Blue Prince [Overview]

Game Title: Blue Prince
Released: April 10, 2025
Game Length: N/A
Grade: A

Setting

Background: Blue Prince is a play on words for "blueprints" for a roguelike house construction game. Tonda Ros originally was going to name the game Bequest but found someone already beat him to that name on Steam. While he drew inspiration from Jewels in the Attic, there are parts that personally reminded me of Castles of Mad King Ludwig. Inspiration for the game was taken from the book Maze: Solve the World's Most Complicated Puzzle (link to electronic version). Its creator Christopher Manson personally helped in creating a few pieces of artwork in the game. There is no intention on adding micro-transactions or downloadable content. The game is initially set at $30 on Steam but also available for the higher-tiered paying customers of PS Plus Subscribers and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

Objective: Your primary goal is to build a pathway to the antechamber, make it without expending your number of steps that diminish every time you walk through a room, use keys on locked doors that appear on Rank 4 or a key card on security doors that start appearing around Rank 6 (signified by the number of rows you have passed), open one of the antechamber doors from a lever in a special room, and collect the basement key to reach your destination below. Once you do reach your objective in probably under 20 hours and the credits roll, there will be still plenty of activities and secrets to discover for several hours afterwards. While the house, the constructed rooms, resources, and tools you collect all reset once you exhaust yourself or "call it a day" in the main menu (which is required to save your progress and quit), there are a number of ways to permanently unlock features, make upgrades, and circumvent the system to your advantage.

Information: As you play the game, you have the opportunity to check your room database by pressing the R button at any time. A history of your estates for each day can be accessed by the main menu. A number of rooms, especially in the early parts of the game, will have tips laid out on cards placed nearby to help explain one of the core mechanics. Assorted pages can be found in almost every room that tell you about the family, their history, and how they lived in the estate. However, most of the scattered documents will provide you a clue on some sort of secret, puzzle, or hidden aspect of the game. The library will offer you a way to see all your statistics in a book on the second floor (that you can reach by walking up the stairs) such as time played, steps taken, resources used, and puzzles solved. Another book functions as a scrapbook containing which rooms you favored, avoided, contraptions you made with the Workshop Room, and the stamps you've seen from the letters in the Mail Room or other locations. A book can be "checked out" and made available the second time you enter the room with a lot of backstory, full-blown guides to what rooms to build or problems to avoid, and some interesting facts. More books can be purchased and added to the library from the bookshop (which is only available after drafting a library or requesting a special type of room).

Rooms: While there are a number of (blue) rooms to choose from, there are also types of rooms that give benefits according to their color. Bedrooms are purple and grant you a small recovery of steps. Hallways are orange with unique pathing potentials. Green rooms generally produce dig spots and cover the outdoor areas of the estate. Red rooms tend to be traps that cost you but can sometimes give large benefits depending on the circumstances. Shops are yellow and offer things in exchange for currency. The interior of the rooms themselves as you draft them remain the same throughout the game unless you physically change them with an upgrade disk at a computer terminal. Most rooms constructed on the edges of the house will add windows to look outside for ambience. Random items can be found in rooms, but they usually fit the theme - running shoes can be found in a gymnasium, small items can be found on counters, or construction equipment found in green rooms to name a few examples. A couple items are rather hard to obtain such as the telescope in Her Ladyship's Chambers or watering can in the Greenhouse. A locked trunk can occasionally be found in a room too. Depending on what tools you have in your possession and other active perks, you can find resources such as food, gems, keys, or coins (even inside the chapel). Certain puzzles and rewards like inside the Parlor can evolve the more times you successfully complete them each day.

Content: While a number of things can be discovered at your own pace, trying to figure out how much more you have left to discover can be daunting. Thankfully, you don't have the pressure of worrying about a monster trying to chase you down or running out of days to complete the game. Listed below is a vague interpretation of phases you should discover as you continue opening up new pathways and hints in your ventures.

Reaching the 46th Room - unlocking rooms, pulling levers, and obtaining permanent perks.
Unlocking 8 Realms - uncovering secrets, understanding lore, and finding hidden rooms.
Becoming Prince - reading memos, collecting artifacts, and locating old chambers.

Gameplay

Interface: There are things about this game that really smooth over your experience. Although some processes require time to pass, you don't necessarily have to wait for all of them. You can run through opening all the unlocked doors in a room or smash open all the trunks without waiting around to see what's inside. Locking onto notes, terminals, or other interactable objects only takes a couple seconds. You can start rotating the Rotunda and watch your map update with which two doors become available. The items in the Commissary can usually be seen from the counter before accessing its exchange window. Just because equipment is available in the Commissary does not prevent you from finding them elsewhere in the house. If you do obtain an item from a store, the shops update automatically to prevent you from buying a duplicate. The names of all the rooms are upright after being drafted when you check the map. Pressing tab at any time brings up your house, perks, and inventory. While drafting rooms, you can highlight a room with your cursor and press tab to see how it will be arranged in the estate. Press tab again to see your current items. There is no inventory cap. Your items will shrink in the window as you accumulate more throughout the day. Access to the full glossary of terms at the computer terminal is also a much appreciated feature.

Sound: While they made sure to add ambience when entering certain types of rooms, the two hour soundtrack of the occasional eerie background sound effects isn't always enough to fill the silence while wandering through parts of the game. All the Sanctum Rooms play the same music. Although you can't customize what plays in the Music Room, there is a delicate melody that plays momentarily upon entering the room. Once you have a Kennel Room, a dog will bark each time you hit a dig spot with a shovel to remind you that all doors inside will unlock. A bell will ring upon reaching Rank 8 of the estate when a meal is ready in the Dinner Room.

Environment: In addition to implementing windows for rooms touching the side of the house, the world outside does get darker as time progresses later into the day. Occasionally, there will be birds on fences or the ground that will fly away when you get close to them. You can see important locations in the distance at pivotal moments in the game. You will always see the same landscape and exterior of the house regardless of how far you progressed, but your location is calculated from where you are in the house (even the view from on top of the Clock Tower). There isn't any sort of dramatic shift in tone or color as you draft rooms each day. Don't expect decorations to suddenly change unless you use an Upgrade Disk on the room. When you dig for buried treasure, the debris that comes up always matches the floor. If there isn't enough room on the floor in the Entrance Hall for trunks, then they will start stacking on the benches.

Special Rooms

Antechamber: The three doors in the top room at the far end of the house requires you to pull a lever inside a special room. The first would be obtaining a secret garden key (like from the locksmith or music room) to draft the Secret Garden on either far side of the house. The hint on where to use the key can be found in an old gardener book in the Orchard outside that details where to find good soil in the estate. Once there, turn the weather vane until all arrows point towards the wall to reveal the lever that opens the west door. If you manage to obtain a power hammer from combining a sledge hammer, broken lever, and battery pack in a Workshop Room, you can destroy the brick wall to turn all the arrows in the opposite direction to open the east door. The second would be using a broken lever in the Greenhouse that can only be drafted on the far east side of the house to open the south door. The contingency requires the power hammer again to break open the brick wall behind the punching bag in the Weight Room to open the south door. The fourth would be from drafting a Great Hall and opening the right door with the lever to open the east door. Things will be easier if you can draft a foyer to automatically unlock all hallway doors, carry a lockpick kit, purchase a master key from the Showroom, or look at the diorama layout in the Drafting Studio. The last option as a contingency for the west door would be to draft a Mechanarium after accumulating a number of functional rooms in the estate.

Conditions: Every time you are ready to draft a room, three options are made available. Since you must pick one, the system will always make sure you have one available appropriate to the number of gems you currently own even if it means drafting a Lavatory. Ironically, there is a note on where certain rooms must be placed inside the Conservatory where itself can only be placed in one of the four corners of the house. The Master Bedroom can only be placed on the eastern side of the house. You must draft a pool to open up the locker room, sauna, and pump room. You can permanently add one of three random selections to your collection from a Studio - dovecote, the kennel, clock tower, classroom, solarium, dormitory, vestibule, and casino. A Garage can only be placed on the western side of the estate. In addition, you can use the car keys to find a note in the driver's seat of old reliable and open the trunk. If you draft a Utility Closet and route power to the garage, you can then create an Outer Room where you can add a tool shed, shelter, schoolhouse, shrine, root cellar, hovel, trading post, and tomb. The Western & Eastern Hallways are only available on their appropriate side of the house. The Morning Room requires you to draft a kitchen and then eat the Bacon & Eggs option (if it is available) on the menu. Make sure you pick a good spot for the Foundation since it will always be there for the rest of the game (unless you use Repellent Spray). Her Ladyship's Chamber can only be drafted on the west side and only if you are facing towards the south side of the house.

Upgrade Disks: There are 16 Upgrade Disks in the game. They will always be available in the same exact spots. If you pick one up but fail to use it at a computer terminal, another can be obtained the next day. While most of the disks are quite obtainable on their own, there was one that required some close scrutiny to learn of its location in the Aquarium room. Using a disk will select one of 16 rooms (that has not been upgraded yet) and offer you three different options. Each room can have their own secrets, decorations, and changes to layout. Once all the disks have been found, you can continue randomly changing rooms by exchanging an item from the Showroom at the Trading Post. Down below are some examples to the new upgraded rooms:

Spare Room changes the color of the room to bedroom, greenroom, or hall. Choosing which one depends on the perks you favor. Another upgrade becomes available afterwards that will duplicate the perks of a similarly colored room. A green spare room for example will turn into a Veranda to find more items, Terrace to remove gem cost, or Patio to spread gems.
Nook can have an additional key, have Bacon & Eggs for more steps, or my favorite the Reading Nook that allows you to draft a chain reaction with the Library and the Bookshop or other rare rooms afterwards.
Mail Room changes how the package is delivered - same day if you reach Rank 8, a very large package that requires you to wait three days, or my preference the No Contact Delivery at the Entrance Hall the next day.
The Cloister Room is much more complicated as you can upgrade the standing statue to a choice of 3 out of 8 different possibilities (as shown from the Chapel Room): Joya permanently adds +5 steps to the main course, Veia adds 8 dirt piles to a nearby room, Rynna increases your chance to find items, Dauja gains 2 stars, Mila offers an extra item in each bedroom, Draxus gain 4 ivory dice for dead-end room, Lydia adds two coins to your allowance, and Orinda opens a random antechamber door.
When I upgraded the Nursery, I should have taken the three additional steps or two gems when drafting a green room. Unfortunately, I just had to see what the room looked like as the Nurse's Station. There is a bunch of cute white health-related cosmetics in the room, but there has perhaps only been one or two times when the perk has come in handy. You could very well exploit the mechanic of the room with one of the Laboratory experiments.
The Billiards Room can add three unusual rooms to your draft options or automatically place a Keycard in your inventory on your next run if you "Call it a Day" at the end of your run. This can help tremendously if you need access to the Foundation. However, I highly recommend the Speakeasy since the math can get incredibly difficult later on. You will need to complete 40 puzzles for the trophy. If you aren't able to change, feel free to use the Dart Puzzle Solver.
The Aquarium can be upgraded to give 10 gold, 1 star, or turn into an Electric Eel Aquarium as a secondary power without needing to draft the Boiler Room.

The Basement

Layout: Underneath the estate is a vast network of tunnels that all connect with each other. The map alone - that you can find in torn parts in each section or a full one within the giant gear system - identifies ten distinct markers. As you progress through the game, you'll eventually learn at least one of these paths and their associated obstacles. Let's go through them one at a time below:

Foundation Elevator - Once you are able to draft a Foundation Room, you'll need to gain access to the elevator. If you ever visited the Master Bedroom, you'll discover that the controls are actually located on the wall where there are no doors. Draft a room with a door facing in the direction of this wall to gain access. You will need a security card in order to retrieve the elevator if you are trying to go up from the basement. The elevator will reset in place in the estate after each day. However, you will need to obtain the basement key (from entering the antechamber) in order to permanently unlock the special door below.
Concealed Entrance - Whether you come from the Foundation Elevator or Cliffside Exit, you won't be able to get much further without pressing the magic button on the control panel up high on the wall. Since you aren't able to jump in this game, you will need to position a number of jacklifts in the gaps between the crates. Click and hold on the handle portion to move the jacklift. While a menu does come up to press the red and green buttons, you can simply press them directly on the handle without holding onto the bar to adjust the height.
Cliffside Exit - Over by the cliffs is a small mine shaft enclosed with a number of wood planks. Use a power hammer (by combining a sledge hammer, broken lever, and battery pack) to break apart the wood and smash a hole to gain access to the basement.
Mine Cart - If you read the note from the Gemstone Cavern, you will learn that the miners left one cart behind. This acts as a barrier that requires you to come from both sides of the basement. You will need to come from the fountain or tomb on one side to move the cart across the tracks to gain access to a side room. Then you need to come from the foundation or basement to turn the gears.
Fountain Entrance - When you first start playing the game, you can "make a wish" by tossing a coin into the well (once per day) just outside the house entrance. However, the water can be drained by rerouting it elsewhere through a Pump Room (only available after drafting a Pool Room). This reveals the currency you've thrown in on top of a stairwell you can take down to the basement. Similar to the foundation elevator, a basement key will be needed to open the special door below.
Tomb Entrance - When you are able to draft a Tomb Room, you might notice seven statues oddly placed all throughout with a distinct hat and tool that sets them apart. Draft a Chapel Room and look at the mosaics on the walls. Click on each statue in the order as the Roman numeral appears beneath them. Clicking on one final statue in the next room will lead you to the basement.
Torch Chamber - Lighting all the candles located in a small room with a roundtable will reveal an alternative pathway to the hidden chamber on the edge of the cliffs below. You can find an Upgrade Disk on the counter there as well.
Rotating Gear - This is the notorious room where you need to spin the gear until you are able to walk onto it from the side room (after the mine cart has been moved) to another lever that will spin it around again to the main chamber. Don't let that dark corner fool you. There's a sliver of space you can squeeze yourself through to find a hidden miner's retreat. If you are looking for a way to walk across the second floor beyond the red door, you will need to come back down and use the lever that lifts the whole thing up a level.
To North Lever - This references the lever that you need to pull to reveal the 46th door in the estate and complete the game (at least in the sense of letting the credits roll).
Buried Floorplan - At the bottom of the list is something that is barely visible to the naked eye. Using a magnifying glass will reveal a hand-written notation made in cursive. Keep using the magnifying glass to find a faded "10" marked somewhere on the map. Use a shovel to dig up at the location to discover the Lost and Found room.

Although the "key" on the map doesn't mark the location of the reservoir, what is located in the middle of the underground is very important. Once you discover what is behind the red door, there is something written on the window as you look over the dock. If you drain the water one level from the Pump Room to 13, then you will be able to take the boat across both sides of the docks. After you have moved the boat, you will be able to use it again to enter a tunnel after draining the water to Level 6. If you power the Pump Room with either a Boiler Room or upgraded Electric Eel Aquarium, a new electric panel will light up to an additional tank you can pull all the water out of the reservoir. You can use the Laboratory experiment to drain the water one level at a time as an alternative method.

The Codes

Paintings Hint: Here comes the part where you might be shouting, "Where are all the codes?!" I didn't solve a single one before the credits rolled since how you go about finding the four-digit codes was a puzzle in itself. The card with 9083 in the Conference room does not go to anything since you learn from the Security room that all red cards lie "unless written by hand" as the tiny fine print states under the line. So any you might find in the estate like the red card in the Hallway Room mentioning how there are more locked doors in the west wing aren't true. The clue comes from a number of different sources. If you somehow draft a Freezer Room and melt the ice, you can read a letter that tells you specifically how to solve the riddle behind the paintings in the estate. Alzara will outright tell you in a prophecy that "...just like the art hanging on the walls of these rooms, there is a letter missing." In every spot of the house other than the antechamber, there is always a pair of paintings. There's very few rooms like the Veranda or Patio that won't have them. Some rooms do have them but require more effort to spot. The foundation that is always present, as an example, has a couple drawings in the crates down below the elevator shaft. You can learn more from the designer in the Study room like how the Entrance has drawings of a "face" and "ace" cards on the wall. Figure out what letter is added (such as BAT or BATH) and write it down in a grid. Eventually, a message forms: "If we count small gates eight dates crack eight safes." The game is nice enough for you to input either Month by Day or Day by Month. You only need to input a 0 if both codes are a single digit. All codes remain the same for everyone and the entire game.

The Red Letters: During a cutscene from the all-knowing Alzara in the Rumpus Room, you learn of a prophecy regarding 8 red letters. Three of them can be found using keys for the deposit boxes in the Vault. Five of them can be found inside their appropriate safe that those characters would have used at the time. They are:

The Red Door - The "first" letter is probably going to be the last one you discover since it requires you to route power in the Boiler Room to a red box on the ground level. Then after you reach the "final" chamber with the lever that pulls up the door with the crescent moon in the antechamber, there will be a red door tucked away in a small hallway to the side. Once you move the cogwheels yet again, you will come to a small padlock. Unlike the other codes in the game, this one contains three letters and the number 8 in the fourth spot. Since all the red letter codes reference calendar dates, you can deduce that the smallest month of the year will fit into the lock: May 8th or M-A-Y-8.
The Study Safe - In the middle of the room is a lonely black King piece resting on a chess board. The designated spot is D8. Convert that code to a date: December 8th or 1-2-8.
There is currently not a known way to collect this red letter.
The Boudoir Safe - Over in front of the vanity mirror is a small photograph you can pick up. While there is nothing written on it, you can see a gift-wrapped present being opened in the background of a room filled with various Christmas decorations. The user decides to use that day as the code for the safe: December 25th or 1-2-2-5.
The Drafting Studio Safe - There is a small safe located in one of the dioramas that you can view by clicking on it. However, you need a magnifying glass to actually punch in the numbers. If you solved the riddle behind the paintings, this is where the "if we count small gates" part comes in. When you view the calendar in the room, you will see an Orchard with 8 small gates unusually placed around it. With this in mind, you get November 8th or 1-1-8.
The Drawing Safe - This one isn't actually associated with any dates but kind of references the riddle behind the paintings in a literary sense using homophones. If you look at the drawing of the man in the middle of the room, you will notice that the candelabra's arm is misaligned. Pull on the arm of the real one located in the same room to reveal a safe. To obtain the code, you need to count all the "small gates" or "gaits" in this sense. The two drawings that fit this category are of the man and woman. Afterwards, you get 1-5-4.
The Shelter Safe - This one gets complicated. After opening up the outer room and making a shelter, you will need to solve the time-released safe. This means that you need to know the initial date of events from the calendar hanging up in the Studio (which is November 7th), add the number of days that have passed since you started playing to find out the current date (or check the Vault), and count forward to the in-game time (starting at 8am) that you can see from watching the clocks in the house. Remember to count the initial day as one and thirty days for the month of November if you played beyond that. If you are still having trouble, you can use the browser calculator. According to the conditions of the safe, the time must be at minimum an hour in the future, and the safe is only available within four hours after that. You also need to know that time is accelerated in the game - every five minutes in real life is approximately one hour in the game.
The Office Safe - Inside the right desk drawer is a dial that reveals the hidden safe. Next to it is a paper that features various book titles with "March of the Count" in black instead of red. You need to literally "count the count" by looking around to see how many statues there are of the one above the safe (without counting it). This accounts to March 3rd or 0-3-0-3.

Permanent Perks

Utility Closet: Did you ever wonder what that V.A.C. Indicator was on the breaker box? There's a whole light puzzle around it. In the Mail room, there is a note showing you how to turn all the switches purple. However, the actual code is listed in an e-mail only accessibly from the computer in the Office. The password to the network can be found on the bulletin board in the Security room. Find the Staff Notice and use the magnifying glass on the scribbled-out portion. The letters "Swansong" should now be readable. Inputting the right light sequence will open the door to the Gemstone Cavern that will permanently add two gems to the start of your day.

Orchard Padlock: If you go looking around outside the house, you'll come across the campsite you sleep at everyday and a small Orchard with a padlock on the gate. What you need to do is establish power to the Dark Room via the Utility Closet (or nullify the negative effect through a Shelter Room or Shield item). You must flip the breaker after drafting the Dark Room to turn on the lights, regardless if you did so beforehand. Once you establish power, there will be a photograph of the location before the tree in front was cut down. Use a magnifying glass on the bark of the tree to identify a heart with the date 11-28. Use this as the code: 1-1-2-8. Completing the task will permanently open the Apple Orchard perk for an extra 20 steps at the start of your day.

Blackbridge Grotto: Unlocking this place requires a lot of patience and perhaps a couple of other conveniences that can help ease the transition. The first thing is to route power to the Laboratory Room. The usual method is to direct power from the Boiler Room. The door must come in direct contact with the Laboratory or routed through a room with a duct system (the odds of drafting one increases after immediately adding a Boiler Room to the estate). Once you route the steam to the core, push the activate button and then redirect the steam to keep the door open. If the power is directed to a door you are opening, a blue bar will appear in the drafting window to indicate if a new room will sustain power or redirect it to more doors. An electromagnet can increase the chances of drafting mechanical rooms. If push comes to shove, you can always upgrade the Aquarium to provide an alternative power source.

Solving the laboratory puzzle will open up an area to explore in a cavern near the mansion (more about the puzzles inside later). The one thing you should know is that the perk offers you remote access to an additional terminal each day. This means that accessing a computer from the Shelter, Security, Laboratory, or Office will allow you to use the features from one of the others for the entire day. As a couple examples, you could begin an experiment from the Security Room or change security door settings from the Office. Perform roughly four Laboratory experiments and you could access the Shelter Room to perform an emergency that unlocks all the doors in the house.

Chessboard: There is a hidden path on the edge of the cliffs with a very prominent chess board setup in the middle of a room. There are two ways of finding the chamber below. The first is turning on the gas valves to ignite the four blue flames that face the mountain top. Two are located by drafting a hovel and schoolhouse in the outer room. The other two are from the locations that unlock other permanent perks mentioned previously above. Once all four are lit, an elevator will appear that will take you down. A second path is possible from lighting the candles around a table in the underground basement area. Once you do learn of its existence, what to do with it is the hard part. While you are exploring the estate, you'll discover that there is usually a chess piece located somewhere inside a room. In order to complete the Chess puzzle, all pieces must be placed on the board according to their room. The most challenging ones will be the Queen who is only available in the Study or Ladyship's Chambers and the King only in the Office or Throne Room. You will then be given a choice on which perk you want enabled:

Pawn allows you to transform to any power after reaching Rank 8
Knight allows you to draft the Armory
Queen makes you lose 5 steps and gain 1 key for each room on the west side of the house
King allows you to draw more from a chosen color
Bishop transforms the cost of entering a Chapel to giving you 30 gold upon first entry
Rook adds 4 rotations when drafting each corner of the house.

The Knight perk adding the Armory would be the preference of choice. This new shop room offers you a chance to buy a light source without combining and removing the Magnifying Glass and Metal Detector, a morning star that acts as an alternative to the sledge hammer, a shield that can be applied to a red room as it is being drafted to remove its negative effects, and most importantly an axe that literally slashes the gem cost of any room directly from your room registry (without the need of drafting or entering the room). However, the axe can only be applied once per run and removed permanently from the Armory for the entire game after using it a total of three times. None of these items can be combined into new contraptions at the Workshop. In order to switch your power, the entire puzzle needs to be completed all over again.

Equipment

Interactions: Most items in the game have some sort of ability. A shovel can be used on dig sites. A sledge hammer or morning star can be used to open locked chests. Things can get sort of complicated when you start combining items together at a Workshop. For example, combining a shovel with a compass creates a dowsing rod that points to a room as you draft that is more likely to contain an item. Down below are some special applications you can go crazy with using your newfound tools.

The Broken Lever is an item that you can find almost anywhere. It's possible to dig it up from the ground. Other than using it in the Greenhouse to open the antechamber door, you can also use it to fix the special Casino slot machine. This allows you to use five extra spins instead of three from the other machines.
The Metal Detector senses anything metallic such as keys, coins, or even a lunchbox. You can detect things behind doors and walls, helpful when determining if anything is important in the Great Hall. It will only flash on the screen if something is interactable and beep if you aren't currently interacting with something like the Utility Closet.
Using the Telescope when approaching the center of an Observatory will prompt another look at the constellations in the sky. This will offer the possibility to obtain twice the resources. Using the item in the Planetarium lets you observe a random planet that permanently upgrades the room with that resource - apple, ivory die, dirt pile, trunk, and prismatic key.
Although it isn't recommended, you can combine the shovel, battery pack, and broken lever to create a Jackhammer and use it to earn gems from the Gem Cavern. Each time you use it, the probability of a cave collapse increases that will permanently remove the perk for earning two gems at the start of every day.
Use Burning Glass (magnifying glass and metal detector) or the Self Igniting Torch (from the Armory) to light both candles in the Chapel to reveal a piggy bank that has collected every coin you have ever lost to the room. You can smash it only once for the whole game. You don't have to relight the candles as the piggy bank will continue to be visible each day until you do the deed. Afterwards, the candles remain lit but the table is put back down.
You can also ignite the dynamite in the Trading Post to reveal 40 gold coins. There will not be any more gold coins and the wall will remain broken with a room that usually contains a dig spot.
For the Freezer Room, you can use a flame to melt ice or use a power hammer to smash open the wall. A Furnace or Sauna can unfreeze your assets.
You will accumulate at least 20 keys for free if you have an Electromagnet and enter a Locksmith room.
Using a Shield on a room with security doors will allow you to use them as if you had a security card in your possession. A Dark Room will not go dark or force you to blindly draft a room.
The Watering Can can be filled with water from the faucet in the kitchen once routed from the Pump Room.
A Stopwatch can be obtained at the top of the Clock Tower. It effectively removes all resource costs - steps, gems, and keys - from rooms for a full minute. The timer starts the moment the description is cleared from the screen. It will continue regardless of what action you take whether it is looking at the map, buying something from a store, or picking up an object.
You can obtain a Red Paper Crown from the Closed Exhibit by following the same trick you did with the Foundation. A diagram of the back panel can be seen in the Safehouse after draining some water from the Reservoir. Just make sure to draft rooms in a way so you can reach the crown in under 10 seconds before the system resets. It allows you to pull another three rooms if there are no red rooms selected in the first bunch.

Allowance

Capital: Not to be confused on what may or may not be permitted in the game, your allowance refers to the amount of coins you receive in a brown envelope you find at the entrance of the house each day. There are quite a few ways to increase that number. The Laboratory can increase your allowance by one during an experiment. You can upgrade the Guest Bedroom to a Quest Bedroom that adds two gold to your allowance if you enter the Antechamber that day. Scattered behind secret passageways and special areas of the estate are unique Allowance Tokens that will increase your daily allotment of gold coins by two. Some of these will require you to solve a Mora Jai puzzle box. Down below is a list of where you can find some of them:

There are two that can be obtained from the Trading Post. The first one is in a box sitting right there on the bench. The second can be obtained by trading an item from the Showroom.
The hint in the Solarium will show you how to obtain the one in the Cloister. While standing face-to-face with the statue, click on the base portion of the pillars to both the left and right of you. Circle around the statue to find the token. This is also how you will be able to reach those dig spots in the grass area.
Four can be found inside the Vault by finding keys to each of the safety deposit boxes.
The Tomb has one behind a wall that moves when you use something to light the two candlesticks. Coincidentally, this is also how you can find the Diary Key.
Room 8 provides you two Allowance Tokens upon your initial completion and one each time afterwards. This room is only available if you have solved the Gallery puzzle to obtain the key and used it on a Rank 8 locked door.
By using the Blessing of the Monk to draft rooms that normally aren't available outside, you can break the vases in a replicated Entrance Hall or solve a box inside a Tunnel.

Boxes can also be found in Master Bedroom, Solarium, and Closed Exhibit. You can find them behind the red door, inside the Inner Sanctum rooms, and in the Reservoir when its clear.

Advanced Rooms

Unlocks: Some rooms can be obtained if you manage to find them hidden somewhere in the game. To give you an idea of how difficult they are to obtain, only two can be reasonably found before reaching the antechamber - the Planetarium can be found by rotating the telescope in the observatory and the Tunnel can be found after lighting up the torches in the dark tunnel with crates at the end. All the others require some extensive effort to retrieve. Finding the Conservatory takes some time as you need to solve the music sheet puzzle by finding each page, decoding its message, and digging at the marked location. The Mechanarium can be found in the basement when you reach the giant cogwheel. The Closed Exhibit is inside a safe. Lost and Found is extremely challenging to find as its dig location can only be seen with a magnifying glass from a barely visible spot on the basement map. Treasure Trove is located beyond the red door.

The Gallery/Room 8: There will come a time during one blue moon that you will be offered a very special room where you need to find words to four very odd paintings. If you manage to find Herbert's will after some hefty puzzle-solving, you are given the first letter of each painting. There are a number of discussion boards talking about how they figured out the puzzle or interpreted the author's methods. While the solution can be very obscure, there are some straight-forward answers down below:

The wording in the handcuff painting has a thin "k" which means the title is "Think" (Thin-K).
The flying wagons have a "P" on top of red objects but they are backwards to the other side of the painting meaning the title is "Ponder" (P-on-red; P-on-der).
The eye painting has a ton of hints clashing together - the real eyes did not "Realize" the actual objective, genuine article, veri (Latin for "truth"), or the wine glass to the truth.
The final painting has a number of objects with "in" in their name such as fin, pin, skin, bin, sin, and infinity. The big symbol highlighting the room sideways looks like an 8 which makes "Ruminate" (Room-in-Eight).

Completing these will then give you a key that once used on a Rank 8 locked door opens up Room 8. This room requires you to solve the puzzle through matching the animal statues with their appropriate bin. Although a few statements are a little obscure, you should be able to obtain the trophy upon its completion without any online assistance. However, the key has a second use which is expanded on later in the review.

Schoolhouse/Classroom: Once you have the outer room unlocked, there will be an option to add the Schoolhouse Room. This allows you to draft the Classroom a total of 8 times in the estate. The room itself will change each time as you progress through all 8 grades of the education system. These will teach you the fundamentals of the unique mechanics in the game such as color, art, science, and math. However, the classes will also explore the depth of the game's setting through its geography, history, and language for the more advanced puzzles. Each Classroom will have a blank exam and an apple you can eat on the teacher's desk. You can examine how well each student did on the exam and sometimes muse on a couple of the more creative answers.

The fun part comes when you obtain the Classroom blueprint from the Drafting Studio. This makes it possible to craft a 9th Classroom. What happens in this one might make you go crazy. A 30-minute timer will tick down as you try and complete a total of 46 multiple-choice questions in a Final Exam. The countdown will continue regardless if you leave the room. Your results will then appear in the Entrance Room the next day. A trophy will also appear if you miss less than a handful of answers. There was absolutely no way I was going to be able to do this without a cheat sheet nearby.

Guess Bedroom: One optional upgrade to the Bedroom is adding a random effect from any purple-colored room. However, you get one chance to "guess" what that effect is in order to obtain a very random and unknown reward. There will be a list of bedrooms you currently have access to on the desk. Bedrooms you have already drafted can be excluded from your possibilities. While you might be able to determine what type of room it has become upon entry, sometimes you will only be able to tell its transformation after you move around the estate. A convenient list of ways to tell has been posted from seeing the multi-color effects of the Aquarium to the sudden step requirements of rooms from the Hovel.

Boiler Room/Electric Eel Aquarium: Not to be confused with the Utility Closet, power can be sourced out to a few rooms for extra benefits. It prevents the Dark Room from tripping the breaker and allows you to open the Garage door. Connecting it to a furnace shoots out a mold of a standard key you can pick up. The Pump Room initiates an electronic panel where you can use the giant auxiliary tank. The Laundry Room normally allows you to swap between gems, keys, and coins but when powered offers a special washer to swap gems with steps, stars with Allowance Tokens, and dice with keys.

The Book

A New Clue: On the wall in the Bookshop, you will see an article about a new book selling out. For 50 coins (or 25 coins during 50% Sale), this new book can be added to the Library Room. While the book sounds innocent enough, there are a ton of essential puzzles hidden inside these pages. The book begs you to go through each one of its pages with a magnifying glass. Let's go over them one at a time...

The Microchips: The first part of the mystery is between the words on Page 6 (the first page contains the title as the book states). Tiny faded numbers will indicate which words you need to string together for this sentence: “All checked corner case rooms had a low case clue found in the rooms." On another page, there is a checklist with four such rooms marked: Patio, Nook, Office, and Pantry. Sure enough, one word is in lower case in each clue that form a phrase: "Buried beside west bridge." Grab yourself a shovel and dig by the bridge on the western path to the outer room to curiously find a microchip. You'll remember after unlocking the Blackbridge Grotto once completing the Laboratory Puzzle where something similar was found in a pedestal. If you aren't able to do anything with the microchip that day, don't worry since you can repeat the process another day. On another page is an illustration of what looks like a layout of your estate. The man there is standing in front of a hammer next to a vase to what appears to be the Entrance Room. If you get yourself a sledgehammer (or morning star) and smash open a vase, another microchip will drop. Sadly, these vases will remain smashed for all of your days.

The Cipher: On pages 18 and 19, you're asked "Have you seen all the signs?" This references what is in the illustrations of the book. The following reads: "Route 8, Depart, Keep Left, To Tanner Fork, Right Turn, Dead End, Record, Each, Major, Stop, On the Way." Amusingly, you can find a note that says that "there is no sign of her" with the word sign underlined. Another hint reveals a picture of the exact route from the Security Room (explained later). While these could be walking directions, there is a small part of a metro map sticking out of a book. If you lowered the water of the Reservoir to six from the Pump Room, you will enter a Safehouse where a full metro map can be reviewed. The routes you should have passed are 8, 7, 3, 10, 1, and 13.

The Information: Now that you have a cipher, you need to figure out where to use it. On Page 19 is a series of clues to break it all down. First, the word "Library" is circled to indicate where to locate the books. The word "covers" indicate what the color of the books should be: Red, Green, Violet, and Blue. The phrase "the way" is highlighted to indicate that you should input the information X, Y, Z, A, B, C from the cipher into the code explicitly marked below with page and word highlighted. While the stack of books on Page 11 match those colors, there are no books with those names available in the game. To narrow down the list of books, there is a picture with the man writing on the chalkboard on page 13 alluding to a change of title from "Draft the Sixes" to "The Fixed Stars" as an example. So after figuring out the translation of anagrams, you need The Red Prince, Realm and Rune, A New Clue, The Fixed Stars, and what word on what page using the cipher, you get "turn scorched sundial base."

The Sundial: Over at the Apple Orchard, that you should have had unlocked using the photograph in the Dark Room, is an innocuous sundial. According to the instructions, you need one that is scorched. Grab yourself a Burning Glass or Torch and "mark" the base in order to turn two separate dials. Rotate them until the marks meet with each other and the top opens. Grab the three microchips you should have slotted in Blackbridge Grotto and place them here to permanently unlock the Satellite Dish.

E-mail: With your new perk unlocked, more information can be retrieved from the computer terminal. You can download a new packet of 8 triggers and 8 effects into your experiments in the Laboratory. Not only that but you can now customize your own set of triggers and effects (at least 8 of each) that will appear in the list of options during a Laboratory experiment. One new effect will enable you to remove crates in the tunnel until you discover a File Cabinet Key (and something else explained below) that opens the special file cabinet located in the foreman's retreat over by the gears in the Underground (not in the estate).

There will also be a slew of new things coming in on the computer terminal from other people. You can access new e-mail between members on each terminal and messages directly sent by them as mentioned from the new message from the Office Room (that you only had access to a single message before). Most of these will provide you hints on possible interactions in the rooms. For example, you will receive a message on December 25th that the Boudoir Room will have presents. On January 28th, you can find a cupcake for your birthday in the Kitchen. You don't have to have access to the e-mail in order to still receive them. They decorate the room similar to the photograph you use to gain access to the safe. The Shelter Room mockingly references what you did using the Pump Room to "take a boat ride" to the Reservoir. The Security Room talks about concealing the lever to the antechamber in the Weight Room. There's a dialogue from the Laboratory Room computer about how the ice in the Freezer Room is melting by being close proximity to the Furnace Room. You can physically see the wavy effect as you are drafting rooms nearby.

Admin: Wait, there's one more thing to discover from the book. On the clue board are three memos. With what you know from the Security Room, you can trust the blue memo that says "The suspect is minor" and the red memo written by hand "Suspect is Major." Also pay attention to the note below it saying "The suspect is A. Key" which references the Admin Key to Blackrock Grotto. If you ever drafted the Servant's Quarters, you might have discovered a note at the bottom of the trash bin or the note in the Freezer Room mentioning RevaD as a valid username. Unfortunately, inputting that into the computer (or RuotH) will show that user is currently locked out of the database. However, this proves that you now know the proper format to use: the first four letters of the last name followed by the first name's initial capitalized. On another page, there is a suspect list with a bunch of names and ages. A "minor" character is someone who is under 18 years of age which eliminates all but four names. You could try each and every name, but one who might know Erajan could also translate a "major" character into "Short Name" which would leave you with Bo Lee. This means typing in LeeB should get you into the system. If you requested the "EPCW Pump System User Manual" from the Library, you could have also gotten a hint on the checkout slip for RibbJ and WithP. From a number of notes, you could have attempted BabbaA to at least gain access to other active usernames such as MoorR or ThomK.

Whoever you signed in as, your administrative privileges include e-mail settings, a list of admins on the network and their level of network access, adjusting the length of time before being locked out of a terminal, and communication between people who have access. Most importantly is the ability to manipulate your save files in the game. This imports any trophies you might have obtained from challenges on a new game file. It makes retrieving that trophy for reaching the antechamber within the first day for example much easier when you don't have to do everything over again.

Inner Sanctum

Keys: Simply pulling on the lever to bring up the crescent moon door to the 46th room isn't enough to complete the game. There are those 8 mysterious doors to resolve deep underground. Initially reaching the 46th room will end your day short with a cutscene. If you reach the 46th room again, there will be a physical chamber you can explore. On the table is a drawing of the doors with a rhyme giving you hints on where to obtain each Sanctum key. After obtaining one of them in your inventory, the key will permanently unlock one door of your choosing. Though, the easier rooms will be closer to the left side of the chamber.

"The first key is found here on the furthest rank" references the Sanctum key you see conveniently placed next to the note in the 46th room.
"The second is locked tight in the vault of a bank." This riddle clearly mentions the Vault Room, but you will need another type of key to find this one. After you receive your inheritance, you can find Vault Key 370 either through the Trading Post or the Lost and Found. If you don't draft a Vault that day, storing precious items in the Coat Check for another day will help.
"The third is high up, among all the clocks." This one is located in the Clock Tower that becomes available after you unlock it through the Drafting Studio. If you read the note at the top, the first letter of each line spells out "sacred" which refers to the sacred hour. You could figure this out from the deed in the 46th room that specifically mentions this when talking about the cuckoo clocks that stopped moving. The more obvious hint in the Clock Tower is the time engraved on the floor or the one side at top that isn't working. You will need to wait in-game until all the clock sides match that time at 1:30. A chamber door will open with a number of grandfather clocks that need to be readjusted. The biggest hint reveals that they range from 5 o'clock to 9 o'clock. However, the red memo on the last clock might trip you up as a true statement since the notepad in the Security Room stated that red memos lie unless written by hand.
"And the fourth down below, beneath all the docks." This requires you to drain all the water out of the Reservoir. This can be done both by the Pump Room, utilizing the extra tank after power is routed into the system, or through downloading the extra package of Laboratory experiments after logging into the Blackbridge Grotto server. There will be quite a few different trunks with symbols on top containing blue, green, and red memos inside. From what we know in the Security Room, blue memos are true and red memos are lies unless written by hand. Using a magnifying glass on the photograph with a man holding a memo in the Dark Room, it seems you can't always believe the green memos either. In any case, make sure to have a lot of keys available as each one of the trunks will require one on hand. Another more obscure, but clever way to figure out where the Sanctum Key is located is by following what is written on the two broken basement map pieces in the abandoned mine and breakable wall portion of the Weight Room that when combined states: "The 8th angel points to our dreams." By solving the Tomb puzzle and clicking on the Draxxus statue in the secret passage, his scythe will tilt downwards directly onto where to find the trunk on the basement map!
"The fifth key is held by a king on his throne." This comes from the Throne Room that becomes available after you open the door beyond the Blackbridge Grotto.
"The sixth in a station, left by one of your own." This key is in the Safehouse area you can reach after draining the water in the Reservoir about halfway to level 6.
"The seventh is major if you draft it quite late." The Music Room always provides you one major key and one minor key. In addition to the security card, Secret Garden key, and the occasional prismatic key, there is a chance to obtain a Sanctum Key if you have been playing the day for a long period of time (about 30 minutes).
"And the last key is waiting, behind the door of eight." Although the Great Hall technically contains 8 doors, the riddle refers to the Mechanarium Room. Getting enough doors to appear will require drafting mechanical rooms, which can be made easier with things like the Electromagnet.

Sigils: Once you open a Sanctum Door, there will be some interactable dials that transform the symbols on the wall in front of you. Things are going to get a bit messy with hints scattered all around. If you managed to get a copy of Realm and Rune from the Bookshop, you can read the meanings of each of the symbols, colors, and lines. History of Orindia or a number of Classrooms through the grades, including the blue memos after you purchase Blue Tents, can tell you more of their lands. The stamps on letters, you can review from the scrapbook in the Library, can sometimes provide clues. You can receive them in the Mail Room using the Laboratory experiment feature. A couple of letters are also located in the Entrance and Freezer rooms. Fragments of the realms can be seen in the Lost and Found Room or Clock Tower Room. The core that cannot be changed in the center will signify which country you are trying to represent.

Orinda Aries (plate) - most of this sigil is seen on the round altar in the basement. A complete layout is seen from the Secret Garden Room after you destroy the brick wall and turn all of the wind vanes south.
Fenn Aries (pentagon) - the full symbol can be found on the "Putting It All Together" page of Realm and Rune, any of the three red passports located inside the Safety Deposit boxes in the Vault Room, or Mary's birth certificate in the Archives Room.
Arch Aries (mountain) - this one gets a little more complicated. The core symbol of the country can be identified from the Realm and Rune book or comparing the tests of the 4th Grade Classroom with the gigantic map. The color is found on the coloring tests in the 1st Grade Classroom. The country's stamp off of one of the letters in the Mail Room has lightning bolts and a clue regarding its industry.
Eraja (hourglass) - From the coloring test in the 1st Grade, how you can find an Erajan hat in Her Ladyship's room, or the Erajan language being highlighted on the board in the Classroom can all help identify the purple color. The scrapbook with the news articles in the filing cabinet from the Archives hint about the train transportation system. The paper fragment found at the end of the scrapbook adds the poetic and rainy symbols to the country. The fragment inside the Clock Tower mark the poetic and color indicators.
Corarica (heart or down arrow) - Drafting Strategy Volume 2 has the phrase "Academia isn't only found in the mountains of Corarica" which provides two symbols to your sigil. The stamp from the last letter in the Mail Room, or even the Freezer, marks the country's symbol with snow. The color can be found in the 1st Grade Classroom coloring tests. The Dormitory Room provides some hints as well in their banners and posters. On the western side of the geographical map in the Classroom is the down arrows, mountain, and roads that connect spots that all help connect these symbols together.
Mora Jai (arch or rainbow) - A clue to the transportation and color is from the stamp of a boat with the words "The white sea of Yore" on top of a letter in the Mail Room. The white with cannons in the Master Bedroom is a more subtle hint. There is a small bit about the country's agriculture in the January 10th Staff Announcement about Mora Jai's Winter Harvest and the celebration of Rynna (the gardener angel).
Verra (jigsaw) - 4th Grade Classroom identifies its symbol. Stamp clearly shows transportation by turtle. The fragment located in the Lost and Found gives away most of its other features.
Nuance (diamond) - Even if you decided to choose this as your last realm, it doesn't mean you can use the process of elimination to determine its features. For example, none of the countries travel by horseback. Transportation is determined by the blimp stamped onto the letter in the Entrance Hall. Their blimps are also featured on the slideshow in the Classroom regarding the war with Fenn Arie indicating that they are Militaristic. A false memo with "Nuance is known to be a peaceful realm" in one of the Treasure Trove Room trunks supports this.

Map Puzzle: Some hints can be obtained from within the books or classrooms, but to solve the map puzzle in the 46th room requires you to route out the 8 postcards of the 8 realms Herbert visited in 8 months in the 8 Inner Sanctum rooms. The first two sigil postcards blatantly tell you that they are the beginning of his adventure and the "last postcard in my office" of Fenn Aries. Herbert goes south to Eraja, then goes north "after a few days sailing" to Arch Aries, "arrived on the main island" of Mora Jai, headed into more severe weather than Mora Jai in Verra, traveled into the cold land of Corarica "from the sweltering shores of Verra," and saw red flags to the east of Nuance. Inside the 46th room safe is Herbert's will and deed to the estate.

First Drafts: The will outright mentions there are "original manuscripts" of Red Prince and A New Clue if you can set the "natural order" of the listed statues on one of the previous pages. This means you need to click on the statues, just like you did to open the passageway to the basement, in the order of their names: Orinda, Lydia, Rynna, Joya, Dauja, Veia, Mila, and Draxus. Some hints can be found such as the mini-statue of Mila in Lost and Found Room or in the Maid's Chamber. Upgrading the Cloister will give each respective statue's name. The lunchbox says "Joya" with the chef angel. The "preliminary draft copies" show the original ending of what happens with the Red Prince in the book and other more obvious hints for the game.

Trophies

Achievements: After you watched the credits roll and earned your inheritance, there will be a new card on the chair in the Entrance Room listing all the trophies that are now obtainable. Completing any of the requirements will present you with an interactable trophy and displayed inside the Trophy Room. Obtain at least 8 trophies and Blue Tents will be available for purchase from the Mount Holly Gift Shop for 400 coins. So, let's take them one at a time down below:

Full House Trophy requires you drafting a room in every available spot in the house.
Explorer's Trophy is awarded when you unlock every book in the Mt. Holly Library. Some will need to be located in special rooms while others can be purchased at the Bookshop.
A couple require you to complete their room puzzles 40 times. Bullseye Trophy for the Dartboard puzzles can be made easier by turning the Parlor Room into a Speakeasy (one simple addition problem to solve). The A Logical Puzzle Trophy for the Parlor Games can be easier if you upgrade the room to have a second Wind-up Key if you make a mistake.
Trophy of Invention requires all 8 contraptions to be crafted in the Workshop at least once during your game.
Trophy of Drafting references a Drafting Strategy Sweepstakes you can read about in the Drafting Strategy magazine Volume 5. Any duplicates made from the Chamber of Mirrors and the Outer Room count towards the total. Observing the Draxus the Dead constellation (at 12 or 22 stars) will cause more dead end rooms to appear. The Inkwell constellation (at 50 stars) allows you to reroll room options by spending stars instead. As the sweepstakes pointed out, you will receive the trophy and 200 gold coins. You can find more helpful tips about how some rooms count as dead ends and what you can do to succeed.
Trophy of Sigils is a reward for completing what could be considered the second main objective of collecting the 8 Sanctum Keys and correctly rotating the sigils in their rooms.
Trophy 8 was mentioned in the Advanced Room section in this review.
The Inheritance Trophy should be right there on the table in the Entrance Room after watching the credits roll.
Dare Bird Trophy is going to be a little difficult to explain. You need to spend 110 gold on the cute bird plushie in the Mt. holly Gift Shop to unlock the mode. Starting a new game will then prompt you with the new Dare Mode. In the Entrance Hall will be a note stating that you will receive a condition each day for four days that must not be broken to complete the challenge. You can start a day over again if you fail. You can add more dare conditions through a Laboratory experiment (even beyond the four required). Pay close attention to what the condition is since one that requires you to never enter a room doesn't mean you can't add one to the estate. You will also need admin privileges in Blackbridge Grotto to copy the trophy over to your main file.
Cursed Trophy requires a similar method to unlock as the Dare Bird Trophy. You can read a list of requirements here. You must first reach Room 46 to unlock the Mount Holly Gift Shop. Then, read The Curse of Black Bridge after buying it from the Bookshop or receive a curse by taking back your offering in the Shrine Room to add Cursed Coffers to a list of purchases. Amusingly, the cost of the coffer and the number of steps it limits you to are both set to the unlucky number 13. This purchase adds a chest to the Shrine Room that can only be broken with a sledgehammer (or morning star) to reveal an effigy. Picking this artifact up will curse you for a couple of days. This enables the option to select Cursed Mode in a new game. You can only obtain the trophy through this mode (being cursed in your current game doesn't work). There is no limit on how long it takes you to complete this new version of the game, but you will not be able to use the Apple Orchard or use the Shrine. Unlocking other perks such as through stars can still help.
Day One Trophy is rather self-explanatory - reach the 46th door without any permanent perks, upgrades, or other tomorrow bonuses. A big part of this mode comes down to luck as you need at least one antechamber door lifted and a way to reach both sides of the basement (preferably using a Pump Room). Having enough keys to get that far will be your biggest concern. When the game first released, a glitch was spread around to easily earn these type of trophies. The developers have made strides to patch these out of the game.
Trophy of Speed requires you to reach the 46th room within one real life hour from the moment you start a new game. While you could technically get this at the same time as the Day One Trophy, you can carry over changes across a number of days.
Trophy of Wealth requires you to purchase all the items in the Showroom and spend 100 coins on the trophy itself that appears afterwards. You are not able to exclusively buy the trophy the next day.
Diploma Trophy is more explained in the Schoolhouse Advanced Room section. After passing the final exam, the trophy will be sitting on the table in the Entrance Room.
Trophy of Trophies is something given to players who obtain every other trophy. It will automatically be added to the Trophy Room after receiving your 15th trophy.

Blue Prince

Blue Memos: After you complete at least 8 trophies and purchase the blue tents from the Mount Holly Gift Shop for 400 coins, a blue memo will be hidden in each blue room drafted along the 8th rank of the estate. There are lots of notes in the game and around 60 blue rooms to choose from (including odd ones like the Aquarium and every grade of Classroom) with tidbits of information. Some cards will be tucked away in places that need to be unlocked such as using car keys for the one inside the driver's seat of the car or solving the light puzzle to open the one behind the breaker box in the Utility Closet.

The memos are divided into three separate categories: lore, game tips, and puzzle hints. Approximately half of the blue rooms will have some sort of extension to the history of the estate. You might discover the name of their four dogs in the Kennel Room or learn when Clara Epsen was laid to rest. Roughly 20 rooms will help explain some of the game mechanics. You might learn that there is another constellation beyond 50 stars, learn how many variations of food there are in the Dinner Room, which rooms rotate, or outright tell you the answer in the Parlor Room. The remaining dozen rooms contain hints to some of the more obscure puzzles. These will be listed below as they pertain to the remaining secrets of the game.

Surveillance Recordings: Behind the paired paintings in the Security Room is a blue memo that states "Surveillance Recordings can only be accessed via the terminal located in security." This is no joke. Found in a suitcase above the stairs to the right in the Attic Room and hidden behind the Reservoir in the Safehouse are two similar looking notes with "A" where the Archive Room is and "O" where the Office is shown on the monitors in the Security Room. If you fill in the names of the rooms for each screen, you spell out "swansonghss" as your new password to access the Home Surveillance System. This enables you to see 3 recorded videos in 1987: Mary and Herbert in the library going over A New Clue, Herbert walking to the front door where the vase is located in the Entrance Hall, and Mary holding up the actual train route from that book up to the camera. You will also be able to see all the cutscenes since you started the game on November 1993. There are no videos in any of the other years.

Castle Puzzle: This segment is directly connected to three different parts: the method of opening up the secret chamber, the cipher you need to use to reveal the crypt, and what you need to do to open it. The Nook and Office Rooms have two memos regarding the powers bestowed upon you by the chessboard: "The rook can perform a special move with another piece" and "The king can castle by swapping with another piece." This tells you that you need to gain the ability of both the rook and king consecutively (in either order and no matter how many days it takes).

An old chamber will appear where you need to solve a bunch of puzzle boxes. Each one has an old cryptic note for what you need to do for the next part. "In Aries Court where the King now lays" (here), "On the sacred hour that timeworn phrase" (at 1:30), "Will a youth approach with empty arms" (without items), "without gifts nor gold nor mannered charms" (and no resources), "And in sky above a Brilliant Sign...a sullen cross as five stars align" (when you see a cross in the sky at the observatory), "A patient figure a reckoning great...the black key is lying with the last King of Eight" (gain a key).

If done right, a crypt will permanently appear to reveal a clock. Now comes the difficult part. There was a note in the Safehouse that shows you where there is a chipped wall by the chessboard. Tearing down the wall will reveal the words CASTLE. The rest of the letters in the puzzle can be found behind the statue in the Cloister Room, in the cat note in the Kennel Room, looking at the torn Mathematics Worksheet in the Locker Room, opening up the edge of the Passport in Safety Deposit Box #149, peeking behind the door in the Secret Passage Room, and finding the note in Blackbridge Grotto. The entire message spells "CIX ADD SIX TOR LOR ETT" which when translated means 1:09 (Roman Numerals) add six making it 1:15, use the terms in Erajan to rotate the minute hand counter-clockwise until it points to the word East (don't set it on the Roman Numeral). Once you meet the requirements, the Key of Aries will be laying in wait for the taking. But what do you do with the key?

Royal Scepter: This is when it comes in handy to solve the Treasure Trove secret. After you purchase the blue tents, a blue memo will appear in the Treasure Trove chest stating: "All boxes marked by <sun> contain memos that are true." If you manage to shift through the 46 possible memos, you will discover two essential statements: "You will need a key to obtain the true treasure" and "the true treasure of the trove is in this room but is not in this house." This tells you that you need the Shrine's Blessing of the Monk, draft the Treasure Trove, and Call it a Day in order to add it to the Outer Room the following day. Then you can get the key, which will be available permanently as long as you have solved the crypt riddle, and open the chest. Pick up the Royal Scepter to have it spawn on the stupendous supply of gold in the Treasure Trove from this moment on. It allows you to pick which color room you want to appear more often and remains in your inventory if you end the day in a room that has the same color as the item.

Throne Room: Whether you found the hint from Her Ladyship's diary or curious on what would happen if you pulled any of the four ever-present rooms in the estate to the Outer Room using the Blessing of the Monk, there will be a very unusual note in a mini-statue's offering bowl on how to reclaim the throne if you manage to pull up the north moon door to the 46th room: "Steady is the scepter, deadly is the stone, heavy is the crown, and ready is the throne." Retrieving all three items is not going to be easy. The blue crown is perhaps the easiest to obtain in the 46th room. The royal scepter requires all the steps listed above, but make sure to have it set to blue. As a reminder, the choice of color remains consistent if you retain the item by calling it a day in a room with the same color. The effigy requires you to unlock Curse Mode mentioned in the trophy section. Since you can't have a blessing and a curse going at the same time, storing one early into a Coat Check might work better in your favor. Though, you can always smash the chest to get another one if you can't manage drafting that room during your run. The moment you enter the Throne Room, a cutscene will play out. A few events will unfold from the miners covering up something they found, what the people in the Safehouse planned to do, and the story from The Curse of Black Bridge. The room will then permanently evolve with a new ability. Be careful as the game doesn't seem to recognize the new color yet for you to keep the scepter if you choose to Call it a Day in there. There will be a new puzzle box to solve on the bench.

Blue Seal: Once you have the new Throne of the Blue Prince room, there will be a new resource in the corner of the screen. Draft 8 rooms consecutively and a blue seal will open. Finding one requires opening a lot of different doors. First, you need to remove enough crates through Laboratory experiments. You will need a standard key to open a door, basement key for the special door, keycard for the security door, the power hammer to break down the brick wall on the right wall, directing steam power in the Boiler Room to the red box to open the red door, using the Burning Glass or Torch to light two candles, and slotting the three microchips used in Blackbridge Grotto. This part resolves the blue memo in the Boiler Room saying, "The high pressure condenser box is connected to not one but two remote power boxes." The red door, along with the microchips, will reset each day (since a Boiler Room needs to be present for it to work). In the room will be three boxes that work similar to the Parlor Room. Although it is possible to open all three boxes in the same day, nothing will happen with the white box. The blue one with the statement, "You have reached the end of your journey" will have a blue children's book similar to The Red Prince. The black one with "There is no end to this journey" will show a short cutscene of you opening an empty box with an endless spiral eye engraved in the wood.

Atelier

Coat of Arms: At this point, you might be wondering if there is perhaps one more big thing out there left to discover, especially if you peered into the empty black box behind the blue seal. I'm here to say that there is. In fact, there is another blue door hidden away somewhere. There are four blue memos taken from the Mechanarium Room, Throne Room (after transformed), Vault, and Wine Cellar: "On the coat of arms, the first number is one numeral. The rest are each two numerals.", "The family core is kept in the family vault", "The family core is unlocked only by the sum of its digits", and "The numerals below the coat of arms are four different numbers, not one." If you have removed enough crates in the tunnel to get the File Cabinet Key to access the note in the foreman's office over by the giant cogwheels, you'll learn more about "Numeric Coring". You soon realize that instead of taking the Roman Numeral value of 1213 from the Coat of Arms you find in the Wine Cellar or the Master Bedroom, you take each value and separate them individually: 1000 / 200 * 11 - 2 = 53.

The blue memo stating it is the "sum of its digits" must reference the 8 Key from the Gallery Room. Using that key into Safety Deposit Box #53 in the Vault will reveal a passionate letter about a mysterious card with 25 four-letter words. To solve the code, there is some math involved where each letter corresponds to their number in the alphabet. PIGS will be 16 - 7 * 19 / 9 = 19 (S) and SAND will be 19 / 1 - 14 * 4 = 20 (T) for a couple examples. A message forms with all the letters combined: "Still water tints blank books."

Water Message: The only object with water you can use is the watering can, but you need "still water" from somewhere. While you can draw more water from the Kitchen sink after working the Pump Room, learning where to get the right kind of water will be difficult to pinpoint. The answer lies with the distillery behind the brick wall in the Trading Post. Drain out your water in three green rooms and then refill the can with the water from the bucket in the far corner. Use the water onto the blank books you passed a hundred times in the Library Room. A message will appear regarding "the waters of the west spring shall yet reveal more secrets than these mere passages." If you work hard that brain of yours, you will learn that placing the Secret Passage Room into the Outer Room slot using the Blessing of the Monk and using still water on the books will reveal something amazing.

Holly Blueprints: Behind the secret passage is a small study room with a door that leads you to a test estate full of rooms. Now is about the time you might be in awe of what you found, angry at what you need to do, or pass out from exhaustion. Not only do you have to solve a new set of 44 paired paintings but a puzzle box for each room. The good news is you can redraft the secret passage if your blessing is still active and enter into without sprinkling water on a book. The bad news is all the puzzle boxes close up again after the day ends. While there is a hallway, steps are taken when you enter and leave any of the rooms. You can also pull information out from the A Hidden Hue book you poured water on to get an estimate on distance: "From prism pristine, three paths convene. Three lines of light. Three shades foreseen. Three colors to count, a sum of eighteen. But the one left hidden remains to be seen." Once you single-out the letter difference in the paired paintings, you will also get a message: "These vying plans forge baron crest among Hewam Blest." I have no idea what this means, but there are a few ways to make it to the 46th room:

Solving each of the puzzle boxes gets you the following message: "Through lantern light in sketches cast a tint of truth to find our path, a hue of wisdom to turn us right, a shade of rain to pass the light through lantern light in shadows past, we seek what's left of the lies we cast." In layman terms: start at blue into the Pantry (truth), turn right on orange (wisdom), go through purple (shade), and turn left on red (lies).
Another solution derives from the blue memo in the Music Room "There is a major key hanging on a wall in the Safehouse" which states: "We seek what's in the shade of truth." Using the corresponding words found in the puzzle boxes from each room will get you the same route.
Follow the routes of the red, orange, and purple lanterns to obtain the appropriate letters in the paired-painting puzzle that form words for the test gallery: Empty, Mother, and Oneself. If you apply the same principle in reverse by using the terminal password "Swansong" as your fourth word, you can find the right pathway.

Miscellaneous

Consistency: Most things that require a lot of effort, such as smashing open walls or lighting candles, will continue to persist through each day. However, a lot of secrets like when it comes to opening the safes can get tiring when the puzzle never changes. If you don't collect gold coins from a Safety Deposit Box, it will disappear the next time you draft the room. There should be a better and faster way to change your upgraded rooms other than hoping you can receive the right combination of game choices after finding all of the disks when trading an item from the Showroom with the Trading Post. Decisions were made to keep the game from getting too easy by only allowing standard keys to work in the Locker Room and disabling anything that increases the amount you earn from the Casino. The 50% sale does not apply to the Showroom or Mount Holly Gift Shop. Not every perk is shown the screen. While Laboratory experiments are displayed on the screen, there isn't a clear indicator for things like locksmith skill, crates, letters, or total allowance until you physically check the status yourself. Although they aren't exactly secrets, down below are some mechanic quirks that might help aid your playthrough:

Doors are not added to the Mechanarium Room as you draft more functional rooms. The door with the lever can appear in the corner if you have four rooms already established.
The Chamber of Mirrors is actually considered a dead-end as there isn't a way to travel through unless you draft rooms from each door. Pressing buttons raise sections of the glass up until you can reach the one in the center. Pressing that one will lift you up and allow you to gather what is inside the upside down cabinets as long as that piece of glass is still on the ground. This allows you to create a duplicate room (Upgraded Bedroom and Workshop in my case).
The scrapbook in the Library has a page where you can "collect" stamps from letters you come across in the house. Unfortunately, this process is not automatic and finicky as it requires you to effectively move a magnifying glass, as the fine print in the corner states, a certain way over the stamp before being copied.
You don't need to continue routing steam to the power source in the middle of a Boiler Room. Once you press that activate button, you can then redirect the steam to the door. You are free to change the direction of the power afterwards.
You can draft new rooms from the Antechamber as long as you have lifted the barriers.
Activating a new chess power is immediate and works for the rest of the day regardless if you had another one previously.
Using a Prismatic Key pulls out any room even if it will be a duplicate of one you already drafted in the house.
Unconventional rooms might not always follow the rules. The Morning Room doesn't seem to rotate and sometimes can be offered even when drafting from a Draxus Cloister (that demands dead-ends).
Some items are not immediately available when you pick them up as they only apply upon entering a room. Stepping out and then back in will allow you to use a Watering Can in the Greenhouse or receive steps in a bedroom from the Sleeping Mask.
Items that have been used, such as the shield, can still be exchanged at the Trading Post.
There are about 20 letters you can get in the Mail Room. The last one you can open will be tilted upward at the very end. The Laboratory experiment will still be an option despite not being able to receive anymore after that.
Using the Lab experiment to lower the Reservoir and moving the boat from one side to the other will persist after that day.
The Laboratory experiment to "stock your Pantry with Fruit" will literally add 5 pieces of fruit after one trigger.
Nothing more happens after you unlock all the rooms from the Drafting Studio.

Background Secrets: Even now, there are people speculating that there are more to find hidden in the shadows of the game. There's one person who details things like the dots in the server rooms and the rivets on the ceiling leading to the Sanctum Rooms. There are still a lot of fun things to discover that might not even have connections to any gameplay aspects. Check out some below...

Inside Her Ladyship's Chamber is a diary that requires a rather lengthy number of steps to open a hidden chamber in the Tomb with an open flame to retrieve her keys. Reading her diary let's you know that calling it a day in certain bedrooms will provide you with unprompted benefits the next day: (1) Her Ladyship's Chamber subtracts 10 steps and adds one star, (2) Bunk Room adds a flower onto a coffin in the Tomb, (3) Servant's Quarter cuts your steps in half and adds one ivory die, and (4) Master Bedroom adds a small amount of steps. There is a picture on the last page that hints about adding the Antechamber in the Outer Room.
In the same room is a letter on a tomb written in Erajan that once transcribed states: "To my first child: You are my day, you are my night, you are my world. To you, I gift my house in the south. Tomorrow, you are without me. Tomorrow, I leave you forever. But first I bid you heed my word: you are an odd iris. You are not House Sinclair. You are not House Epsen... Forget your dreams of the north. Your name is Je Ari. It is your time to go south, away from Fenn. Away from your father's dream. Towards Eraja. Towards the south, a new future. Farewell, my child, Your Mother."
How much gold you offer the Shrine determines which and how long a blessing you receive. For example, donating 15 gold will always give you Berry Picker for 3 days. Any new blessing, or curse, will override any active one you may have. You can donate up to 80 coins for a maximum of seven days.
Ever wonder if there was anything behind that giant hand statue pointing directly down into the ground in the bedroom? Although buried treasure normally provides you with coins and/or gems, digging inside a bedroom (before or after you draft one at the location) gives you a fun little teaser called Baron Bafflers. It will be available to view in the room from that day forth.
A number of notes are all anagrams of each other with references to the family crests: "Denoted in Verse" from Music Room, "Does it Never End" from Her Ladyship's Chamber, "Tended Rose Vine" from Library, and "Investor Needed" from Lost & Found.
You can use a magnifying glass on the Family Tree in the Root Cellar to see your name Simon P. Jones and the text Besoiled Child.
In the room with the Antechamber lever and the Sanctum doors is a large Mount Holly Crest on the floor with the words "Ovinn Nevarei" which means "to new beginnings/look towards the future" in Erajan.
Although it might not be anything important, you can see a leaf of the Mount Holly Crest on the back of the safe in the Boudoir Room. Depending on the conditions, you can see a fan with another leaf on the wall between the paintings.
The Shrine's Blessing of the Monk can give more than just an Allowance token in the Entrance Hall, you can earn one by drafting a Tunnel as well. Drafting "Room 46" does not have any special picture and merely says that in the square. The deed from the safe will be laying on the table. Also, try drafting a garage to see what happens. If you are mischievous, you can place a second Foundation in the Outer Room as well. The paintings will glitch in the basement and the elevator will not function. The next day, The Foundation in the estate will disappear. Two days later, a note will be on the Entrance Hall table about how they were surprised to see you do such a thing next to a bottle of Repellent Spray. This item, which is also sometimes available from the Lost & Found Room, will remove the room for a week. If you do somehow draft the room from special circumstances, it will be removed the next day until the full seven days have passed.
After you reach 100 stars in the Observatory, a new constellation forms where a new word gets added into the sky. These words with at first positive earnings that slowly degrade until finally immediately ending your day when no more can be added.
Rosewary from the Library book links to each of the rooms on the door in the final part of the game. The phrase it creates mentions something about a "shade" that may or may not pertain to the T-shaped one in the Solarium.

Randomness: Occasionally, the game has a tendency to literally put you in a dead-end. Some combinations need to perfectly line-up in order to make progress in the game. For example, to access the items in the Freezer, you need to draft a Workshop to create a Burning Glass or an Armory for a torch, but you need to draft a Furnace or Sauna if you wish to thaw your resources. A room with a computer terminal is required to use the Upgrade Disk before the day ends. Other runs can become humorous when a Laboratory experiment causes you to constantly draw Aquariums until you might have over 20 of them in your house. The odd room counting for every color practically breaks the game with the number of possible combinations available. A few fun facts:

Since I immediately drafted the Foundation when it appeared as an option, my perception of the room was somewhat skewed. I thought the event was scripted as it happened on the 7th day and in the center of the house. I did not know that some players waited almost a whole month or would refrain from drafting the room until they were in a more convenient location.
A month passed in game before discovering the fine print on cards with a magnifying glass. This includes the notepad talking about red memos in the Security Room, the writing about stolen mail on the emblem in the Mail Room, or the subtext in the heating chart in the Laboratory.
While I attempted the Day One Trophy about a dozen times, the challenge proved to be less fun than anticipated. Only nine of the trophies were doable with also maybe the Diploma Trophy if you cheated on your Final Exam.
The results of my playthrough includes 120 total days. Recorded in the Library book is a total of 85 played hours. The longest day, which is probably when I was going through A New Clue, was 3 hours. The average length of days was 45 minutes.

Summary

Review: Blue Prince is a large onion of a game with layers upon layers of secrets self-contained in over 100 rooms inside and out of a house that resets daily. Taking screenshots and writing in a spare notebook is practically necessary to unravel the mysteries of events behind your lost family. While the main objective of the game is to reach the 46th room at the end of the house, there are myriads of other objectives deep underground and in the outer courtyards of the estate. Time is not a factor since you can spend hours reading books, evaluating every corner to every room, and solving puzzles without the fear of a monster chasing you, running out of space to carry things, or doing something that will permanently ruin your playthrough. The only problem is determining how far you are willing to go to use anagrams, homophones, and ciphers to unlock the cryptic interpretations hidden in every nook and cranny of the game.

Search This Blog

Game Reviews

Blue Prince [Overview]