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Blue Prince
A genre-defying strategy puzzle (Gamescom 2024) - Interview with Dogubomb's Tonda Ros
We caught up with the head of indie developer Dogubomb to learn more about their upcoming mysterious and peculiar puzzle adventure, Blue Prince.
Audio transcription
"Hello everyone and welcome back to Gamereactor.
As you might be able to infer by this really wonderful booth that we're in right now, I'm here with Tonda to talk a little bit about Blue Prince."
"Now, I've just had a chance to play a bit of the game, and it's a really interesting sort of narrative puzzle sort of experience.
Where did the idea come from for Blue Prince?
Blue Prince spawned from a lot of things."
"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."
"And tell me a little bit about those secrets then.
There's a story at the core of Blue Prince in the way that, you know, it's something you have to unravel.
Tell me about what players are going to be expected to do."
"Yeah, I mean, part of the thrill, I think, is not really knowing exactly what to expect going in, and the game progresses.
You're not really 100% sure of the story.
Obviously, you know the setup is that you've been tasked by your great uncle to find the 46th room of a 45-room house, and even that alone seems a little challenging."
"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."
"You know, your friend might find, you know, a piece of a puzzle or a piece of the story that you've never seen before.
And so kind of each individual player's playthrough will be unique in the order and, you know, full context of the story as they discover it."
"Because it has those sort of roguelike mechanics, right, where the idea is to get to this end of the house, but you have to, again, using the room drafting mechanics, you have to sort of weave your own way through."
"But it's never that easy, right?
There's things that get in the way, and then if you get yourself stuck, well, you move on to day two.
Yeah, for sure."
"I think that's where a lot of the board game strategy elements come into.
And so there's a lot of first-person adventure games, which are kind of very focused on puzzle solving.
And if you can't solve a puzzle, you'll get stuck."
"But 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 mentioned the puzzles.
It's not just about getting through the rooms and trying to get to the end.
There are things that you bake in between, little environmental challenges.
What sort of things did you want to make sure are included to challenge the player along the way?
What sort of secrets and additional tasks do you have lined up for players to unravel?
Yeah, I'm going to be deadly silent on that."
"And I'm going to let people play Blueprints and actually see those challenges and secrets.
Because a lot of the rooms, you won't even know what's in it.
You might see a puzzle piece on a room, but you won't actually even know what that challenge entails until you draft that room."
"But maybe there's another room that you've never seen in that same choice.
So each door you open, you're presented with three options.
You might not see that room again for several days.
So passing up on it is a big choice."
"And I think those decisions that happen is, do I want to continue my current day, or do I want to just draft this dead end that I've never seen before?
It'll end my day, but the knowledge is probably worth it."
"And tell me about the really striking art direction you've gone with this game.
It's a really quite stunning game that you've built here.
So why did you decide to go with the art style you did?
Yeah, the art style was actually developed over a two-year period with our art director, Davide Polino."
"And we kind of went for a sketchy look that was very stylized, but kind of imperfect.
And all of the lines in the game are all hand-drawn, and none of them are perfect, and they're kind of based on architectural blueprints, kind of like the rough sketches that an architect might adhere to blueprint paper."
"And when the game does come out eventually, what's something that you're really looking forward to for players to experience themselves?
What's one key part of the game that you're like, this is something that players should really check out for themselves?
Watching other people play."
"It's such a thrill, because I've seen so many people play, and every experience is so unique.
The order that they're doing things is different.
The things they're discovering are different."
"I've had players play so many hours, so many days, and then hear someone do something on day one that they've never seen.
So I think people, after you've played the game, after you've beaten the game, you're going to have a lot of fun watching other people play it, or at least talking to them, and kind of sharing and exchanging your stories, and probably being surprised about how little overlap there is between their experiences."
"And as a final thing, when can we be looking forward to playing Blueprints, and on what platforms?
No comment.
For more information on Blueprints, stay tuned to your local Game Rector region, and otherwise stay tuned for more games coming to views as well."
"Thanks all for watching, and we'll see you all in the next one."
Gamescom
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