If you haven't yet played Blue Prince or watched someone play it, you need to know
that it's really fantastic, as an experience, with a vivid world and compelling
narrative. Also, fiendish puzzles and layers of deception.
& you're going to want to know that I'm writing this blog entry with the assumption
that you already have that level of knowledge and/or don't care about spoilers, by now.
I didn't achieve every possible trophy, I didn't open every door. There's a whole
other building I never even saw. But I had a hell of a fun ride. I'm really enthusiastic
about all the pieces of the world's narrative which are implied by the classrooms,
the books and letters.
This game was the most surprising and most fun of its genre[1]_ which I've gotten to play
since Quern.
The opening is so good at establishing the tone and giving the player the first few clues
as to what the game is going to be like. The rest of the game goes about subverting that
established framework, showing the player more behind the facades, rewarding exploration
and inference, note taking & note referencing.
We managed to solve our way through nearly everything to get to a good ending, but couldn't
make the leap to using a fire to score the sundial from the clues we could find; we ended up
looking up that solution. Everything else we did uninformed.
We got the first pair of blue doors open but not the second. That was complete enough for my
needs.