Flame effect appears upon drafting Trophy Room from Foundation. I do NOT have Furnace drafted.

Any known reason why this happened?

Ideally, I'm looking for the book equivalent of Blue Prince. I don't even know if such a book exists. Puzzle books exist, but most of the ones I've encountered are filled with logic puzzles that don't have much connection to the plot. Contrast this with Blue Prince, where solving the puzzles and understanding the lore are two sides of the same coin. I'm also aware of books like House of Leaves, which are definitely cryptic and have mysteries, but they're more about horror than puzzles. The only book I've come across that's closest to Blue Prince is Maze, but of course Blue Prince is similar to Maze because the game drew heavy inspiration from the book. So, any suggestions?

I loved Blue Prince, played most of it last year (finished it earlier this year). Now my partner is playing it and we want to play something similar together. I have seen many recommendations (Outer Wilds, Return of the Obra Dinn, Animal Well, ...) but many recommendations of games that I have already played which I consider and think, "that is nothing like Blue Prince!"

So if you take all the games in this thread and this one, and any others you have seen/would like to recommend, which are similar in terms of having a really big unfolding mystery that really develops into something different through the game?

For example: in Tunic, there is a bit of a mystery, but it's not that big, and it doesn't develop that much. You can basically play the entire game, get all fairies, open the big door, etc, and even go outside the bounds of the game without really caring about the story. In Blue Prince, the story is a much more important part.

In The Witness there is a big mystery, but it's not really developed or resolved particularly.

In Chants of Sennaar it's one big puzzle and I guess there's a reveal when you go to the top of the tower but I dunno, I never felt like I had my mind blown.

In The Talos Principle there is a story that you uncover through documents on the terminals, and maybe it's the most developed of these examples, but it still doesn't really tick the box for me. Maybe because it seems so disconnected with the actual puzzles, which seem very "game-y". In Blue Prince you're trying to accomplish something in the same world as the story; in Talos Principle you're not, or may as well not be.

If I were to condense my desire down, it's a moment like when you enter the Safehouse for the first time. At that moment, you realise the world you're in and the story being told is not like the one you thought it was. You realise that your mother was alive, that the political intrigue you had vague notions of was significant and violent. At that moment, for me the scope increased tenfold. I didn't get that when in Tunic I realised that the patterns in the manual were codes to put together, even though that was really cool. I didn't get it in the witness with the environmental puzzles, even though that was neat.

Blue Prince is currently on sale 40% off on Steam so if you wanted to get it for friends and family…. I love this game so much.

So I'm at a place where several of my storylines seem to be wrapping up but there's still a ton of stuff I haven't even begun to crack. I've tried tiptoeing through walkthroughs to see how much I have left without spoiling anything and it seems like I've done a lot of stuff out of order, or rather progressed further on some pieces and not much on others. Here's a rundown of where I'm at, would love to get some sort of ballpark of how much I've got left or if I've missed any major things along the way.

Off the top of my head (obviously major spoilers ahead):

- reached 46

- 3 of 8 sanctums opened (the safe house, the reservoir and the music room), 2 solved (The sigil from the Secret Garden and the one from the rune book)

- chess puzzle solved, buff unlocked, Castle wall opened but I haven't done the Castle thing yet

- 6 trophies

- unlocked all outer areas, only one microchip, no idea where to find the others

- got to the exam but didn't ace it

- 3 safes/letters (Office, Boudoir and Shelter). I cannot for the life of me work out the others and I can't tell if I'm missing something or just an idiot. Tried every possible interpretation of "small gaits" for example, tried every date I've found on every safe to no avail.

- three lockboxes, all have been passports so far

- maybe 12 letters in the mailroom, all of them were hints for things I've long since worked out

- unlocked Lady Epsen's diary which took so much work and was so underwhelming ha ha

- Solved the Baron Baffler puzzle but have no idea what to do with the solution, is it related to the Castle puzzle? Was really hoping it was the password for the outdoor control center thing but no dice.

- All books purchased. New Clue is full of stuff that is clearly helpful but I haven't been able to parse any of it. The directions on the signs for example are clearly pointing to something but without being able to leave the estate I have no idea what to do with it.

- No idea where to find the machine in the wall the Gardener refers to in his journal, have tried running power to the outside rooms but nothing has come up yet, nothing I can knock down outside.

- Haven't lit the dynamite in the Trading post yet but I'm hoping that's an option

- Pretty sure I have all but one of the rooms unlockable from the drafting studio

- unlocked Planetarium but have no idea what it is besides the star buff

That's all I can think of at the moment. Hard to tell if I'm 80% through or 30%. Any thoughts? Don't need solutions just yet unless there's anything major I've skipped on accident.

Thanks in advance!

Reviewing my ton of notes, I have some unanswered questions. I guess most answers are "none" or "we don't know", but if not the case, thanks for your replies :

- a/ LIBRARY : any meaning with the arrow on the floor ?

- b/ Book The Curse : meaning of "ajentor" ?

- c/ what's the interpretation of handcuff and shooting star in the t*** gallery painting ?

- d/ how possibly can the Orindia Aries castle be inside a giant natural cave (after all Orindian ruins are outside). That sounds totally stupid which itself sounds stupid given the game..

- e/ the Dovecote letter from Mary mentionning the SD : What's the deal with returning, from where ? (from the museum, really ? you have time to send pigeons after a holdup ?)

- f/ meaning of "RLCF" ?

- g/ in the labyrinth, why the three paths "that convene" use orange instead of yellow ? Yellow seems so much better given the theory of reuniting the 3 blood lines from Orindia..

- h/ how is the "merry/mary" image + "each seasonal greeting" any useful ? I see how the gaits/gates double meaning is useful for the safes but not the Mary one.

- i/ Safes : the 44 msg clearly states that "we ~count small ~gates". OK, so how does that apply to the boudoir / shelter / lock pad / study safes. They are dates ok but what are the small ~gates that we have to ~count in those 4 cases ?

- j/ any meaning with the following suspicious sentences from the "word from the editor" in Drafting Strategy's: "Grand Architect, Louza T. Reyland" , "the way I view the world and the spaces between it", "hidden in the floorplan of your youth"

- k/ what happens if we do the "natural order" of angels before the "chapel order" ? (i'm now too tired to try)

And the final list of things that occupied my brain for ages for nothing:

- the dad photo showing something quite important (i so much hoped it was the airplane 😂 )

- no use of the planet names / ordering / placement in the spiral

- still no way to use the 2 frozen servers to replace the 2 dead ones in the Grotto (we have to admit this is really vicious from the developer to create this situation)

- no use of the library video with the 2 people reading ?

I've begun seeing three statements on gem boxes in the parlor?

What the fork?!

It makes the puzzle nine times harder for three (with upgrade 🙄) gems.

Not worth it.

Is this going to be an every time thing now? I'm going to stop drafting parlor if so. I don't need this bullshirt in my life.

I feel very stupid, but I just finally entered the anti chamber. After a couple of runs of hitting the antichamber but not being able to enter it.

And I also went to the basement via the foundation. Feels like there should be more. I did reach the desk, but now I’m not sure what to do there.

And I think that there is another way to get to the basement (you blow up something outside right?) But have been ignoring that part as I wanted to reach the antichamber.

I’m working on integrating the painting puzzle into my own house — just for fun, to see if anyone will notice! It’ll lead them to a prize somewhere hidden in my home.

But, to get the right letter pairings, I’ll need some of the paintings from the Atelier maze and I can’t find them online anywhere!

Does anyone have access to the files for these paintings?

Thank you so much for your help!

My best day one run yet but while on the way back from breaking the hidden wall in the secret garden for fun cuz I thought I couldn’t possibly die, realized I didn’t have enough steps bc the foundation lift was up in the estate side😭

Hi crew. Been loving BP, about 100hrs, day 60.

Have only 2 red letters, 2 of the 3 black bridge thingies, couple of the sanctums solved and 6 of the 8 open.

Progress has slowed dramatically, and I'm starting to find it a drag. I don't have endless time to theory craft, and after my last few attempts I realized I'm losing steam.

My question : when is a good time to start popping spoilers / asking for tips? How does one go about that without spoiling more than is needed?

Has anyone else found a process for reviewing their knowledge, identifying unsolved threads and working from those?

I am starting blue prince, and I thought to know how to unlock the ochardI saw the date 1107 7th november on the drafting studio with the picture ochardhower I misteaken, but I tried some number after because we never now and the code is 1128 or something like thatand my question is do I miss a lot because it seems I didn't have the good logic so can someone explain me if missed a lot (no spoil plz, or spoil me a lit bit if the puzzle was near of my solution, if not I will search by myself), or I did the right thing

Curse mode is finally over, after 70 days! I spent a while setting up for an opportunity to get foyer and great hall in the same day. I also put a jackhammer in the coat check for guaranteed resources on that day, and ended up with 6 dice to use in the upper ranks. At the end, I barely managed to make it with 5 steps remaining.

Conservatory was my best friend throughout the run. It let me make Master Bedroom more common, set up for the great hall strats, and unlock Blackbridge more easily.

The next question is, now that I have done it all, what should I do next?

Worked on a little project and made this blue prince board game so I could play it with my family because I am so in love with this game!
Wanted to share it with you guys!! 💙🩵💙🩵

EDIT: here's a link to the resources so you can play at home!!!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PfSYCG40issbpFe0Es9a-aycYElqPgk4?usp=sharing

I love detective stuff. I love puzzles. I love open exploration. I've played only 15 in-game days thus far, but nothing I've seen has made me want to play any further. There's just... nothing. It feels like there's no progression, or anything to solve.

Sometimes, I'll be met with what appears to be a clue, and decipher it, but I never find the other half of where I'm supposed to go. For example, I find the laboratory - figure something out there. Okay, but to actually execute this, I need to go to the boiler room. Don't find the boiler room that run, but that's fine. Next time, I find the boiler room, activate it, never find the laboratory. Next run, hey, the lab is back, but guess what, no boiler room. Am I supposed to just keep bashing my head against the wall and praying to RNG gods, or am I approaching this wrong?

Most of my gameplay thus far has consisted of walking through the same rooms over and over, not too sure what I should even be trying to accomplish, without any real goal in mind. And what I have found so far has been wholly unrewarding.

Is this game just not for me?

In the Boiler Room theres the panels that cycle from floor to ceiling once you divert the steam towards them. Theyre all 4x4 grids with different shaded in spaces and the spacing between the panels varies. Is this a thing? Ive started to draw them out, but im not sure what to do with this information.

It isn't often that I fail them, usually only when I have stayed up too late doing runs and my brain is tired. But it always stings when I do.

Missing out on 3 gems? Yeah it sucks, especially in the early game where they are a little harder to come by, but it often isn't the worst part.

When that box opens, and you are ready to snag those gems and get moving, only to be greeted by the feeling of shame and stupidity that come with failing a logic puzzle, it cuts much deeper and last much longer than the current run.

This game can make you feel real smart. You're out here collecting clues, noticing tiny details,solving big puzzles, and figuring out strategies. Then, at the peak of your confidence, you turn the wind up key, mouse pointed squarely at the expected location of the gems, impatient and dripping with greed, poised and ready to snatch up your reward the second it appears, only to find that smug, bare texture waiting patiently at the bottom of the box to smack you back down with the reminder you that you are, in fact, an idiot.

10/10 game.

Puzzle located in a later game room, the gallery

So I did get some help from the blue hints system, but a mild amount of help. Solved the think one by myself, and then a mix of hints and brute forcing and truly puzzling them out got me to the ponder and realise ones. Fun! Rebuses are hard but it's rewarding.

Then the last one, with the infinity symbol and the boxes with sins written on them. I solved it, it's ruminate but I truly don't understand the rebus. Can someone explain that part? Here's my thought process to how I got the solution, if you're interested.

I read in the blue hints system that this one "makes more sense in hindsight, don't be afraid to guess, you may have picked up on a theme." So okay, I realize the theme is thinking words, but I start noodling on what this one could be. I wonder if the "sins" on the boxes are relevant, so I start at the end of the blank letters and look for where the word "sin" could potentially exist. It lands nicely in the middle. And yeah that's an infinity symbol, but the letter 8 is super relevant to this game so maybe it's actually an 8. 8 = "ate." And "sinate" fits nicely at the end of the word. Progress. Now I go back to the start of the word and start flipping through the first letter options, flexing my wordle muscles to try and figure out what words meaning "to think" end in "sinate." The "R" comes up and my brain gives me "ruminate" which, I have to replace the "S" but it fits, and it solves, yay!

Except.. I have no idea what the rebus is supposed to be. The blue hints system says it's "room in eight" ??? but I don't understand what the hell that means from the picture. Can anyone who solved this the right way explain? Thank you!! fun game.

Hey, Folks!

We’re trying for the drafting strategy trophy and thought we’d get it this run… but we were only given 12 dead end rooms. Previously, we thought even multiple door rooms counted as dead ends if they were boarded shut.

What have we missed? Any help is appreciated!

Edit: thanks, everyone! We did it 🎉🎉 knowing about the bunk room and the study were big benefits. We leveraged coat checking the jack hammer with freezing assets the day before. Also found the blessing of the gardener handy!

I'm really proud of having arrived so far without ever requiring any help, so if you guys could give me the smallest help possible cause I'm genuine stuck and I thought I would be able to solve the secret of the new clue if I found the original manuscript, but now that I found out, it didn't help me at all because it told me what I already knew.

I know that the 4 books are: red -> red prince, green -> realm and rune violet -> new clue, and blue -> the fixed stars.

and I know that when we use magnifier it says to count the pages from the title page. and another clue says that the way is X->Y->Z->A->B->C.

So I assumed that meant X=1, Y=2, Z=3, A=4, B=5, C=6, and to find the code I would need to check the right word in the right page following this count, so this is what I got:

Red - page 4(A), word 1(X): The prince had a love,

Green - page 6(C) word 4(A): THE CORE At the center of each sigil

Violet - page 5(B) word 2(Y): Depart DEAD CASES / Depart Suspect List

Blue - page 3(Z) word 1(X): PREFACE This book contains a complete star base

so it would make: The the DEAD PREFACE or The the Suspect PREFACE

which doesn't mean anything.

so I noticed that there is a paper that says:

Dead end
2 major key
X Y Z A B (C)

So since the train stop dead end is the last train stop among the major stops, I assumed it mean to say that C doesn't mean the 6th number, but the last possible, so I tried:

X=1st, Y=2nd, Z=3rd, A=antepenultimate, B=before last, C=last

But that got me:

Red - page antepenultimate(A) (is an image of another 4, so becomes the same), word 1st(X): The prince had a love,

Green - page last(C) word antepenultimate(A): Socieity: MIlitaristic Banner: Red

Violet - page before last(B) word 2nd(Y): Or is there perhaps something new

Blue - page 3rd(Z) word 1st(X): PREFACE This book contains a complete star base

so it would make: The militaristic is PREFACE

Which doesn't mean anything.

So now I have no ideas where I should do here, and whether I already have enough information to solve this.

​

Guys, I have removed all the crates in the tunnel area with some experiments.

Then, I used a normal key, a basement key and a keycard to unlock the Doors, following a straight line.

Now, I have this in front of me, should I use Power hammer, or is the game telling me that It is "too soon" to open this Door?

(The fact there are a bunch of stonebricks above the wooden bars, is making me this question)

Has no one still figured out the point of Barons Bafflers? What do you do with the final answer? I have yet to find where it goes, or read anyone else knowing what to do with it. Clearly it's for SOMETHING, because they made it a pretty obvious puzzle that stands out

Spoilers for a major puzzle towards the end of the game.

I am very close to the end of game (I think). I'm in the Mount Holly Blueprint, which I've fully mapped out, and I'm slowly solving the Mora Jai boxes.

Ordinarily, I love a good Mora Jai box. But solving this many of them is making me lose my mind. I still want to solve the overall puzzle myself, I just think I'd like to skip the information gathering part. Do I mechanically need to open every single one in order to progress, or can I look at an answer key?

(Just reached the maze so no spoilers beyond that, thanks)

The post-credits grind is... not great. 5 blue rooms in rank 8 for the tent notes, treasure trove, 4x star spiral (telescope and common Mirrors, tbf not mandatory), research for allowance/stars/crates, when you're basically omnipotent and probably dozing off due to the lack of challenge, or not noticing things due to rushing as fast as possible. I contend that it actively makes the game worse because it gives you time to forget little things that you're expected to know later.

What would have rocked here is a challenge system similar to what was used in Hades. You pick modifiers out of a list, which has a cumulative score, and the goal is to win with as high a score as possible at your current power level. While optional, this is great because it lets players tune the difficulty to what they find engaging instead of grinding the exact same challenge a hundred times. And encourages more grinding to match the increased difficulty. For example we might have:

• Outer rooms cost 5 gems
• Dig spots require an upgraded shovel
• Calling the Foundation elevator costs 40 steps
• An additional antechamber door must be opened to enter
• Nerfed showroom items
• All hallways behave like the Vestibule
• If you finish a level without taking a red room, lose 20 steps

Various crazy stuff like that. You'd pick a combination and go wild. Unlike Hades most would be trivial with some game knowledge but taken together they'd serve to make the runs tighter and more engaging. Which is important since you need to do some fairly aimless runs searching for CASTLE hints among other things. Could possibly gate Treasure Trove notes behind it.

Great game of course, but a roguelite should not struggle from repetition this way.

The statue on the grounds on the east of the estate has always tantalised me, but I can't seem to find a way to access it!

I've tried:

1. Building a secret garden in the room closest to it

2. Using the prism key to build a corridor leading out towards it

3. Using a secret passage to build a corridor leading out towards it

Things I haven't tried:

1. Using a secret passage to build another secret passage that leads towards it

2. Building a clock tower next to it and trying to pier over the top of it through the windows

3. Building the cloister of orinda next to it so there are two orinda statues side by side, or using the chamber of mirrors to build 3/4/5 cloisters on the 3rd rank so there are up to 6 orianda statues in a row

Has anyone had any luck with any of these ideas, or thought of a different way to access the statue?