Blue Prince: Can a random puzzle game actually work?

0:00 Hey!

0:00 Yo.

0:01 What's up?

0:01 Mark here.

0:02 Sorry for the radio silence right now,

0:05 but I am deep in the final stages of developing my new game.

0:10 However,

0:11 I just had to pop back on YouTube for a spell to talk about Blue Prince.

0:18 Because it is a totally fascinating game to

0:20 talk about- both in terms of its design,

0:23 and how people have reacted to it.

0:26 So, this is a GMTK Mini.

0:29 And let's discuss Blue Prince.

0:32 Right.

0:33 Let's speedrun through the game's concept.

0:35 You've inherited a humongous house from your great uncle.

0:38 But you only get to keep it if you can find the mansion's secret 46th room.

0:43 So it's a game of mysteries and treasure hunts.

0:46 A game about clues and padlocks and keys and riddles and patterns and codes.

0:52 Just the sorta thing I love to sink my teeth into.

0:55 But!

0:55 There's a twist.

0:57 You see, the house's layout is not predetermined- instead

1:01 it's created by laying down tiles.

1:03 You essentially build the house, room by room,

1:06 making strategic decisions every time you open a door.

1:10 So you're carefully juggling resources like keys,

1:14 gems, and stamina- and if you build your way into

1:17 a corner you'll have to call it a day.

1:20 And tomorrow...

1:21 the house's layout will be completely reset and

1:24 you'll have to start again from scratch.

1:27 So it's a curious and totally unconventional mix of genres.

1:33 Part adventure game, part roguelike deckbuilder.

1:37 And it's this second half that is the source of the game's fiercest criticism.

1:42 Because if you look at user reviews you will see a

1:46 lot of people who are angry at the game's RNG.

1:49 Or- in other words- the way it uses random generation.

1:53 Now, sometimes...

1:54 the complaint is simply that the RNG is being a bit cruel.

1:58 Perhaps the game gives you a crappy selection of rooms, not enough resources,

2:03 and too many dead ends- all of which means that a day just comes to a crashing,

2:08 unsatisfying end.

2:09 And, sure, that can happen sometimes.

2:11 And it's not much fun.

2:13 But- more importantly- there's criticism for how the random side

2:18 of the game actually gets in the way of the puzzle solving side of the equation.

2:23 How the two sides don't really mix all that cleanly.

2:27 So what's the issue?

2:30 Well...

2:30 if we look on the puzzle solving side of things,

2:33 then every game in the genre- from

2:36 Myst to Animal Well- can be boiled down to....

2:41 essentially...

2:41 joining the dots.

2:42 You find a clue in one part of the world, and then you input it somewhere else.

2:48 You find a code, you put it in a safe.

2:51 You find a password, you put it in a computer.

2:54 You find A, you apply it to B.

2:56 Of course- this will be complicated in all sorts of ways.

2:59 You've got to make the logical connection between the dots.

3:02 Or combine multiple clues.

3:04 Or follow a string of interconnected hints.

3:07 Or decode an entire language or whatever- but the point still stands.

3:12 It's join the dots.

3:13 A to B.

3:14 But in Blue Prince...

3:16 the randomness means that you can have a clue, but not actually have

3:21 access to the place where you need to input it!

3:24 You might get a safe code...

3:25 but the safe won't appear for the next three or four runs.

3:29 In other words: you've got A, but your house doesn't have a B.

3:34 Or the other way around.

3:35 And it's sometimes even more fiddly than that.

3:39 So- without going into spoilers- to get one important piece of information

3:43 you need to have drafted two specific rooms,

3:46 and be holding another specific item.

3:48 And another puzzle requires two rooms to be

3:51 drafted in close proximity to each other.

3:53 And so it can be pretty frustrating when

3:56 those don't all appear in the same draft.

3:59 But remember- this also extends to stuff you

4:02 merely have a hunch or a theory about.

4:05 You know, maybe those things are connected?

4:07 Maybe this is the

4:08 right code to the safe?

4:10 And that's a big part of puzzle games: testing theories.

4:13 Does A connect to B?

4:15 Let's find out.

4:16 But- again- testing each one of those theories is reliant

4:20 on a specific combination of rooms popping up.

4:24 And so you can essentially have the solution to

4:26 a puzzle- but cannot actually input it unless the

4:29 stars align, the dice roll in your favour,

4:32 and the right rooms pop up in the right locations.

4:36 And I certainly felt this myself!

4:37 There were plenty of times- like,

4:40 measured in hours- where I knew what I wanted to do- but was constantly blocked,

4:45 delayed, or frustrated by a bad set of rolls.

4:48 Or in other words- where the hell is the pump room?!

4:48 Or in other words- where the hell is the pump room?!

4:53 This random flavour also means that it's really

4:56 hard to get fixated on a single puzzle.

4:59 You can't just follow a single thread or

5:01 go down one specific rabbit hole because

5:03 there's no guarantee that the game will give you the rooms you need for that!

5:07 Instead,

5:08 you need to be able to pivot and adapt to what the house gives you each day.

5:12 You got the secret garden key?

5:14 Okay, let's try and figure out how to use that.

5:17 Drafted the bookshop?

5:18 Let's focus on making loads of money so we can buy new books.

5:23 That sort of thing.

5:24 And that- to me- was a hard pill to swallow.

5:27 I'm very methodical with puzzle games:

5:29 I like to focus on solving one thing at a time.

5:33 And some of my favourite adventure game moments are all about that:

5:37 chasing the quantum moon in Outer Wilds, or following the Golden Path in Tunic.

5:42 In fact, I find it pretty overwhelming to juggle lots of loose threads,

5:47 theories, and hunches.

5:48 I get lost in the weeds.

5:50 And Blue Prince has a LOT to juggle.

5:52 Multiple storylines, a huge family tree, dates,

5:56 codes, numbers, languages, paintings, chess pieces,

5:59 locked doors, and seeming dead ends.

6:03 So I found it tough to get knocked off a thread.

6:06 And sometimes would just keep re-rolling until I

6:09 got the rooms I needed for my current investigation.

6:13 Okay.

6:14 So- I think that defines the problem.

6:17 Adventures games rely on players making connections between different elements.

6:21 But when you add in randomness,

6:23 you can make it tedious or even impossible

6:26 for the correct elements to even show up.

6:29 That makes it more annoying to solve puzzles,

6:32 and breaks the flow of sinking your teeth into a good conundrum.

6:36 And so...

6:37 I guess the question is, if these two sides of the game are in such contention,

6:43 why does Blue Prince have randomness in the first place?

6:47 Why did developer Dogubomb pair a Myst-like game

6:50 with one about shuffling a deck of tiles?

6:54 And would the game be better if it was just a fixed house full of secrets?

6:59 Well, looking at interviews with designer Tonda Ros,

7:03 and just from my own time playing the game, I think I can highlight

7:06 a few reasons why the developers chose to have randomness be part of the game.

7:11 Okay, so one- the game is simply more novel.

7:15 There are already plenty of games about finding secrets in mansions.

7:19 But there aren't many games about drafting the mansion yourself, tile by tile.

7:24 That's usually a board game thing.

7:26 Two- it adds to the sense of mystery and intrigue.

7:30 The sheer number of possible rooms and

7:33 layouts creates a massive possibility space.

7:35 Stumble upon a secret and it feels like a genuine

7:38 discovery- especially because you may not see this room again for ages.

7:43 Three- it adds another dimension to the puzzle solving.

7:47 Having to get specific rooms near each other is a puzzle in of itself.

7:52 It's a way of proving knowledge to the game.

7:55 Just like how Outer Wilds can ask you to be at a specific location...

7:59 at a specific TIME during the loop, Blue Prince can ask you to manipulate

8:03 the house in a very specific way in order to solve a puzzle.

8:07 Four- it gives the game an exciting final

8:09 challenge in order to solve the overarching puzzle to open door 46.

8:14 It's like doing that final loop in The Forgotten

8:17 City or that epic final run in Prey:

8:20 Mooncrash.

8:20 You gotta nail everything in a single run in order to finish Blue Prince

8:24 And five- it gets rid of dead ends and brick walls.

8:29 in a lot of adventure games you can

8:31 just find yourself stumbling around the same environment

8:34 over and over again, looking for some tiny thing you missed,

8:37 or some connection you've yet to make.

8:39 But in Blue Prince?

8:41 Just start a new day and you've got a whole new set of things to check out.

8:45 So- okay.

8:47 If we were to try and fix this game...

8:49 and as always- when i say fix- it's just an interesting design chat,

8:53 not a dig at the game

8:55 or the designer- but if we were to fix this game,

8:59 we'd have to leave the randomness intact.

9:01 We can't just strip that part of the game out

9:04 and turn it into yet another digital escape room.

9:07 So maybe we can keep the randomness...

9:10 but tweak things a little to make it more palatable to puzzle game fans.

9:15 Here's what I've come up with.

9:17 So- for one thing, Blue Prince has a lot of stuff to keep track of.

9:21 An absolute metric butt load.

9:24 There are multi-page letters, entire books, there are paintings and photos.

9:29 And you need to store almost all of it because one, you've got to

9:33 juggle lots of different puzzles and swap between

9:35 them based on what rooms come up.

9:37 And two- you dunno when you're gonna see this room again,

9:41 so don't count on being able to come back here for a recap.

9:44 The current solution is, ultimately,

9:47 lots of notes and- unless you're extremely

9:50 patient- lots of photographs or screenshots.

9:53 And I'm totally fine with taking notes- I love a good video game note!

9:58 But this is a totally overwhelming number of notes,

10:02 so some in-game reference system would have been

10:05 nice- even if just for storing a collection

10:08 of written documents like books and notes.

10:10 Or perhaps an in-game camera.

10:13 Solution two is to give the player

10:15 more opportunities to change the drafting pool,

10:18 so you can make certain rooms more likely.

10:20 Let players game the RNG to focus on making specific runs happen.

10:25 Now, I'll admit, there is a little bit of this in the game as it stands.

10:29 There are ways to change the rarity of a room.

10:32 You can find various ways to re-roll layouts.

10:35 You can force specific colours of room.

10:38 And you can cause changes in the next day's pool.

10:41 But- it's still surprisingly limited.

10:44 You can't easily remove rooms from the deck- a key part of deck-building games.

10:50 And there are limited ways to increase the

10:53 likelihood of a very specific room appearing.

10:55 Another possible solution is to simply change

10:58 the way the game communicates things.

11:01 For instance- it's kind of weird that Blue Prince tells

11:03 you exactly how many days you've been in the house.

11:06 This can add an unnecessary sense of time pressure- like,

11:09 you need to hurry up and get to room 46.

11:12 It's been a month already, are you serious?!

11:15 And this lingering tally can

11:16 put a real emphasis on quote unquote wasted runs as they start to add up.

11:22 But- in realty- there's no limit to how long you can take.

11:25 It doesn't matter if you find the antechamber on day one or day one hundred.

11:29 And it's perfectly fine to skip a few days if the RNG isn't working out.

11:33 So why is your day count so front-loaded?

11:37 Roguelikes don't normally do this.

11:39 And finally- I think it could have been good to split the goal up a bit more.

11:44 As discussed,

11:44 Blue Prince is a game where you can't get fixated on a single puzzle.

11:49 And yet, the game presents a very explicit and definitive goal:

11:53 get to, and unlock the antechamber.

11:56 And sure- there are lots of different routes and ways to do it,

12:00 but the goal is still very singular.

12:01 Get here.

12:02 But if the overarching goal of the game was more granular.

12:06 Say...

12:07 to unlock eight safes.

12:08 Then it would hammer home the idea that

12:10 you should be juggling lots of different puzzles.

12:12 And that you have lots of goals to be going for simultaneously.

12:16 I dunno, perhaps that would work.

12:18 Ultimately....

12:19 this is all pretty academic.

12:21 Blue Prince is a great game,

12:24 full of mystery, surprise, excitement, and satisfying reveals.

12:27 And it has received incredible review scores from the press.

12:31 But it's not free of frustration.

12:33 It is a game of dead ends, wasted trips, unlucky rolls, and repetitive treks.

12:39 And from my own experience- I've gotten to room 46 and enjoyed that experience,

12:45 but I don't really want to delve into the massive end game simply because

12:49 I know that will mean hours and hours of time just spent wrangling with RNG.

12:55 The game doesn't really respect my time and- like I said- I'm

12:59 trying to finish a video game right now.

13:01 So on that note I'll leave it here.

13:03 Lemme know what you think of Blue Prince in the comments.

13:06 Oh, and don't forget the GMTK Game Jam is

13:08 coming July 30th- so click here for the full details on that!

13:14 See you soon!