At a glance
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Challenging puzzles
- Runs on Intel/Apple Silicon
- Attractive 3D graphics
Cons
- Slow pace won’t appeal to everyone
Our Verdict
Blue Prince very much follows in the footsteps of old-school adventure games, but it manages to update the traditional formula with slick 3D graphics, an engrossing mystery, and rogue-like elements that vary the layout of the mysterious mansion even while you’re exploring it.
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Blue Prince came out of nowhere in April 2025, earning rave reviews and a variety of awards for its small team of indie developers at Dogubomb. A Mac version was announced in September, launching first on Steam alongside the existing PC version for $29.99/£24.99 (there’s a cut price offer until January 19). That price allows you to download either the Mac or PC version from Steam, but the Mac version has now been released on the Mac App Store as well, although, of course, that only includes the Mac version.
Some rooms contain puzzles, such as a locked trunk, encouraging you to explore further to solve the secrets of the mansion.
It’s a puzzle game, set in a sprawling 45-room mansion that was built by the recently-deceased Herbert S. Sinclair. You play Simon P. Jones, the grand-nephew of Sinclair, who is set to inherit the estate – but only if you can locate the mansion’s mysterious Room 46.
In many ways, Blue Prince feels like one of those old 2D point-and-click adventure games, where you wander from room to room to look for clues in order to solve a mystery. It brings the adventure format up to date though, with hand-drawn 3D graphics and first-person point of view that create a good sense of atmosphere as you explore the mansion. There are even elements of rogue-like games, as the layout of the mansion shifts and changes every day, so that the path you follow on your first day will be reset overnight forcing you to explore a completely different set of rooms the next day.
When you arrive at the mansion for the first time, you pick up a set of blueprints from a table in the main hallway (which, of course, gives the game its title) along with a letter from Sinclair explaining the task ahead of you. The blueprint is initially blank, apart from the hallway where you’re currently standing, but there are three doorways leading off the hall and when you open one of these doors you are presented with a choice of three different rooms that you can add to your blueprint – perhaps a bedroom, a library, or simply another hallway leading to even more rooms.
You are able to gradually add and explore more rooms, but you can only walk a limited number of steps each day and then the rooms reset themselves, forcing you to start with a new, blank blueprint the following in-game day.
Every time you open a door, you can choose the next room that you want to explore.
Sometimes, though, you may find intriguing objects and clues in the rooms. On my first day, I found a locked trunk in a bedroom, prompting me to try and run through as many rooms as possible to locate the key, only to find that I’d run out of steps and had to start again when the rooms were reset.
I did find the key the following day – along with a battery and a set of car keys – but the bedroom with the trunk had disappeared overnight, so I had to figure out how to get back to the bedroom once more. Each day presents similar puzzles – such as a set of switches in a room with an electrical fuse-box – so there’s plenty to keep you thinking as you begin each day anew, and it will probably help if you have a notepad by your side to keep track of all the clues you find.
Some rooms also provide bonuses, such as additional steps that you can use when exploring, adding a strategic element to the game as well. And, as you progress through the mansion, you’ll occasionally find clues or documents that hint at a deeper mystery and give you a more urgent reason to keep searching every day.
Your blue print shows you all the rooms you’ve explored, and items and clues that you’ve found.
The game’s cell-shaded graphics initially look flat and two-dimensional, but they have to be true 3D so that you can wander through the rooms and explore, and they have a touch of art-deco flair that adds character to the mansion. It’s not a fast-paced game, though, so you don’t need a powerful Mac to run it properly. The system requirements listed on Steam only specify an Intel i3 processor and macOS 10.12, while the Mac App Store specifies macOS 11 or later, and we were able to run the game quite smoothly on an old Intel iMac and a more recent MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro.
Should You Buy Blue Prince?
Blue Prince is obviously aimed at fans of puzzle and adventure games. It won’t appeal to the shoot ‘em up crowd, or role-playing D&D fans, but the careful way in which Blue Prince feeds you little breadcrumbs of clues as you wander through the mysterious mansion will prove irresistible for people who like to lose themselves in an engrossing mystery and mind-bending puzzles.
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