titles you can use tools like Trizbort (mapping tool that lets you put notes) or simply just use a notebook. The more you do it, and especially in this digital age, you can take screenshots, open up notepad, etc. Each game can be a little different, but some older games will really not hand hold you at all and that’s just how it worked. It also leaves it to the player for them to be a detective and both consider what is a clue and where it may be used.
- There’s so many other little tidbits you learn as you do this. The most important rule though is not to cheat. If you honestly get stuck and you’ve put in the work, ask a friend you know has completed the game. Tell them what you’ve tried and see if they can nudge you in the right direction. If you don’t have that friend, just know you did your due diligence. The greatest damage you can do to learning to get better at this is by cheating. You’ll simply never learn the tactics of problem solving effectively and just like going through school, puzzles in games tend to build on each other and the difficulty builds over the course of the game. So cheating leads to more cheating generally, and then complaining the game is deficient. It’s okay to get stuck and be wrong or simply interpret it wrong. The more you do it, the better you’ll get at it and there are a lot of puzzle games out there. Use the times you get stuck to learn the most you can, so you aren’t stuck next time. But that feeling of getting something after being stuck for some time is basically one of the best drugs that exists. It’s better than beating a hard boss or winning in some strategy game. I really hope everyone can get to the point where they can get that experience. A lot of people don’t get that far I feel and just give up too soon. The best advice I can ever give you in riddling, don’t give up.
So in short, Blue Prince is one of the few games that give you the full experience of everything I wanted in a puzzle game. It should win a pile of awards and belong in the list of games that are truly that perfect kind of abstract puzzle game. It reminds me why this genre is among my all-time favourites and when it’s done right, it delivers that experience that just isn’t matched by other genres. So get Blue Prince, go get lost in something for a while!