Blue Prince

Blue Prince

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Mindset Guide for Beginners
By Brian
These are a few spoiler-free tips and suggestions for new players who want to get the most out of the game right from the start.
   
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Mindset Guide for Blue Prince
What is the point of this guide?

One of the things I've noticed after watching a few of my favorite YouTube personalities play Blue Prince for the first time is that it seems to be rare that people naturally understand what frame of mind they should have when approaching it (even after 8 hours). Usually that's fine because most games will quickly orient you the way they want you to think. Not so with Blue Prince, it seems. And so the point of this guide is just to give you a few quick tips to get your brain in the right place so that you don't spend hours and hours wasting your time. There will be no specific spoilers for anything, so don't worry about that. And I'm only going to be talking about the early game here. Once you are to the mid-game, you should be well accustomed to all of this.
How should one approach Blue Prince?
  1. The first thing you should know going in is that despite the main gameplay mechanic, the point of the game is not to simply draw rooms in as efficient a way as possible. In other words, the rooms are always a means to an end, not the ends in and of themselves. So while getting good at creating efficient layouts is a fun skill to master, it's just a tool, not the goal. Indeed, sometimes picking the "wrong" (less efficient) room is actually more helpful than picking the "right" (more efficient) one.

  2. That naturally raises the next question - "Okay, so then what should I be focusing on?" That's where the true fun of this game is revealed; the focus should be sheer curiosity. This is a double-edged sword, however. Because while that means you can, and should, follow your curiosity wherever it goes, granting you more freedom by allowing you to forget about "gaming the game", it also requires something of you in return: attention to detail.

  3. So what does that mean? It means spend time in each room and fully soak it in, especially the first time you encounter it. Most rooms in the game have at least 2 layers of things going on in them (and many times, that doesn't even include direct gameplay advancement). As before, don't worry about gaming the game (yet). Rather, immerse yourself and get a full feel for what's going on around you. If you are running from one door to the next, you are, in fact, "doing it wrong".

  4. One thing the game does tell you in the first hour or so (spoilers, I guess?) is that you should be writing stuff down. Now, you have no idea what you should be writing down. In other words, in puzzle terms, what is the noise (irrelevant details) and what is the signal (key clues)? I'm not going to tell you that here but what I will say is, that's a huge question you need to answer for yourself. In general, it's better to assume something that catches your attention is meaningful and that you should probably record it for later. You will end up with lots of useless minutia but honestly, it can be fun to go a little crazy wondering if the color of that lampshade is the key to everything. In time, you'll start to see the patterns that separate the wheat from the chaff. And at that point, you'll be glad you have such extensive notes and don't need to comb the entire house again with an entirely different mindset. Also, in addition to the clues themselves, I would recommend also keeping a "Current Goals" list, similar to a quest log in an RPG. Meaning, whenever something makes you think "I gotta keep in mind to look out for..." or "Next time I see X room, check Y aspect about it." It's very easy to forget that you wanted to inspect something days after you have the thought.

  5. I recommend a Google Doc paired with a screenshot tool (I use Lightshot and I love it). That way, you can write down your notes and add screenshots of things that are too complex or annoying to draw with pen and paper alone. In Lightshot, just use the "copy image" button and then go to the Doc and hit Ctrl+V to paste it. Then resize the image to be tiny, as you can always enlarge it again later when you want to look at it again (it retains its clarity regardless of repeated resizing). Also tag all of your screenshots with something you will remember to allow for easy Ctrl+F searching.

  6. Similar to what I said about each room having multiple layers to it, the game itself has multiple layers. I'm going to label those layers as spoilers now, but they don't give any answers away, they just are a bit more specific to what the layers are so if you want to go in absolutely blind, don't reveal the blacked-out text. The layers I'm referring to are the puzzle layer and the lore layer. Yes, you can figure out individual room puzzles and room synergies without ever picking up a single hand-written letter, but you're only getting half of the game and often hidden within the lore are clues to make all those puzzles easier (as well as provide context to what is going on and why). The characters matter. The timeline matters. The world matters. There are some games where the lore isn't worth engaging with, this is not one of them. The layers may seem separate and distinct at first, but if you're paying attention, you'll quickly realize that they weave round and round each other.

  7. Don't make assumptions about how the game works until you have solid evidence it does work that way. Instead just observe and only come to conclusions once you see something happen with your own eyes. I've watched many people play the game playing under assumptions that aren't true and it takes them another 10 hours for the game to disprove their assumption (and they realize it's been disproven). Meanwhile, they've been making countless wrong decisions under that false idea.

  8. Lastly, until you've gotten a handle on what this game is all about, ignore the main goal. I know, that antechamber at the top is calling your name and you may think you're a gamer's gamer that can speedrun all the way up there in no time. Firstly, trust me, it's not going to be that easy, so I suggest not even thinking about it. And secondly, even if you somehow did manage to blast through and find room 46 quickly, you've still missed at least half of what the game is offering you. So for the first 10 hours or so, pretend room 46 (or the antechamber, for that matter) doesn't even exist. And don't worry about the day counter - there is no time limit (I made the mistake of fretting over calling it a day after only getting 10 rooms in a couple of times).
Thanks for reading!
If anyone has any question or suggestions for additions to this list in the same spirit of a no-spoiler mindset framing, please comment below, I'll read everything. I hope this helps some of you and good luck in the manor!
3 Comments
steve 6 hours ago 
I've only just started, but was having a lot of insecurities about my approach to this game. Thanks for posting this guide, as it really eased my anxieties. Nice job of threading the needle that let's you pass advice but not spoilers.
Brian  [author] 27 Aug @ 4:50am 
Added point 7 about making false assumptions.
Brian  [author] 26 Aug @ 11:46am 
Added to point 4, talking about how you should keep a "quest log" of your own.