You don't need to be convinced that Blue Prince is a masterpiece, you just want to jump in and start playing. This quick guide is for folks who have played about less than 10 or so hours. This guide does not contain spoilers, just advice for how to make the most of your gameplay. Key Things to Know - Do NOT read any hints or spoilers online. Don't watch streamers playing. Blue Prince is the rare game that wants you to succeed and uncover its mysteries. Figuring things out on your own is the entire point. That said, the Wikipedia page for Blue Prince[en.wikipedia.org] gives some spoiler-free background on what sort of vibe the creator was going for. - Play with a partner. This game is such a joy to share with someone in real-time. It's chill enough that they don't have to pay full attention. They could even be on Zoom if you share your screen. Blue Prince is a video game that non-gamers will enjoy. - You cannot die or fail. At worst, you just don't make any progress in a day. But I've always managed to make some kind of progress each day, even if it's just learning a new detail about the gameplay or story. There's absolutely no need to "save scum." - Blue Prince is a calm, chill game. There are no deadlines. It doesn't matter if it's Day 10 or Day 10,000. Don't feel you have to make accomplishments or finish quickly. Enjoy the journey. Blue Prince reveals things at a peaceful drip. If you feel frustrated, take a break and sleep on it. Your mind will come up with new ideas overnight. - Blue Prince doesn't require quick reflexes at all. If you are a parent with a baby or young kid, you can play just a single day at a time. There's no real penalty for pausing or ending a day early if you suddenly have to go. - The first couple of hours might be a little too slow, but stick with it. - If the cursor doesn't change when it hovers over something, you can't click it. If you can't click it, you can safely ignore it (for now, at least.) - Keep a PAPER notebook while you play. You could have a note taking app, but it kills the mood to constantly alt-tab out of the game to type stuff. A freeform pen-and-paper approach is great for Blue Prince. (More advice on paper notebooks later.) - Take a ton of screenshots as you play. It's not "cheating." (More advice on screenshots later.) - The best advice: When picking a room to draft, choose new rooms you haven't been in yet. This is a great way to keep you from getting "stuck" because you'll often find details to help with whatever other tasks/puzzles you're working on. Remember That Blue Prince Is a Video Game You may have questions like: - "How do the rooms move around and appear in the house completely silently?" - "Who replaces all the coins and keys I pick up each day?" - "Why can't I hop over this low fence?" - "Is this 14 year old really living in a tent by himself with no toilet paper anywhere in sight?" ...then remember the MST3K mantra: "If you're wondering how he eats and breathes And other science facts Then repeat to yourself 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'" That said, Blue Prince does a good job of having puzzle solutions that make sense within its own setting. It avoids the frustrating "moon logic"[tvtropes.org] or making you do trial-and-error approaches to solutions that other adventure/puzzle games have. You don't have to be a genius or "good at puzzles" to solve these puzzles. In fact, I often found myself overthinking solutions. Come up with ideas and try them out. There's no real penalty for getting things wrong. If you feel confused by something, just tell yourself you don't have enough information yet and continue exploring. Advice on Paper Note-Taking You could keep notes with a note taking app on your phone, tablet, or second computer. However, I find a fresh paper notebook is great and it gives me a nice "journal" of my time playing. You will need dozens of pages, so just get a cheap notebook rather than loose sheets of paper. Your notebook will end up being an unorganized, haphazard mess and that is fine. It doesn't have to have a neat and ordered layout. You can use a pencil and erase things or a pen and just scratch things out. Here are the sorts of things to write down: - You'll almost never get stuck because you'll often have multiple ideas or puzzles to work on. Use a full page or two for "unsolved puzzles" or "things to try" or "remaining mysteries to figure out". Just a few words for each as a reminder is enough. - I usually split a page into four quarters and give new rooms I draft their own quarter. I lightly summarize the things I find or notice in this room. - Use a full page or two for characters. List their name, relation, and role. Just a couple sentences per person is fine. Leave a couple lines for details to add in later. Try to match names to people in photos. The first people will be from the opening video cut scene: Herbert S. Sinclair and his grand-nephew, Simon P. Jones. (That's you!) - Start a fresh page whenever a video cut scene plays and try to jot down quick notes of things referenced. But it's okay if you miss details, since Blue Prince repeats details and facts all the time. - If you pick up a book, letter, or photo to inspect, taking a screenshot is much easier than copying the full text by hand. See the next section. Advice on Taking Screenshots You're not expected to have a photographic memory. Screenshots are a great way to record stuff you've seen. I've taken hundreds of screenshots through the course of playing Blue Prince. You can always delete them later. You should screenshot anything you can pick up and inspect: books, letters, photos, etc. Screenshot views of the room you are in if you want, but it's often easier to jot down details in your paper journal like "white pawn in the den." General advice: - Steam lets you take screenshots by pressing F12. - Or use the free Windows Greenshot app[getgreenshot.org] to take screenshots with Ctrl-PrtScr and automatically save them to files. - Configure the screenshot image files to save to your Google Drive or other cloud storage so you can easily access them from other devices or share them with a partner. - I go back over my screenshot files and rename them. I usually begin with file name with the name of the room they were taken in so I can sort the images by alphabetical order. - You could take photos of your screen with your phone, but it's not as nice in my opinion. Final Notes I love this game. Blue Prince is a masterpiece. It takes all the great things about Myst and improves on them, and leaves all the frustrating things about Myst behind. The tiniest spoiler: It'll be a while before you enter Room 46, but entering Room 46 is not the end of the entire game! You'll continue on to the next day and there's still so much more! However, the first time you enter Room 46 the day will come to an end. You won't have an option to continue exploring the estate; everything will reset for the next day as usual. (This only applies to the first time you enter Room 46.) The second tiniest spoiler: Blue Prince is very much a game centered on English wordplay for a lot of its puzzles. Translating this game to a non-English language is likely an impossible task because of this. Keep this in mind as you try to figure things out. I tend to take my time. Game days usually take me between 20 and 60 minutes. It's so easy to play one more day, but I've also taken a week off from playing Blue Prince at all. The paper notebook and screenshots really help here. Or you can disregard all of my advice and play your own way. Comparison is the thief of joy; go as fast or as slow as you want. Take copious notes or take no notes at all. There's no wrong way to play Blue Prince as long as you are enjoying yourself. There's still a lot for me to uncover, but I know I'm going to enjoy it. I hope you enjoy Blue Prince too. -Al Sweigart