r/BluePrince

I've been spending the last few days going over my notes, and trying to find further information that can be gleaned from the maps to translate the unknown erajan words, and I've come up with a theory based on the following:

raa = very, very (from final exam)

essa = love (blue memo)

jor = name (classroom wall)

joro = father (blue memo)

jora = mother (from tomb letter - deduced meaning based on context and translation for father)

The game is very, very specific about the translation for raa. Because it follows many conventions for prefixes as an adjective, I think that we can deduce that ra = very if raa = very, very.

So, adding an 'a' changes the meaning of the word it's added to. My first thought was that it "exaggerates" the word that it follows, but I think that a cleaner definition is that it acts as a kind of 'operand' and exactly doubles it: raa = ra ra, essa = ess ess, jora = jor jor. In the archives, the news paper states that Kaitlin Je Ari is named by erajan tradition, and given her mothers surnames. This implies that erajans typically inherit two names from their mothers, so 'a' acting as an operand in jora to 'jor, 'jor' makes sense - your two surnames names come from your mother in this culture (mother = two names).

If this applies to essa: essa = ess, ess -> ess = 'heart' or something similar.

It follows that other vowels or vowels in general may have special rules when used on their own as affixes. I would hazard a guess that 'o' in joro may perform some other operation on the prior word, but I haven't been able to deduce what it might be (it could be added to distinguish from both jor and jora: jor/o - not your name, but related to it).

I think that we can deduce at least one more vowel operand: i (this one is more speculative, though).

At the north pole of the map, the letter 'i' is on its own. Well, what is the north pole? Of course, it is the only reachable portion of the planet's core: its central axis - literally the core of the earth. Both inn and iss begin with 'i': the two cardinal directions that point to the mora's polar axis.

This may sound crazy at first, but perhaps 'i' is also acting as a vowel operand: performing a linguistic 'core' operation the letters that follow? Perhaps when a vowel is followed by two consonants, it performs a specific 'operation' - changing or adding a specific meaning.

The south pole is actually labeled "The southern key", with a figure 8 where the pole would be. Reflecting or rotating an 's' and combining it with the first one creates an 8. iss = 8 in erajan, literally, with the i reflecting the second s and combining it with the first (or performing some other operation)?

TLDR: I think that if a vowel is followed by two consonants, it performs some operation on those consonants, creating a meaningful symbol, and a vowel at the end of a word may perform some other operation on the whole word, and 'i' means core, but it also means the operation of coring...

For the uninitiated, Blue Prince is greatly inspired by and partly developed with the author of MAZE, a puzzlebook from the 80's.

I was reading a bit about Christopher Manson, and came across a list of books he has written. In this list two works released back to back immediately stood out to me becuase of their names. "The Crab Prince" from 1991 and "The Marvellous Blue Mouse" from 1992. I couldn't find any details online about them ever having been brought up in relation to Blue Prince before so I figured it might be worth mentioning here. Although feel free to tell me if you think I am crazy for trying to make a stretch like this work.

I unfortunately don't have access to either of these books, so if somebody would like to see if it is available at their local library or something like that it would be very much appreciated if you think there might be something to this.

I've been trying to revisit details I've taken for granted/overlooked, and I realized I hadn't looked at the Apple Orchard for a while. (I'm assuming mentioning its existence doesn't imply a spoiler because it can clearly be seen on day one.)

Looking back over the Gardener's Logbook, I just noticed a detail that'd never stood out to me: on the Soil Survey, and specifically the rendering of the 45-room mansion, the lower block of rooms, representing the early ranks, is rendered with "alleys" - double lines - between rooms. On the higher ranks, the rooms are rendered with single lines. And this is a game in which anomalous details are almost always significant.

Now, it occurs to me that this is one of a small number of renderings of the mansion as a grid throughout the game. Most of them are connected to significant puzzles: the Study, the chessboard, and treasure maps. The latter give us a framework for understanding an X as significant.

The other thing that occurs to me is that >!we can explore a version of the mansion that does, indeed, have alleys between drafts of the rooms: the Atelier!<. If the Logbook would be connected, I'd wonder if the big ol' X for "Barren Ground" is significant. And if we could read it instead as "Baron Ground." >!There's no known green puzzle-path in the Atelier, right? Although if there were a puzzle-path, it would be directly in the block of rooms indicated by the Logbook. The room marked with the X is the start of HEWAM BLEST. That room is also the Bedroom, which in the mansion is the home of Baron's Bafflers, a puzzle that so far seems like it doesn't connect to anything. Darn it, you could almost trace a walking path that is MANTIS within that area. Alas, for lack of an I!<.

As always, this could all be nothingburger - I'm aware of datamining - but I thought I'd share since I hadn't seen that detail mentioned before, and I don't believe it's an accident or oversight.

I am just so happy! I have not been on the subreddit at all since I didn’t want any spoilers. I guess I will have to still keep away since there’s more to do 😅 But I am just so so happy I needed to share. I have not been so into a game for years! and actually this is the first game I play on PlayStation since I didn’t have one growing up and was not comfortable with a joystick (usually play on pc). So it’s been really cool to get comfortable with that (the first day I almost gave up because I felt so stupid not being able to look in the direction I needed to fluidly enough). I wonder if this will trigger more obsession with games, specially ps5 exclusive ones?

https://preview.redd.it/lw7axn6zh0kh1.png?width=1909&format=png&auto=webp&s=04fd21e77f115a5922800aa2666f3e52b2d3709a

This is just a little rant. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm on my 20-odd smth. attempt of the Day1 Achievement. Had my share of close calls, some bad RNG, some unforced errors.

But this run right here has to be the worst so far.

Veteran Mode on, Detector Shovel, Keycard, The option to open up All Three sides of the Antechamber based on what I need, 5 spots to draft from, 5 LOCKED DOORS. Deliberately left 5 dirt piles open -> 3x Trash, 2x Coins.

Are. you. f*****. shi****. me. :)

Anyway, thanks for listening and sharing in my pain. <3

https://preview.redd.it/roksefrl81kh1.png?width=1919&format=png&auto=webp&s=402bff71dda52e97312c4fde52db9a1e0cf7552f

https://preview.redd.it/cj8bsohm81kh1.png?width=1919&format=png&auto=webp&s=83067d8a57803c7b90b0be9ef6a6735aa2508f44

Consider this a follow up to my last post.

But this time, I can't laugh about it anymore.

All three Antechamber doors open.
Room46 open.
One step away from the Kitchen.
Out of steps.

I'm going to sleep.

Ah, Blue Prince. I went from maybe never playing the game again after a few days, to having my mind completely blown on day 28 and looking like the Charlie day conspiracy meme with all of my screenshots and handwritten notes. 

I love the game, but one uniquely cruel thing about it is that unless you’ve fully beaten the game (which, at this point, I’m not even fully sure what I think that even means) you never really can talk candidly about it with anyone else without potentially spoiling something for yourself. I also have no sense of how far along I may be in the game either as much like the house, my list of outstanding problems left to solve is ever changing.

So because this stupid, perfect game has completely taken over my brain over the last week and I need somewhere to talk about it, I come to Reddit. I’m gonna bullet out things I’ve accomplished in my 28 days below and my question for you guys is - when you were hovering around day 30, were you in a similar spot to me, or no? Am I solving things at a good clip, or am I painfully slow? Around what day did you ‘beat’ the game, or at least feel like you had a strong grasp on how to play and what completion really entailed? No hints or spoilers please!

• >!Unlocked the foundation elevator!<
• >!Opened the garage and permanently opened the outside room to the west, I think ive accessed all the potential rooms here unless there are ones I can unlock later!<
• >!I’ve made it inside the antechamber once but wasn’t able to get the key to any underground entrances!<
• >!I’ve opened doors in the antechamber a couple of times from either the secret garden or the room with the 7 locked doors!<
• >!Figured out the pictures eight dates/eight safes puzzle!<
• >!Solved the sheet music puzzle and added the room found at the white trees/two stones but haven’t drafted it yet!<
• >!I’ve figured out how to work the pump room and drained the fountain, but I’ve never gotten the antechamber key down there!<
• >!I’ve made it underground via a workshop creation that was able to break a wall in the front of the estate (did this in the greenhouse to read the groundskeepers diary, and in the freezer too). Went into the basement and solved the walking-on-crates puzzle to go down to the rotating gear and unlocked the machinerium but haven’t drafted it yet. Couldn’t access any other areas but think I recognize them as other places you can access underground from above (i.e. the blue flames, the fountain, etc.)!<
• >!I also made a souped up lock pick thing that was really cool. I wish the devices were permanent! (But yes I know about the coat check)!<
• >!Ive gotten the wrench once and was able to change the rarity of a few of the mechanical rooms!<
• >!I’ve figured out what the stars mean, how to benefit from them in the observatory and the list of what happens with each individual star value!<
• >!I can do the dart board and parlor puzzles !<
• >!I’ve got 3 red letters from safes (Budoir, Study, Shelter)!<
• >!Made the boiler room once and solved the puzzle/turned it on, but haven’t been able to use it to do anything yet (only thing im aware of to use it for is the machine in the lab, but last time I drafted a lab I didnt have a boiler room so it wasn’t on - or maybe my lab was just not in the right place? Who knows. I believe I solved the periodic table puzzle that gives instructions for this machine as well)!<
• >!I’ve read all the initial library books and added drafting volume 4 and have read it in the library, from the bookshop !<
• >!I’ve been up to grade 3 in the classrooms!<
• >!I think there are only 4 or so rooms so far that I totally haven’t drafted yet i.e. are blank in the directory. Im sure there are more that I can unlock through puzzles and the drafting room though. !<
• >!I’ve turned on 2 blue flames.!<
• >!I’ve turned on the lights in the dark room!<
• >!Ive found treasure maps/dug up at least one treasure chest!<
• >!Talked to the fortune teller machine once in the rumpus room!<
• >!Outstanding items top of mind are drafting the two new rooms I just uncovered, get back to the office to check email for more instructions on the thing in the breaker room (ive gotten the instructions and seem to get all the purple lights on easy, but have no earthly idea what exactly this is doing), try draining other things than the fountain, use more upgrade disks!<

>!I still have no idea what the freakin chess pieces mean, lol. !<

I really liked the Billiard Room dartboard at first. Then after having understood all the rules and being very late in the game it stopped being a puzzle and turned into homework.

There's already a good free web solver for this that got posted here a while back, open source, does the maths correctly, worth using. The thing that still bothered me is that you have to click the entire board in by hand, and on a late-game board that manual entry is most of the tedium, sometimes it takes more than doing the actual math.

So I made Dartboard Solver for iPhone/iPad. You take a picture of your screen, it reads the board, segment colours, ring order, >!bullseye symbol, outer-ring modifiers!<, and gives you the answer with the steps, so you can check it rather than just trust it. When needed, manual entry is quicker, I tried to make it as smooth as possible.

On pricing, up front: the app is free to use. Manual board entry is unlimited and always will be, same as the existing web solvers, no cap, no account. Photo recognition is the paid part: limited scans a day free, unlimited on subscription. After you run out of scans, type the board in like you would anywhere else, and still get your answer.

https://apps.apple.com/it/app/dartboard-solver/id6790452378

On the recognition specifically: photos of a monitor or TV work, even tested with moiré, but glare, heavy off-angle shots and unusual display colour profiles (night shift for example) can trip it up. If it misreads a board for you, post the photo in this thread or send it directly via the in-app contact link, >!the rare late-game symbols are exactly the ones I have the fewest samples of!<, so a bad photo is genuinely more useful to me than a good one.

I hope you enjoy it and find it useful!

A screenshot of the photo capture mode

Hey everyone! I really enjoyed BP, but now that I'm mostly done with it, I feel like the only way to re-live it is through somebody else playing it. Do you have any favorite play-throughs available in YouTube / Twitch? Looking for something similar to Oliver the astrophysicist plays Minecraft

Is the end of this game really just the Blue Testament? It feels.. incomplete...

I can't lie

This game has been one of the best I have ever played, I can't believe the ending doesn't even really feel like an end.

I loved Blue Prince and explored just about every rook in a nook and cranny in a pantry it had to share. I loved the art, the gameplay, the lore, the early to mid game puzzles, it felt like I was reading a book but experiencing it in a brilliant format, but felt like it gave up on itself in the very last stretch?

The end-game puzzles after castling and ascending the throne are miserable dupes and make no sense for a game with such depth to its world it has you learn its geography, arithmetic, language, angels, and secrets to literally take an exam on it.

Lady Auravei’s character is a disappointment, with her statement she’s given no one else her “esteem” in life? And she essentially does not care who will find her will, be they a descendent of her family or a Redguard? This makes no sense at all for the implication of her character within the house itself. She is tied to the Moon Pendant, one of the most prevalent pieces of Blue Prince imagery, and its gift is holding onto two assets the following day. She had two sons and this feels no coincidence and implies she is someone who deeply cares about and thinks of her sons and would want a descendant to inherit. Her will paints her frigidly, stating her husband is fine on his own, that Simon is better suited to the task of solving her puzzle (looking down on Herbert?), and she honestly doesn’t care who finds this because they’ll get her respect regardless.

It feels very inconsistent. She herself would have been an inheritor of the suffering of Orindians? She was alive for the dismantling of the railroads, the erasure of their culture? Just four years after finalizing the purchase of Mount Holly Estate they find the buried ruins of Castle Orindia? And she is fine with just anyone owning the estate? Even if that means that castle is destroyed in the attempt to continue the erasure of any Orindian traces?

The rest of the tone and themes of Blue Prince leads us to sympathize with Orinda Aries and to condemn the fascism under Fenn Aries. We are unmistakably led to feel protective of both the history of our continent but also of our heritage, our own mother risking her life to take a stand against the misinformation and deception of Fenn, and all the clues laid out by our Grand Uncle, by our Mother, by the rooms of Mount Holly, bring us to a place of solidarity with Orindians.

We are explicitly asked by our Grand Uncle after our “first” “inheritance” if we will continue to try to solve the mysteries of this house and our family and our world? But by the end, we are smacked in the face with a room of three boxes, essentially mocking us for wanting to solve what we were told we would and could solve. The meta-book “The Blue Prince” is patronizing, treating us as if we’re continuing to solve puzzles because we’re just obsessed with obvious dead ends within the house? No, we want to leave.

Alzara shows us going to Fenn, to Corarica, to the train station waiting for our mother, and it implies heavily we will go there. They would have had to design these places to even show them in these visions and it honestly just feels like there was more planned and they just weren’t able to execute that plan. And it isn’t that oh, Alzara is just unreliable, we do go where he shows us in his visions. We find the white sands, the castle implicated, we find the multiple chests in the reservoir, etc. But nothing ever comes to fruition on everything else? Not even official post-game implication?

“If we count small gates, eight dates crack eight safes” was intentional and led us to puzzle solve each safe we find with the dates hidden within the room. It was clever and thoughtful. Castling brought us further into the heart of our Orindian heritage, which makes sense after all we see in the underground. Symbolically, it’s fitting too, we’re a “rook” (a baron), switching with the “king”. It implies overthrowing the current fascist government, it suits all the previous storyline elements we’ve become familiar with. Figuring out the cipher with the clues left behind was fun even if a little more arbitrary with the placements of all the cipher’s pieces, and retrieving the Key of Aries by way of turning the hands on a clock after all the time themes (“It’s About Time”) felt right.

The rest of the puzzles?

Our mother’s train stop hints pointing to the sundial? She has been gone for years? How did she know that the communications would be down just for our mission? And it doesn’t even matter, ultimately? Communications just become a way for Staff to provide hints? Why would that be the message she leaves behind as she flees somewhere?

The maze after the Atalier is ridiculous, the rooms feel randomly generated, hence the use of the outer hallways because they didn’t even use the hallways as hallways? The rooms make no sense for some sort of intentional blueprint of the house? And Her Ladyship’s Chamber and the Master Bedroom and the Bunk Room aren’t even present for some reason? The Bunk Room was her sons’ in their childhood and a meaningful part of the past we have been coming to learn and it’s just not there in her final design of the house? What? It feels like they just generated the boxes and the rooms and dumped them in a random maze and didn’t care how it would end up.

The underneath tunnel, again, just a massive disappointment. And the “This journey will never end” box hinting towards the Spiral of Stars just for the Spiral of Stars to tell you to get off the game essentially (day automatically ending if you try to get another word) is just rude. I wanted the game to end, I wanted the journey to finalize in a way that’s meaningful.

The rest of the story was well-written, the books we read within the game were compelling, the history and lore felt expansive. It felt intentional and engaging, and the end-game felt strange and ended awkwardly, as if someone else wrote it, as if someone just gave up on the story. There is no indication that builds us up for the disappointment of the true endings. In fact, from the first major task completion, we are trained to believe if we just look a little longer, puzzle a little better, we can get Simon a little closer to the truth of his life and the wellbeing of his mother.

- I wanted to engage with the railways, the heart of Orindian transportation and culture, the soul of the country that seemingly connected the rest of the continent if not the world through that mode
- I wanted to either find or definitively not find our mother, whether it’s coming up with nothing (“searching for a shadow that will never be cast”) or reuniting with her
- I wanted to go to Fenn, the gardens as the visions show, I wanted to revisit the museum, the place of our mother’s crime and greatest act of rebellion
- I wanted to bring the Staff back, or at least have some indication they get to return at the end?
- I wanted to retrace the berry picker’s steps, and for where those events occurred to be relevant, I was disappointed that the idol was even in the chest since it supposedly was his headstone, I was so close to collapsing the gem mine because I thought maybe that would open up the way past because The Curse of Black Bridge ends in a mine collapse, I searched all over the grounds for a treasure trove of berries or the orchard to significantly imply it was the place of events, or for one of the large trees along the west road to be the tree you see in the story after Jesper has stolen the idol and is considering whether he is truly cursed or not and for there to be some secret buried beneath it?

AND why does the curse mean so little? “Deadly is the stone” but we are just reduced to 13 steps and the same curse you get when you take money back from the Shrine (did that one by accident but I learned something)? Is this because we are worthy of just a slap on the wrist as descendent of Orindian royalty and not the actual death and curse that The Unholy Hounds and Jesper undergo? And it really warns you not to get the idol either, and I assumed it would be the same as destroying the gem mine or the Chapel piggy bank, resulting in something permanent and pretty bad? But then it’s just really no big deal?
- I wanted the sigils to matter more than just, “good job you figured them out”?
- If Simon is the inheritor of the Family Core and we have learned about the sigils, and what they mean, and the trajectory of our family’s destiny, it would have meant so much more if the end could have been something as simple as building our own sigil for us using the new core? With a cut scene indicating what we’ve built and what that means for the rest of the world? Or if we don’t get to choose, at least let us discover what the sigil will become? Will we bring back the railroads, will we be poetic or industrial or martial? I wanted to know what happens to the world I have learned so much about

And, simply, the amount of what feels like unfinished puzzles is bizarre to me. Why is there a T in the Solarium and an N in the Mechanarium? And why does Randolph’s last letter have an “F E” hint? And why does the COFFE only have one E and the Pantry’s blue memo says “There’s a letter missing” and YEAH it’s the E in COFFE. What is the deal with the Den, or the Ballroom, and why is there SO VERY LITTLE actually in Room 46 besides the Will and the Crown. These and more, unsolved. I don’t get it? Even if these remained unsolved, just things to return to in the manor, to wonder about as loose ends, the main story should have actually wrapped up. The train stops should have been relevant to where Mary went, and how we might meet her or not meet her there.

It just feels like the developers weren’t allowed to finish the game, or they lost steam, and just needed to publish already. I still loved so much of the game, but its endings, how it tied things together, was so disorganized and uncharacteristic per the rest of the game. I hope Dirigiblocks is more than just Dirigiblocks, the fact it has taken so long to update with Dirigiblocks is somewhat hopeful, but, I don’t know.

The trajectory of the game definitely reminded me of my experience with Outer Wilds, I went in not expecting much and came out with a beautifully told life lesson. I went in not expecting much of Blue Prince either, just a fun and interesting puzzle game, but it began to feel like I was going to uncover something profound just to earn one (1) esteem…

I know the game has been data-mined, but with how well-written the beginning to middle is, it really feels like something is missing here and it simply can’t be what was planned for the end. And not because I don’t want it to end, not because I need or want more puzzles to solve, but because I wanted the game to end with dignity, and instead it’s ended for me like a power hammer to the back of the head.

I truly hope there will be more, so many games today simply won’t finish their stories wholly. What I loved about the beginning of Blue Prince was that it felt like an intentional story. I want something to follow, to learn, to end gracefully. This really felt like it would, I hope maybe it still may with a future update…

TL;DR — I loved the worldbuilding, lore, and carefully constructed early-to-mid game puzzles, but its endgame feels shockingly unfinished and convoluted compared to everything leading up to it. So many major story threads and mysteries end up going nowhere that it feels less intentionally ambiguous and more like the game ends before its actual final act.

First off, if you haven’t played Fez and are in this sub, you probably should! Definitely has my vote for GOAT soundtrack.

Fez’ long-unsolved final puzzle was finally solved recently after over a decade. I think it’s likely BP is on the same trajectory, agree or disagree?