[HN Gopher] Blue Prince is a roguelike puzzle masterpiece
___________________________________________________________________
Blue Prince is a roguelike puzzle masterpiece
Author : adrianhon
Score : 178 points
Date : 2025-04-09 01:27 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (mssv.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (mssv.net)
| galleywest200 wrote:
| I have been playing this game and it is really a blast. The
| tutorial note cards strongly recommend using a pen+paper while
| playing and I can second that as pretty much required for some of
| the more "meta" puzzles.
|
| Worth noting that I believe it is also on Gamepass and whatever
| Sony's version of Gamepass is called if you already had those
| services and wished to save a few bucks.
| gs17 wrote:
| > The tutorial note cards strongly recommend using a pen+paper
| while playing
|
| This is my largest complaint. The game should really have a
| notepad built in. It doesn't need to write down clues for me,
| but it would be nice to not have to find where my notes were if
| I put the game down for a long time. Is it that it's a console
| release?
| RamRodification wrote:
| So many games desperately need this feature. Almost all games
| could benefit from it to some degree. I see zero negative
| consequences to adding it to every single game in existence
| just in case someone wants it.
| detaro wrote:
| if you play on PC through Steam, Steam at least has a notes
| function in the overlay nowadays:
| https://www.polygon.com/2023/4/28/23702656/steam-beta-
| update...
| gs17 wrote:
| Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure adding Game Pass games to
| Steam isn't really compatible with that. It looks like
| there was a "notes" app for the Windows "Game Bar", but
| it's no longer available.
| detaro wrote:
| possible, yeah, from what I've heard the launcher is
| weird for those.
| Anon1096 wrote:
| I don't recommend using it, there's unfortunately a bug
| where your notes will not save randomly and just disappear
| between sessions. Which for a note taking feature basically
| makes it usuable. You can find discussions about the bug on
| steam ex https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/667
| 9490218977...
| rjh29 wrote:
| I've played 10 hours ish and it needs pen and paper notes. A
| text notepad probably won't work
| SamBam wrote:
| I haven't played this, but I played _Obra Dinn_ , which the
| review mentions, and I really don't think digital notes would
| have been nearly as good as pencil and paper. I really needed
| to draw arrows between things, sketch out a timeline, put
| question marks around ideas, etc. Pencil and paper is just so
| much more expressive.
| Secretmapper wrote:
| I think the option would be great regardless. What you say
| is true - pen and paper is more expressive than digital
| notes, but digital notes is better than nothing.
|
| I played Obra Dinn without pen and paper and I was fine.
|
| There was a game called The Roottrees are dead which is
| based on Obra dinn with a built in journal system and it is
| really useful.
| aqme28 wrote:
| It's an indie game. I think that adding a full-fledged note
| system with as much creativity as paper+pen is a big
| undertaking and perhaps not the best use of resources for the
| developer
| nlawalker wrote:
| Thanks for this callout, I was looking at the reviews here and
| on Steam and waffling, but I've got Game Pass.
|
| Also, re: notepad writing: if you've got two monitors, it
| Alt+Tabs just fine. I'm writing this as the opening credits
| play.
| falcor84 wrote:
| > whatever Sony's version of Gamepass is called
|
| Just mentioning that it's PS Plus, and the game was made
| available on their Extra & Premium tiers at launch [0], which
| is nice, as they typically release all the games on the same
| day in the middle of the month.
|
| [0] https://blog.playstation.com/2025/04/09/playstation-plus-
| gam...
|
| P.S. "Lost Records: Bloom & Rage", the second half of which is
| due to come out in a couple of days is very different, but
| highly recommended too, especially in its emotional vibes and
| how well they integrated the VHS camera into the gameplay.
| nameless912 wrote:
| Already contender for my favorite puzzle game of the year. I
| would compare it to Outer Wilds or Animal Well, but that would do
| all three games a disservice. Blue Prince is a thoroughly unique
| game that is worth your time. And like another commenter said, a
| pad of paper is _absolutely required_.
| npinsker wrote:
| > I don't like what they do to me. I shudder to think how they
| could supercharge builders like Dorfromantik, Carcassonne, and
| Castles of Mad King Ludwig.
|
| A very similar mechanic is used in the popular board game
| _Betrayal at House on the Hill_. That game 's arguably even worse
| because it has stat upgrades!
| tstrimple wrote:
| I really want to like the super crunchy board games, but it
| turns out after 90 minutes of setup no one else wants to play
| anymore. And it's exhausting being the only person willing to
| learn the rules to teach everyone else. We literally only setup
| and played Gloomhaven once. I need a better board game group.
| throwerofstone wrote:
| 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.
| 383toast wrote:
| > many times where the game decided to give me nothing but
| rooms leading to dead ends
|
| Since each room can only appear once, you can minimize this by
| strategically choosing to place dead end rooms early on in the
| lower southeast/southwest, and edges generally. Then always
| make sure you have gems as you move north, so you can usually
| pick good rooms.
| rjh29 wrote:
| Also, there's a great book on drafting that you can find at
| the Library (of course you need to draw the Library twice,
| one to request the book and one more to get it - another
| issue with the RNG)
| fragmede wrote:
| > After playing the game for 10+ hours
|
| You paid $30 for it. Did you get $30 worth of entertainment
| from it? $3/hr sounds pretty good, and if all it did was not
| live up to your expectations because of what other people been
| saying, I'd say that's still money well spent, just you gotta
| adjust how much stock you put into what those particular people
| say as relates to good you enjoy something.
| glimshe wrote:
| For me, a dead end after 10 hours of playing feels like
| frustration. I don't like starting games I can't finish,
| especially if I rage quit. It stays with me as a painful
| memory, the opposite of entertainment.
| com2kid wrote:
| This is fair enough.
|
| When I bought the original Brothers, it took me maybe 10
| hours to finish, if even that. It was well worth the cost,
| amazing game. (Apparently the remake was badly done...)
|
| Some games are in the "experience" category, $30 for 10
| amazing hours, great deal. $30 for 10 hours and then a rage
| quit, not a good deal.
| square_usual wrote:
| I generally have the same frustration with roguelites as you
| seem to: every time I start a run, it feels like I'm gambling
| whether I'll have any fun at all. A bad seed or start can mean
| losing in ways that feel unfair or boring, like in balatro if
| you get a bunch of bad hands and bad jokers, you struggle
| through rounds and hands until you either lose or get an
| interesting combination. I don't need that kind of gambling in
| my life when there's tons of games out there where I know I
| will have fun.
|
| E: I still quite like Balatro - when it works it's a blast.
| I'll also still try out Blue Prince because people I respect
| seem to like it.
| DanielVZ wrote:
| One common mantra about most roguelites is that every run can
| be a successful run if you play your cards right. Some will
| be harder, in others you'll become unstoppable, but the
| general idea is that once you get good enough you should be
| able to win runs. I'm not sure if this holds and is extremely
| dependent on how balanced the game is, but I think it's a
| sane way to approach the genre since it pushes you to improve
| and generally becomes a rule once you become good enough at
| some of the games.
| tstrimple wrote:
| One of the key differences between rogue _lites_ and rogue
| _likes_ is meta progression. In most roguelites you 're
| able to unlock things and get more powerful for future
| runs. In roguelikes you always have the same starting rng.
| I definitely agree with you that it's all up to the game to
| balance the progression through both unlocks and skill
| improvement so it's not _entirely_ rng. But I also don 't
| think many put much effort into "every run is solvable".
| Especially for roguelikes.
| ClicksButtons wrote:
| I'd say it's even worse for roguelites. They tend to
| balanced assuming the player has done some or most of the
| meta-progression. Sometimes to the point where it feels
| the game forces you to lose to experience more of it. (I
| really liked inscryption up until it forced me to fail
| 2-3 times because I progressed too much)
|
| With roguelikes at least you are at the intended power
| level every time, even if some of these games are too RNG
| reliant.
| archargelod wrote:
| With real roguelikes (aka games on a grid with turn-based
| combat), I believe they're not designed to be fair at
| all. There's so much rng involved, so you will get
| unexpected and unfair deaths and lots of them.
|
| Roguelike community has a saying - "losing is fun". And
| while I only played a few traditional rl games and
| finished none of them, I had great experience while
| constantly "losing" only a few hours into the run.
|
| In most roguelites I play, losing isn't fun - it's
| frustrating. There is often very little variety in
| earlier stages of the game, so if you're bad (and I am)
| you're stuck replaying the same section for hours, only
| to get good RNG, go 1 level farther and immediately die
| to some new mechanic or difficulty spike.
|
| One exception is The Binding Of Isaac, this is probably
| the best roguelite game I've ever played and nothing
| comes even close.
| tstrimple wrote:
| There is fair and then there is "fair". I do think most
| rougelikes spend at least some time on making sure the
| the default path is usually workable. I think roguelites
| fall into the trap of relying on meta-progression to push
| in-game progression too much. Some of the card roguelites
| I play feel impossible to "win" without meta progression.
| And in some it feels like they mostly expand complexity.
| It's a difficult thing to balance. I'm mostly okay with
| the difficulty spikes because they usually accompany
| power spikes that you can get with the right choices and
| rng. I really like the "breaking the game" aspect of
| roguelites like Balatro. Getting mathematical notation
| for high scores hits different, even though it's not
| necessary for beating the normal levels.
| esperent wrote:
| > I still quite like Balatro - when it works it's a blast
|
| I enjoyed Balatro for quite a few hours before I had this
| problem, which is more than enough for me to call it a good
| game.
|
| Beyond these first few hours though, you need ridiculously
| high multipliers to succeed. There's way too many jokers and
| 90% of them are trash by this point. The ones you need have
| vanishingly small probabilities, and then you need to add
| those probabilities together to get the combo of jokers
| required.
|
| I would start a run, and within the first few minutes I would
| know that the RNG hadn't given me what I needed, reset, start
| again, repeat.
|
| I looked up some guides, and they'd recommend using specific
| legendary jokers, which over my entire time playing (maybe 15
| hours?) I didn't encounter even once. The only way to get
| them would be to play hundreds or even thousands of times.
|
| At that point, it doesn't feel like a game anymore. It feels
| like a gambling addiction.
|
| For me, that's time to call it quits. But I do wonder if the
| same people who struggle with gambling addiction in the real
| world are the ones who continue playing here.
|
| At least with Balatro there is ten hours worth of game before
| your reach this point.
| dluan wrote:
| Hades is fun because there is some skill involved with the
| button mashing to go with the RNG, but it feels like too
| many games are just dressed up gambling mechanics these
| days. Balatro is too naked and bare with being clever
| gambling, plus all the ding ding ding slot machine dopamine
| special effects.
| aqme28 wrote:
| I really don't agree. When you learn the mechanics well,
| you can _consistently_ win runs.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| Hades relies too heavily on meta progression. You are
| supposed to grind before winning. The game is not
| balanced around your original state. I personally hate
| that because I view it as the game wasting my time but I
| can understand how it's supposed to be enjoyable.
|
| Balatro has a different issue for me. Despite having a
| lot of joker it sometimes feels very RNG reliant and
| limited once you reach high stakes. Plus the difficulty
| rises somehow artificially by withdrawing options rather
| than expending the challenge.
|
| Slay the Spire remains unbeatable for me. No other game
| has the same level of complexity. You get all the tool to
| limit variance but every choice becomes very significant.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| > Slay the Spire remains unbeatable for me.
|
| is there actually something to beat in there?
|
| I thought you rush through opponents, then hit the
| "collectively with all players of the world apply
| bajillion damage" and there's nothing more?
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| I don't know how to understand your comment. The goal of
| Slay the Spire is to climb all the way to the heart while
| picking cards and beating it, preferably on A20 - all the
| other difficulty levels being basically a tutorial
| leading to the real game. There is no moment involving
| all the players of the world and the game is generally
| very slow so I'm a bit lost.
| dsclough wrote:
| People win streak gold stake Balatro, A20H slay the spire,
| unfair slice and dice, and plenty of other games in this
| category. Nothing wrong with playing a game for 10 hours
| and being done with it but calling them rng fiestas just
| because you can't beat the game on the hardest difficulty
| every time after 10 hours is a bit dismissive of the level
| of effort that is put in to getting these games as tightly
| tuned as they are.
| explodes wrote:
| Having multiple ongoing goals helps mitigate being locked out
| from one.
| gs17 wrote:
| > solved the same two puzzles for resources
|
| I'm eager to play more, but this is something that was a worry
| already an hour in. The logic puzzle I did was good enough and
| seems like it can be generated procedurally well enough, the
| "math" puzzle I did wasn't. There's more than that, right?
|
| > and some clues that I can only experiment with if the RNG
| deems me worthy.
|
| And on top of that, it's hard to know if those clues actually
| will matter in other runs. I found a safe code in one run. If
| it takes three runs before the RNG decides the room with the
| safe will be there, will the code be randomized? I've been
| trying to avoid spoilers so it's hard to know what matters.
| aqme28 wrote:
| There are plenty more puzzles than that. Some of them sort of
| metapuzzles
| ekorz wrote:
| I was also sad to hear about how much RNG is in the game, that
| is a detractor to what seems like a well put together
| experience otherwise. If you wanted to give something else a
| try, and have a PC, I made a first-person puzzle game that's
| (hopefully) more akin to Antichamber and the puzzle bits of
| Outer Wilds, called Chroma Zero. There's a demo on steam if you
| just want to dip your toe in.
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/3121470/Chroma_Zero/
| crtasm wrote:
| I've played about an hour and am getting the feeling I won't
| see it through to an ending.
|
| For anyone wanting a non-RNG puzzler set around a large
| building I highly recommend
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorelei_and_the_Laser_Eyes
| notnaut wrote:
| Having played both of these games I agree that Lorelei stands
| out as a sort of foil for blue prince. And my opinion is that
| that is a huge endorsement of blue prince. Lorelei's puzzles
| felt so inelegant and largely detached from the ideas being
| explored. Felt like a logic puzzle book, with some esoteric
| story stuff on top that just did not keep me interested.
|
| Blue prince's rng is quite well thought out imo. Once you
| pick up on some of the unwritten rules about the room
| drafting system and start building strategies around what to
| prioritize and how to adjust your goals, it starts feeling a
| lot like many other popular card-based strategy games.
|
| There are weak points, for sure, and your contrasting it with
| Lorelei makes sense. But Lorelei's puzzles felt so plain and
| unchallenging. I like that blue prince is keeping me on my
| toes.
| graynk wrote:
| Lorelei is pretty great in its atmosphere, though the puzzles
| can be quite disappointing. 80% of the time the solution is
| "you're overthinking it, it's a number written down
| somewhere"
|
| Still, I 100%-ed and enjoyed it. Also a shameless plug: I
| made a mod that tweaks controls to add a back button, a map
| button, and to allow code locks to spin in both directions
|
| https://github.com/graynk/LoreleiAndSaneControls
| khill wrote:
| I've played for about an hour and agree with your assessment. I
| still have it installed but I doubt I will revisit it.
|
| I've switched to South of Midnight and it's amazing. Not
| everyone's type of game - and certainly not a puzzle game - but
| the graphics, music, story, and gameplay combine to make it one
| of the best games I've played in a long, long time.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| This is 'article' is just an advertisement
| noqc wrote:
| I haven't seen a single good review from anyone I trust, most
| people are saying it's not good.
| eieio wrote:
| FWIW Adrian Hon (the writer) is easily the game reviewer
| that I trust the most! I am quite sensitive to false
| positives with games - it really sucks to spend a few hours
| on a game that you drop - and my false positive rate with
| his reviews is very low.
|
| (I have no affiliation with this post beyond being a fan of
| Adrian's writing and work + haven't played Blue Prince yet,
| although I'm very likely to play it because of this review)
| adrianhon wrote:
| 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.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| 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.
| npinsker wrote:
| A lot of people do this, no? It doesn't seem more
| offensive than any of the other handful of self-
| submissions per day; certainly it's less so to me than
| all those tech blog posts by companies. Also _Blue
| Prince_ is a puzzly, escape-roomy game that 's one of the
| highest-profile indie releases this year, so probably
| more in tune with HN's taste than most games.
|
| I like that a link aggregator serves to surface things
| that people don't necessarily have investment in. I
| thought the article was well-written and I'm more
| interested now in what he has to say in future. (I guess
| the advertising worked...)
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Do a lot of people do this? I don't actually feel like
| this happens much here.
|
| Idk. I feel it has a bad smell to be doing this at a
| game's release with a review copy.
|
| Again I'm willing to believe in good faith that there
| aren't behind the scenes incentives here. But it would
| feel a lot more genuine to drop this at least a few
| months later imo. It _feels_ like advertising.
|
| And frankly the juxtaposition of the glowing tone and
| then negative comments here has really thrown me about
| the whole thing. Whereas before I would just say it's a
| difference of opinion, now there's a question of intent
| to deceive. Meh.
| npinsker wrote:
| That makes sense. The juxtaposition isn't just OP,
| though: Blue Prince is an extremely highly-rated game by
| critics (https://www.metacritic.com/game/blue-
| prince/critic-reviews/), and will likely be one of the
| three highest-rated games this year, but has 80% positive
| reviews on Steam at time of writing, which is very low.
| On Steam it isn't even in the top 3 on its _single day_
| of release.
|
| I'm not exactly sure what leads to such a dramatic
| disconnect. Maybe game reviewers just value different
| things than the general population.
| drilbo wrote:
| it seems like it might be mostly attributable to the RNG
| element of the game
| chongli wrote:
| Game reviewers don't spend as long with a game as regular
| players. They play enough hours until they feel like they
| have a good enough handle on the game to write the
| review.
|
| A game which maintains a high level of engagement during
| that review period but which drops off not long after
| that could show this kind of discrepancy between
| customers and reviewers. I don't want to suggest that
| Blue Prince is this sort of game (never mind that it
| might be deliberate) but I think it's possible for some
| games to have been designed for game reviewers rather
| than for long-term players. The top HN comment on this
| story (as I write this) would seem to indicate that the
| game has an issue with running out of steam after a few
| hours.
|
| This sort of thing is not unheard of in other media as
| well. In the film industry this strategy is called Oscar-
| bait. Of course for a film it's not based on duration but
| subject matter. Certain themes and filmmaking techniques
| have been accused of being targeted at the narrower
| interests of the Academy rather than a broad audience.
| klausa wrote:
| Many of the people reviewing the game highly (at well-
| regarded publications) have spoken about playing the game
| for tens of hours, some mentioning 100h+.
|
| This is conspiratorial nonsense.
| adrianhon wrote:
| 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.
| earlyriser wrote:
| 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.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| 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.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| I thought it was a well written and entertaining review.
| While I'm probably not going to buy the game, I think
| what the author wrote, and this discussion here is
| important for discovering games I might be interested in.
| adrianhon wrote:
| OP here: I can see how that would be frustrating and I do touch
| on that in my piece. It's not my job to convince you that you
| should like it, but I would say that the mystery and atmosphere
| and sense of discovery is what pulled me through the first
| hours where I wasn't sure what was going on. If those things
| don't chime with you, it can be a slog. What I've told other
| people is that it's better not to view the game as a race but
| more a place to explore.
| rjh29 wrote:
| Same experience after 8 hours. I can see how roguelite fans
| would enjoy the dopamine hits of new information / upgrades /
| solving tiny bits of puzzles. As a pure puzzle fan I found the
| roguelite stuff repetitive and boring, and the puzzle stuff
| itself is good but not mindblowingly good. (Yes - even the less
| obvious puzzles)
|
| I had my doubts when people were playing 100+ hours of it. That
| gave me the idea it would be a skinner box type game that is
| addictive but empty. So far nothing has changed my opinion on
| that.
| wgreenberg wrote:
| As someone who just rolled credits on Blue Prince after 20
| hours or so, I can definitely confirm that there's much much
| more to the post-game content than a skinner box. It's much
| more like a mega puzzle hunt[1] with an RNGish roguelike
| wrapper.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puzzle_hunt
| kbrackbill wrote:
| I'm about 8 hours in and really enjoying it, but I feel like I
| can see this in my future. For now I have so many
| puzzles/threads going that even if one doesn't work on a run
| because of RNG I'm still making progress somewhere else, but I
| could see that drying up a bit as I solve more things and want
| to focus on something specific.
|
| The puzzles for resources you mention are by far the worst part
| for me. I really wish there were a way to say "I get it, I know
| how to solve simple logic puzzles and do basic arithmetic, just
| give me the stuff".
| magicalhippo wrote:
| I read this[1] review on Steam which also raises the same point
| as you.
|
| The thing that made The Talos Principle, The Witness[2] and
| similar games so great was that they spent a lot of time on
| designing the puzzles.
|
| I'm not opposed to a Groundhog Day sort of scenario, but in
| that case it really needs to be done well, like The Stanley
| Parable, not just rely on pure RNG. If you want to use RNG you
| really should have some constraint system involved to ensure at
| least some progress _could_ have been made by the player.
|
| [1]:
| https://steamcommunity.com/id/ADHunter/recommended/1569580/
|
| [2]: If you've played The Witness but haven't played The
| Looker, you've been missing out IMHO.
| aqme28 wrote:
| I disagree. The game is not meant to be played looking for one
| specific item/room. It drip-feeds you clues and progress. Every
| run pretty much I get _something_ that helps. If you're
| beelining for just one thing it doesn't really work.
|
| Also, for your example, I think you missed that you get a major
| permanent bonus when you got the room after using the other
| room.
| moogly wrote:
| I long for the day when people have tired of roguelites and
| stops putting roguelite elements in every. single. game. of.
| every. genre.
|
| But hey, it makes you get away with reusing the little content
| you made ad nauseam and procedurally tweak some numbers on top
| of it to fake progression.
|
| Loop Hero was probably when I nope'd out forever, but at least
| that game was pure and honest.
| bobcostas55 wrote:
| I completely agree with this evaluation, I dropped it as well
| fairly early on.
| airstrike wrote:
| Been wanting to build a metroidvaniaroguelike on evenings and
| weekends and this gives me a few ideas to noodle on... thanks for
| sharing
| riffraff wrote:
| > As with other roguelikes, you can unlock persistent upgrades
| that smooth over repetitive parts of the game.
|
| I think those are called rogue-lites, for the reason that real
| rogue-likes (e.g. nethack, DCSS) actually wipe out all your
| progress on each attempt.
| skyyler wrote:
| At this point, times have shifted, and meta-progression is
| usually considered an aspect of modern roguelikes. There was a
| trend of calling them "rogue-lites" but that's faded and now
| games like ADOM and DCSS are "Classic roguelikes"
|
| It's not a hard and fast rule or anything, just what I've
| observed in gaming discussions.
| uses wrote:
| Indeed, the distinction used to be useful. But now, it's not
| useful because honest-to-God roguelikes are just not getting
| made outside hobby projects. Meanwhile, roguelites have
| become a core pillar of modern gaming, artistically and
| commercially. I think calling roguelites roguelikes is
| perfectly fine. It's simply what the genre became.
| card_zero wrote:
| That's horrible, but I can't stop you.
| chongli wrote:
| I prefer that they be hobby projects or solo-developer
| crowdfunded efforts. Generally, I find that the traditional
| (waterfall) lifecycle of commercial games is not conducive
| to a good Roguelike. This is because the game is quickly
| shifted into maintenance-mode after release and stops
| receiving major updates soon after.
|
| Roguelikes really benefit from long-term development and
| continual balancing, new content, and quality of life
| updates in response to feedback from players. These are
| games meant to be played and mastered over the course of
| several years. Traditional commercial game releases are
| much better suited to one-and-done style single play-
| throughs.
|
| The other major commercial model, the subscription- or
| microtransaction-supported long-term game development, such
| as you'd see with popular multiplayer games like Fortnite
| or League of Legends, would seem to be a viable alternative
| for Roguelike development. I don't think it would work out
| in practice, however, since most gamers don't seem to be
| interested in playing a game to mastery unless it involves
| a high level of competitive play.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Traditional roguelike is the term I see on Reddit and Steam:
| https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Traditional+Roguelike
|
| Traditional roguelikes seem cool in theory, but I like co-op
| for most of my PvE content, and like most turn-based games,
| no co-op to be had there.
| chongli wrote:
| That's a shame, because meta-progression ultimately
| undermines the spirit of these classic games.
|
| Roguelikes were designed to play like arcade games in that
| you'd always start over from scratch and try to get a high
| score. Most attempts ended in failure but as you got better
| at the game it was reflected in your score. Even after
| players achieve a high degree of expertise they still find
| the games challenging to win and so they keep playing and
| enjoying them for years to come.
|
| Meta-progression takes away the from-scratch element and just
| allows you to win through sheer persistence, chipping away at
| the problem until it's easy enough for you to finish it in
| one final run. But then what? The game is no longer the same
| challenge it was when you first started. It's like a mountain
| that keeps getting smaller every time you attempt to climb
| it, until it's finally shrunk to the size of an anthill. This
| is not a recipe for a game you can play for many years.
|
| Ultimately, what meta-progression does is turn a roguelike
| into a standard narrative RPG just like any other. This is
| one where the player's goal is to reach the end of the game
| and that's it, not to learn the game's systems and reach a
| high level of mastery.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Eh, idk. Theres an argument to be had that meta progression
| tends to cap in most of these games so eventually it
| becomes a stable thing.
|
| Although generally I find the meta progression of things
| goes too far and starts off too weak.
| chongli wrote:
| Yes, because the goal of the game designer who adds meta
| progression is to increase the number of players who
| actually finish the game, at least when it comes to the
| "true progression" style meta progression.
|
| There is another approach based on unlocks, where the
| player unlocks new characters or game modes rather than
| having a single character get more and more powerful with
| each run. Some people prefer these unlocks but others
| don't. I saw one streamer, Jorbs, who got a brand new
| game and immediately looked up a save file hack to unlock
| everything from the beginning because he so detested
| unlocks.
| tstrimple wrote:
| One thing I like about meta progression is the gradual
| expansion of the game. It doesn't have to necessarily
| make everything _easier_ , but it can be a good way to
| temporarily lock away more complicated features and
| abilities. For example, unlocking a new class after
| completing the game with a previous class doesn't
| necessarily mean the new class is more powerful or will
| make the game easier. In some cases, the later class
| unlocks are explicitly more difficult to beat the game
| with and are unlocked for additional challenge.
| chongli wrote:
| Yes, that class / character unlock system is very common.
| Some purists will say that a traditional Roguelike cannot
| have these unlocks but I don't mind them. It definitely
| is a way of gating the game's complexity so that a new
| player doesn't have to cope with it all at once.
|
| I think it should be optional though. There should be an
| option to unlock everything from the beginning for
| players who don't want to fiddle around with that stuff
| and just dive into the full experience. Players like
| Jorbs can feel so strongly about it that I think they're
| actually offended by games that try to curate their
| experiences to that degree.
| tstrimple wrote:
| Agreed on the optional part. I've picked up Satisfactory
| again since 1.1 hit experimental. I like having the
| option to skip a lot of the tedium. Don't get me wrong. I
| normally love the early game tedium. That's where a lot
| of decisions have long term consequences. But sometimes
| you just want to play with new features, and games like
| Satisfactory give you enough granularity of control to
| tailor that experience to what you're looking for in most
| cases. I appreciate options to make games much more
| difficult or accessible at the same time. Just because I
| tend to like brutally punishing games doesn't mean others
| have to experience the same games in the same way. I want
| fallout games to have a survival mode and I want
| rougelites to have a tourist mode. At the same time not
| all games have to cater to all audiences. So it's
| perfectly fine for casual games to focus on their
| audience and the same for more "hardcore" games. I just
| really appreciate it when a developer is able to thread
| that needle and give way more folks a way to enjoy their
| games across skill / difficulty boundaries.
|
| I'm particularly interested in the area of coop games
| where you've got two players of radically different
| capabilities. I really like newer games in the vein of
| "Split Fiction" or "It Takes Two". But they tend to
| assume somewhat equal levels of competence for skill
| based sections of the game. So if I try to play with my
| wife I have to wait over and over again as she fails what
| are to me basic jumps. I'd love to see more exploration
| of asymmetric gameplay. Where it's not just both players
| having to navigate the same obstacles, but allows players
| to better leverage their skills to overcome something
| together. I remember staying up late nights with my now
| wife playing Diablo 2. But now I'm at the point where I
| want to push high tier rifts and she just wants to finish
| the story line. I'd like to see more examples of coop
| games where the burden falls more heavily on one player
| and the other is mostly along for the ride. Not all
| gamers are looking for the same things out of their
| games, but that doesn't necessarily mean they shouldn't
| be playing together.
| chongli wrote:
| _I want fallout games to have a survival mode and I want
| rougelites to have a tourist mode_
|
| It's funny that you mention that. NetHack, one of the
| longest-running traditional Roguelikes (in active
| development since 1987) actually has a Tourist class.
| However it's not what you think. The class is based on
| the tourist character Twoflower from the Discworld series
| of books. This class is the hardest one in the game
| because it starts with the least amount of fighting
| ability, no weapons (apart from some darts), and no
| armour (just a Hawaiian shirt).
|
| You do, however, also start with a credit card (useful
| for jimmying locks), some healing potions, a lot of food,
| a lot of money, some scrolls of magic mapping (maps), and
| an expensive camera (the monsters in the dungeon hate
| flash photography)! But until you become a lot more
| experienced shopkeepers will recognize you as a tourist
| and try to rip you off, so you better spend your money
| wisely!
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Personally I have yet to see a game where unlocks didn't
| tend to be MUCH better than the starting set
| ajkjk wrote:
| I kinda disagree? mostly I see people use roguelite to refer
| to roguelikes with progression and roguelike for those
| without. But I suppose both are also called roguelike as a
| gloss.
| taejo wrote:
| NetHack does have ghost files (where you find the levels
| previous characters died on, including their ghost and their
| possibly-cursed loot). It's definitely not the same kind of
| progression as in modern rogue-lites, but it can be a boost to
| pick up the equipment you found on a previous run.
| chongli wrote:
| Do note that enemies can also pick up that old equipment and
| use it against you. I lost a promising character during the
| last November NetHack Tournament [1] because a gnome picked
| up a wand of fire from someone's grave and blasted me with
| it.
|
| Yeah that's another difference. When you play NetHack online
| [2] [3] you run into the ghosts and graves of other players,
| not just your own previous characters. I have run into levels
| online with the ghosts of 3 different people who were all
| killed by various dangerous monsters that kept accumulating
| more powerful equipment from each victim. It can be quite
| ridiculous!
|
| [1] https://tnnt.org/
|
| [2] https://alt.org/nethack/
|
| [3] https://www.hardfought.org/
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| Not sure I quite agree - I think it's fine to have "persistent
| upgrades that smooth over repetitive parts of the game" within
| the proper roguelike genre, as long as they don't make the run
| easier. Gungeon is an example, with unlocks for skipping lower
| levels once you have demonstrated sufficient mastery that
| they're merely time-wasters rather than adding to the
| challenge.
| davidpfarrell wrote:
| OP: A single giveaway just popped up on SteamGifts today:
|
| https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/bloms/blue-prince
|
| Is this you?
| adrianhon wrote:
| Nope.
| taeric wrote:
| I just picked this up. Curious if this will be one I can play
| with the kids while we are going to bed in the evenings. For a
| long time, that was prime time to play Slay the Spire, as it will
| get them to go to sleep. :D
| egypturnash wrote:
| It's got a bedtime story kind of vibe.
| gs17 wrote:
| With the shifting rooms, it's almost dream-like.
| gs17 wrote:
| I'd imagine it probably will get them to go to sleep, but
| mostly because they'll be watching a lot of walking up and down
| corridors.
| taeric wrote:
| Cool. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't overly dark in tone.
|
| I also played the Stanley Parable recently, and that is one
| that has a few sections that are a touch much for the kids.
| aqme28 wrote:
| It can be a little bit creepy in an empty-house way, but I
| haven't seen any gore or ghosts
| blindriver wrote:
| I tried playing this after buying it, but it was not what I
| expected. There was a lot of FPS moving around and aiming and
| that makes me nauseous so I had to turn it off. I guess there's
| no refunds on PS games unfortunately.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| The buzz on this game is very strong. The Triple Click podcast
| just loves it: https://maximumfun.org/episodes/triple-click/blue-
| prince-rea...
| zkiihne wrote:
| From the maker(s) of mythicspoiler.com
| billfruit wrote:
| Dungeon of the Endless is another interesting game about
| essentially opening rooms/doors. The frantic rush to move the
| diamond thing to the last room while swarming alien creatures try
| to stop you is very interesting.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Read the review and thought it looked like the kind of thing that
| I like, but then saw that it doesn't have SteamDeck
| compatibility. Sorry, but if you're only going to target Windows
| then you're not seeing my money.
| kamiheku wrote:
| While I presume they don't provide a native Linux build, it
| _is_ listed as Playable on Steam Deck.
|
| > Valve's testing indicates that Blue Prince is Playable on
| Steam Deck. This game is functional on Steam Deck, but might
| require extra effort to interact with or configure.
|
| > * Some in-game text is small and may be difficult to read
|
| > * All functionality is accessible when using the default
| controller configuration
|
| > * This game shows Steam Deck controller icons
|
| > * This game's default graphics configuration performs well on
| Steam Deck
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| My experience is that "playable" on Steam Deck generally
| means a poor experience. I'll wait until it's something like
| "verified".
| izacus wrote:
| My experience disagrees. Many "playable" games run very
| well and many "verified" don't.
| yoru-sulfur wrote:
| I don't have a Steam deck, but for what it's worth I haven't
| had any problems with it on my arch desktop
| adrianhon wrote:
| OP here: I played it on Steam Deck for 20 hours, it was fine.
| No performance issues; a very small minority of art was hard to
| see because it was small, but using the Steam Deck's built-in
| magnifier tool (Steam + L1) was easy enough.
| izacus wrote:
| SteamDeckHQ review says the game runs well on it though:
| https://steamdeckhq.com/game-reviews/blue-prince/
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-04-12 23:01 UTC)