After years of making games and films for others, developer Dogubomb relishes the chance to make something for themselves, and that comes in the form of their mysterious new puzzle game Blue Prince.
The general plot of Blue Prince is that the player character has been tasked by their recently-deceased uncle to discover the 46th room of his 45 room house.
Visually striking, this isn’t just another first-person puzzle exploration game, however. Combining elements from strategy games and even tabletop board games, it’s a refreshing take on a genre that seemed perfected, but niche in its audience.
Ben Lyons, our Editor-In-Chief at Gamereactor UK, got a chance to talk to Dogumbomb’s Tonda Ros about Blue Prince at this year’s Gamescom in Cologne.
Ros said: “Most of my influences were books and board games, so a lot of the mechanics are kind of based on the drafting mechanics that you might see in Magic the Gathering or Agricola or Notre Dame, some of my favorite board games and card games, kind of combined with some things from some of my favorite books, like Maze by Christopher Manson, which is kind of like exploring a sort of house that’s kind of got a lot of secrets.
“But a lot of the story pieces and the puzzle pieces are kind of interwoven throughout the tapestry of the game in a way that kind of encourages players to find them.
“And the way the house is set up is the order that players will find them, it will usually be different.”
Ros also commented on the game’s unique approach to problem solving, whereby gameplay strategy and puzzling ability are both viable avenues for progression.
He said: “By using the strategy elements, you can actually bypass puzzles that you can’t solve.
And if you don’t like solving puzzles, you can pretty much outright ignore them and just focus on those strategy elements.
“But for new players, the drafting mechanics and not winding up in a dead end will be very challenging.
But that’s something that you can get good at, and the game doesn’t really hold your hand at leveling up that skill.
“So if you’re bad at strategy, a more puzzle-centric player can solve puzzles that will then give them advantages that they won’t really have to be as good as strategy.
“So I feel like there’s two avenues for both strategy lovers and puzzle enthusiasts.”
You can watch our full interview with Ros here, where we discuss more on his favourite things about the game and where its stunning art direction came from.