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Blue Prince is a roguelike puzzle masterpiece

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187 points adrianhon | 3 comments | 09 Apr 25 01:27 UTC | HN request time: 0.747s | source
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throwerofstone ◴[11 Apr 25 19:28 UTC] No.43657553[source]▶
After playing the game for 10+ hours and dropping it out of sheer frustration, I came to the conclusion that I must have been playing a vastly different game than the people praising it.

The first hour was great. I was constantly encountering new rooms and solving puzzles. The many times where the game decided to give me nothing but rooms leading to dead ends was annoying, but I still had things to explore in the next run so it didn't matter that much. After that first hour, the game became a slog. I encountered the same rooms, solved the same two puzzles for resources and was constantly praying for the RNG to give me something new. There is some RNG manipulation, but not enough to mitigate the boring part of the game. There are a few interesting overarching puzzles, but most of them are wrapped in multiple layers of RNG.

For example, for one puzzle you need a specific item that randomly spawns, use it in a room that randomly spawns which you need to unlock with another room that also randomly spawns. It took me 6 hours for the game to give me a run where I got all three of those things in a single run. The reward? Some resources that I have next to no use for and some clues that I can only experiment with if the RNG deems me worthy.

I have absolutely no idea where the praise for the game comes from. Maybe this game is perfect for those who are really into roguelites, but for me personally it just feels like the game is wasting my time for no reason at all.

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CyberDildonics ◴[11 Apr 25 21:31 UTC] No.43658839[source]▶
This is 'article' is just an advertisement
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adrianhon ◴[11 Apr 25 21:58 UTC] No.43659100[source]▶
OP here: Is there anything that makes you say that other than the fact that it’s positive and I received a review key? I’ve written about plenty of games I didn’t enjoy that I got for free (e.g. for judging awards) including games that were very well-received, like Viewfinder and Pacific Drive.
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jncfhnb ◴[11 Apr 25 23:20 UTC] No.43659765[source]▶
Posting a review for an arbitrary game to HN definitely smells like advertising to me. I don’t think you would be posting an article like this to HN that shat on a relatively unknown indie game you didn’t like.

How is this _not_ advertising in your mind? Surely you don’t think random people on HN are invested in your take on this game. What purpose did you intend if not to promote the newly released game?

I feel you’re trying to say you weren’t paid to advertise this game, which I believe, but it is 100% what you’re doing.

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1. adrianhon ◴[11 Apr 25 23:52 UTC] No.43659978[source]▶
I do think random people are invested in my take on this game, yes. If they weren't, it wouldn't have been upvoted. It's actually very difficult to get links on the front page of HN, the signal to noise is quite high.

I post around a third to a half of the articles I write on my blog to HN – the ones I think people here will like. Sometimes they hit and sometimes they don't. Three weeks ago I wrote about Odysseus, a very ambitious larp, that was popular here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43414992

And last year I wrote about my thoughts on The Sphere in Las Vegas:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40858165

As for things I disliked, I wrote about Tonight with the Impressionists, a VR exhibition in Paris:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40745133

I think you are saying that anyone posting a positive article about something you don't know about on HN is a shill, which seems quite strange. Sometimes people genuinely like things and want to share their thoughts on why.

My final note is that Blue Prince is not a relatively unknown indie game. It was included for free on PS Plus and Xbox Game Pass at launch – quite unusual. It was also previewed by quite a few publications and is almost certainly going to be shortlisted in a lot of game of the year lists.

And to be clear, I have not been paid to write this article. There are no incentives involved whatsoever.

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2. earlyriser ◴[12 Apr 25 01:37 UTC] No.43660551[source]▶
I haven't heard about this game until today, but literally 10 mins before reading this on HN I was reading this Polygon article about it https://www.polygon.com/awards/557285/blue-prince-game-of-th...

So it seems it's quite popular.

3. jncfhnb ◴[12 Apr 25 15:10 UTC] No.43665062[source]▶
Look, I believe you.

What I’m saying is that it doesn’t feel obvious that I should definitely believe you. You are unambiguously promoting this newly released game. By doing this a savvy reader does need to question whether or not you’re a shill. And that is tiring. It is fully possible that this article is intended to manipulate.

Maybe background info on your past activities can provide evidence to reinforce the idea that you are doing this only because you want to. But I’m not really interested in researching you. Content like this is just not easily readable with blind trust.