Like so many before me and likely more after, I travelled down the Rabbit Hole that is The Blue Prince. After weeks in game and plenty of failures, I reached the Blue Prince Room 46, finally. This is my favorite puzzle game since the great Outer Wilds. When I finally reached the credits, I also realized there was so much more to do.
The Setup of the Blue Prince
The Blue Prince begins without cutscenes, no exposition, just me, standing in the foyer of a vast, silent mansion. The only directive: find Room 46. There are no NPCs, no dialogue trees, no quest markers. The palace itself is the sole actor in this story.
The story is told entirely through the rooms, architecture, and the rules they impose. Available rooms to pick loop back in ways that can frustrate. Floor plans always change. The manor is less a location and more a system — one that reacts to how I explore it.
The Room Mechanics
The “story” is linked with its mechanics. Every room type is a narrative beat in disguise:
- Blue Rooms: are the most common, and usually helpful.
- Bedrooms: often include keys or gems, but alway grant extra steps .
- Hallways: have doors to connect rooms. Some always unlocked and some always locked.
- Green Rooms: are outdoor or garden rooms, usually with gems and dig spots.
- Red Rooms: are bad, either they are a dead end or have negative buffs.
- Shops: offer items or services for gold.
- Blackprints: rare and valuable, and usually need some actions to add them to the floor plan pool.
Everytime I’d approach a door, the game presented me with 3 options for rooms to place in front of me. Some of them required gems and were a mix of the above room types. There were items and buffs that would allow me sometimes reroll, but I was mostly stuck with choosing 1.
These mechanics aren’t just obstacles, they’re the manor’s way of telling me a story. The building is the narrator, and its language is the rooms. It likes to mess with you too.
The Purpose of the Blue Prince Journey
The purpose of The Blue Prince isn’t just to reach Room 46, it’s to learn how the building thinks. The game taught me its rules indirectly, then tested whether I learned them properly. Every floor rank is a lesson, every mechanic a piece of grammar in the Mt. Holly’s architectural language.
It liked to punish me when I thought I had all the answers. I’d think I was finally going to reach the top floor rank and it would through dead ends at me. Other times, I’d run out of steps, not have enough keys, run out of gems or get a security door with no access card.
The last stretch is a culmination of everything I learned:
- Filling out the early ranks with the dead end rooms to gather resources, but without blocking my path north.
- Planning out which option to open the antechamber as the option presents itself instead of before hand. Not a spoiler to say there are multiple ways.
- Remembering to open the actual door to Room 46 with enough steps left.
- Using the security room and keycard to my advantage, or keys if I gathered plenty.
- Drafting rooms that allow me to redraft or carrying dice to reroll was crucial, because the game wants to lead me off the path.
- Unlocking the tunnel floor plan also helped a ton.
When I stepped through, the door closed and the screen faded to black. Credits roll. I felt a great sense of accomplishment, but also confusion. The Blue Prince made such a big deal about getting to room 46, but did not let me see what is inside.
Why did the game do this little straight credits rug pull? Because the credits are basically the halfway point of the game. Only on my second visit to room 46 did I get to explore inside and uncover new clues. Opening one door is just the start to open many more.
What the Game Is Really Doing
The Blue Prince is a story told entirely through mechanics. Mt. Holly is both the setting and the storyteller, and Room 46 is less a destination than a proof of understanding. The credits aren’t a reward for endurance, they’re a confirmation that I learned the mansion’s language well enough to follow it to the end.
Now the new question is what end? The game even asks in the inheritance letter whether I would stop there or keep going. Considering there were 8 locked doors where I found the lever to open Room 46, I think I’ll jump further down the rabbit hole.