Blue Prince review: "This exploration roguelike is like nothing else I've played, and became a puzzle obsession I just couldn't shake"

They say when one door closes, another opens. In Blue Prince, you'd better hope that's the case – as your goal is to constantly push forward while exploring a shifting manor house that changes layout every day. Exploring in first-person, each time you clutch a doorknob you get a selection of three possible rooms to etch onto your blueprint. Dead ends, hallways, bedrooms; the wrong choice may ruin your run, the right one may give you another breadcrumb on a trail of devious family secrets.

That's right, this is a roguelike exploration puzzle game, and the debut from the Californian based indie studio Dogubomb. There's certainly no combat, unless you count an assault on your brain cells. The premise is relatively simple: you're called to a family mansion at Mt. Holly to claim your inheritance – which hinges on you finding the 46th room in the house which only has 45. That means at least one secret lies tucked away, but what's genius about your first few attempts in Blue Prince is how quickly you find yourself stumbling upon many more. Documents to read, safes to crack, computers to trawl through, every newly opened door presents a fresh opportunity to be nosy.

Good manors

In fact, trading notes with fellow journalists, it's possible to stumble on different sequences of brainteasers and even multiple routes to hitting credits. Naturally, though, rolling those precious developer names is only the start, revealing more taxing and tricky conundrums to hunt down, which I'm still picking through. Crucially, even though it took me about 11 hours across 19 runs (well, 23 if you count my demo time too) to reach that first milestone, I'm still finding new mysteries.

Just like the set-up, the core of what you do is also incredibly simple to understand. Entering through a lobby with three doors, the layout of the manor is always five rooms wide, nine rows deep. You've a limited amount of steps that decrease with each room explored. Coins can be scooped up to spend in stores. Keys and gems littered about grant entry to locked doors or allow you to draft special rooms. A sealed antechamber at the very back of the house promises some kind of clue to find the final room.

But how do you unlock the antechamber? Reach it, and it's blocked off in a way no key can open. Again, there's actually more than one way, and you'll begin to learn the secrets for how to best place and move through these rooms as you go. While you can unlock some elements that carry over between runs, they're few in number. Mostly, the way you make progress in Blue Prince is by acquiring knowledge, be that strategies for how to place rooms, or by picking up and reading notes that give you greater perspective on what's really going on. Yes, this is one of those games best played with a notebook.

Before long you'll learn that the deeper you get into the manor the harder it is to progress. You'll come across more locked doors. And, rooms aren't unlimited – once placed there are no more copies. Completely avoid placing dead ends early, and you'll find yourself inundated with them later when you may need to manoeuvre the most. Instead, you'll want to worm your way through each day's blueprint carefully to maximize your options. Place a dead end storeroom early on, and it may present an item you can use throughout to make things easier, like a lockpick to give you a chance to negate key costs. Likewise, placing a hallway in a cramped space you've already blocked off at the sides would be a waste. Decisions, decisions.

Above all else, visiting new rooms is always a priority. Basically every room has some kind of benefit you can leverage in the right situation – even ones not obviously advantageous usually have some boon. Documents you can rifle through might contain vital clues for how to access hidden areas of rooms or crack later puzzles. Even runs where you don't get close to getting into the antechamber can be hugely beneficial if you glimpse the right messages.

Family secrets

Some puzzles can even get quite meta, playing with aspects of space and time you might not have even considered Blue Prince was concerned about at all. It's not a game to be underestimated. Crucially, though, despite the layers these puzzles can play with, everything is solvable in-game without having to share information online. Though trading cryptic notes with a friend can be a joy in and of itself, there's also plenty of delicious 'aha' moments to be had when it all comes together.

Most of the time, randomness isn't a problem as there's so much you can find at all times. But, when you do find yourself chasing a solution that requires certain things to appear and they just won't it can grate – especially after you've pared down so many other threads. One room in particular can power others after a puzzle has been solved, but requires careful placement in order to do so. I only saw this room in the stack three times, and only managed to get it down twice, both when I simply didn't have enough space on the blueprint left to make proper use of it. A shame as Blue Prince is at its best when it feels like you have room to experiment.

There are a few ways things can just get a bit too fiddly – traipsing to the Outer Room to get a daily bonus day after day, for instance. Or having to grab specific random items and a workshop to bash together brand new items. Again, fine enough when you've got so many directions to go, but once you get used to it and want to focus on a few specific mysteries, it can feel a bit rough. Likewise, while I'm still finding new things each run, I do find myself going through plenty of familiar areas – having to mouse across the same room again just to check for loose change and gems can get a bit repetitive when you've already seen the same room lots of times.

Importantly, though, none of those annoyances got in the way of reaching the end credits. In fact, I appreciate how freeform the puzzles are that come your way. It turned out that by the time I'd reached that point I'd already grappled with about half the tougher challenges for the mystery that lay beyond. My journey through the manor was completely different to anyone else I spoke to.

I'm still finding more that intrigues me as I continue to place rooms and expand my blueprints. Though this is more than an idea on paper like those architectural documents. Blue Prince is like little else I've played, a truly impressive new style of roguelike that puts its puzzling narrative at the fore, and is more than just a strong foundation – the whole house is rock solid.

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