How Blue Prince Devs Crafted Immersive Storytelling With…

Blue Prince is an upcoming puzzle game from independent studio Dogubomb and publisher Raw Fury that combines puzzle gameplay with a progression reset system that encourages player strategy and experimentation. At the same time, Blue Prince is a rich-story puzzle adventure game where players must discover the truth behind a missing person's case.

The story of Blue Prince is set in Mt. Holly, a mansion with seemingly infinite rooms that belonged to Herbert S. Sinclair. After passing away, Sinclair leaves the 45-room estate to his grandnephew, Simon P. Jones, as long as he finds the house's hidden Room 46. Players step in Simon's shoes to explore Mt. Holly and solve a series of riddles from a first-person point of view. The Best War Games recently spoke to Dogubomb director and game creator Tonda Ros about Blue Prince' s approach to immersive storytelling.

The Role that Architecture Plays in Blue Prince’s Story

In Blue Prince, not only do players find out more secrets about Mt. Holly and its previous owner, but they also learn of the disappearance of children's author Marion Marigold. According to Ros, Marigold's storyline is the very heart of the game, and to reveal what happened to her, players must find clues within "the furthest rooms and shifting shadows of the house." One room at a time, players will discover how Room 46 is only the surface of Mt. Holly's mysteries. The biggest test will be finding out who Marion Marigold was, and how her disappearance intertwines with the mansion's past.

The unique art style of Blue Prince plays a part in the game's immersive experience as well. Players step into a world resembling illustrations from a graphic novel. Ros reveals that he and the team's art director, Davide Pellino, spent a year developing Blue Prince's look and creating a shader system that enhanced the game's hand-drawn art style. As Ros explained,

"The result of those efforts is a bold, stylized sketchy world of imperfect lines and floorplan sketches. It’s the perfect blend of his style and my own, and I am very pleased that so many people are drawn to the atmospheric visuals of the world we have created".

In an earlier trailer for the game, developers described Blue Prince as an atmospheric architectural adventure game in which players themselves effectively build the Mt. Holly house. All kinds of rooms can be found in the mansion from a kitchen and a corridor to a chapel and an observatory. The chambers have different numbers of exits as well, so Blue Prince challenges gamers to avoid dead ends with their decisions. The game also asks players to draft a blueprint of the state as they explore, and every day their progression resets. Thus, the clues and items players discover one day may not be there again the next.

Ros shares that this constant shifting element of Blue Prince's gameplay is mirrored in Mt. Holly's architecture. He explains that, when players stand before the building and look closely at its facade, they will see a "layered symphony of disparate architectural styles." This detail reflects how the mansion was built by several generations over the years, without a care for uniformity, with Ros adding,

"In this way, the game is a lot like the house. Each new idea was added organically, one room at a time, year by year, adding complexity and depth as the house expanded".

Ros notes that this concept matches players' journey in Blue Prince, as they are also adding their own touch to Mt. Holly, room by room. As Ros remarks, players may find their first playthroughs of Blue Prince challenging, but as they progress, they will learn more about the hidden rules that run the strange building. For example, an item found in one room can help solve a puzzle in another. Ross adds that exploration is key and players will only decipher solutions by questioning how things work in the house.

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