After dinner last night I decided I was going to do play Blue Prince. I was itching to step foot in the manor and see what new puzzles and secrets would be discovered, or even better, solved. I assumed I’d get in a couple runs, given it was only a little after 6 PM when I was booting the game up. Usually it’s been the case that any given day or “run” in the game for me lasts about 30 minutes to an hour.
Alas, as the last run of my night came to a close I looked at my watch and saw it was 10:30 PM at night and had the realization that the run I just finished in-game was the only run I had at all.
The stats on Day 35 rolled:
Total Rooms: 40
Rank Reached: 9
Steps Taken: 121
Items Found: 125
New Rooms: 3
Turns out two of those three new rooms were the most time consuming ones I have yet to encounter. Each of them led to puzzles that really start to throw your brain into a loop, especially because I started questioning myself that I absolutely had the correct answers, but for some reason was just missing one small detail because the rewards hadn’t been given yet.
Of course, regardless of how close I felt to solving those puzzles, the reality was that I was so far off. And the breath of fresh air as I solved one of them, and opened the next door only to be thrown into another 60 minute puzzle full of second guessing and unsure if I had what I needed to truly solve it?
It was certainly an evening.
But not a wasted evening. If anything I came away from this single session even more convinced that this is one of my favorite games of all time. What started as a simple challenge to reach the mysterious “Room 46” has turned into a near-nightly walk through a manor full of new challenges, mysteries, and puzzles to solve. And I love it.
For anyone who is weary of spoilers, take this as your warning that anything beyond this line will be considered a heavy spoiler of puzzles, rooms, and features you may not have experienced yet, especially if have yet to reach Room 46 and roll credits.
Alright, we’re past the point of no return for spoilers. I want to touch on the two big puzzles I solved last night: The Gallery and Room 8. There’s a chance that even these may be spoilers for anyone who has seen, unlocked, or completed these rooms, so be warned here…
Solving the Gallery in Blue Prince
As the main rule of drafting in Blue Prince goes: if there’s a room you haven’t seen yet, you might as well draft it. The Gallery showed up, and it was the first new puzzle room I unlocked in this run.
Upon stepping foot inside, you’re presented with four very distinct art pieces and a Wheel of Fortune style letter board next to each of them. The puzzle is to input the correct names for each of the paintings. Sounds simple, but the clues are very sparse, as far as I can tell.
The main clue to solving was on the first painting on the right: “THICK” written in big bold letters, except for the “K.” The amount of blanks to solve? Five, the same length as the word “thick.” The first assumption was that this one was a “gimme” and that its name was the word on the painting, so that was what we wrote there and moved onto the other three.
Turns out, after about 60-90 minutes of slamming our heads against the wall, we learned that if you guess a painting correct, the letters actually lock in and the reward boxes in the room have an audible and physical reaction to that. We went back to “THICK” and just seemingly changed it to “THINK” and suddenly the puzzle clicked in.
Turns out, after going back and slamming our heads further against the walls, all the answers here are not really much of anything to do with the paintings themselves, but synonyms to “THINK”. Even with a thesaurus, solving the other three took quite a long time, given the fact that not every letter is available in every slot for each painting.
Upon completion of the Gallery’s puzzle, the reward was a handful of gems, coins, and a special key for Room 8. Now, I don’t know if it is always the key for Room 8 that you get upon completion of the Gallery, but all hints in both rooms seem to suggest that. I’ll have to confirm that with future runs though…
Solving Blue Prince’s Room 8 puzzle
Room 8 is fascinating. For one, it is the physical room of one of the paintings in the gallery. On another note, and without spoiling too much, “8” has a very significant meaning in this game. At least it seems.
None-the-less, that background isn’t all too necessary to solve this puzzle.
What is necessary is the ability to read some silly little rhymes. Inside this room are eight boxes with the deadly sins written on them (as seen on the painting), a giant sideways eight with nails (again, seen in the painting), and just out of frame eight figurines with a clue written on them.
- The objective: Put the figurines in the correct box based on their clues.
- The reward: A piece of the wall will open up and you’ll get an increase to your allowance. And if you solve this puzzle on Rank 8, you’ll also get a trophy for your trophy room.
Immediately following nearly two hours on the Gallery’s puzzle, I honestly was ready to wrap the day, but knew I must push on, especially considering I had one door left to unlock. And that spot was on row 8, or rank 8, and I knew there was a trophy for doing so. I couldn’t pass on this opportunity.
Luckily, this puzzle isn’t hard to figure out. It just may be a little time consuming to swap the pieces and truly parse the rhymes. I won’t spoil the solution too much. Just make sure you utilize the rug on the floor, it certainly is a clue.
About 30-ish minutes later, the puzzle was solved and increase in my allowance (and trophy) was mine.
The last new room I discovered last night in Blue Prince: The Tomb
One last note before I wrap this up, I did start the run off by unlocking the Tomb as my Outer room. It was my first time seeing this room. I have a few excitements around this one:
- The Tomb will receive 5 gold coins for every dead end room you draft. While this may be a pain in the butt to backtrack to if you’re running low on steps, this may end up being a very important room if you’re looking to make some big purchases in your run.
- There’s statues down there. You can raise or lower their arms. I have zero idea what they do specifically, but with everything, there’s clearly a puzzle here. The first assumption was that one of the statues is very similar to the one in the Cloister, which is a green room with an inaccessible center (but dig spots which signifies you may be able to get there).
- Some of the walls look like they might open up in the Tomb. Again, played with the statues, read the letters, looked at the various candles and other objects that had patters in area here… but I couldn’t find anything.
- And one question I have is since it’s an outer room, can you stockpile coins in the Tomb? In theory outer rooms don’t reset, but also it is a draftable room, so maybe this one does. If coins can be left here for a future run if you don’t pick them up, that may be come key to some big late-game purchases.
There’s certainly a lot to fiddle with this outer room. At first I wasn’t too too excited about it, but it did become very important to this run.
What a run of Blue Prince. This game does not stop surprising me, and I cannot wait to see what is uncovered next.
