Day 856
It has occurred to me somewhere between my 36th and 38th (?) run of Blue Prince, that playstyle may also have something to do with how much you enjoy a game.
I’ve talked about playstyles in the past and how it’s a really weird thing. If the game developer doesn’t account for a potentially different style of play the player playing may miss contextual information. Like the way the first Bravely Default game left it up to the player whether or not to read the journal, meaning that you had some players who had no idea what was going to happen, and others who had growing existential dread the further they got into the game.
Now some differences in playstyles can’t be helped. Like if you have a player that skips all the dialogue in a narrative driven game, that is on the player for doing that. They should know better, or at least don’t complain about being confused when you purposely skip the information the game is giving you.
But, in Blue Prince, where there is a goal, but it requires you to explore an ever changing manor, the playstyles can get different. I’m actually finding I am treating this game less like a point and click adventure game and more like an exploration game.
And that’s important because the motivation around the choices I make in the game differs from someone who might be playing the game with the purpose of finding Room 46. Generally, that means I may choose to place rooms that will end my run early, or even choose upgrades that do not benefit me.
For example, the Parlor Room will give you a puzzle that grants 2 diamonds if you solve it. One of the upgrades to the room is turning it into a Funeral Parlor. Doing this will grant you as many diamonds as there are Red Rooms in the manor, however if you fail the puzzle you lose 30 steps. And as someone who is not good at the Parlor puzzle, this seems like a terrible upgrade.
Except… I was curious. I wanted to know if there would be any new information if I did this, so I did. Even though it meant I wouldn’t benefit from the Parlor Room like I had in the past. But that didn’t matter to me, because I wanted to know what the room was like.
This has had the odd effect on my experience with the game. I do not doubt that it will take me a stupid long time to get to Room 46, because frankly unless I see an opportunity it’s not on my radar. On the other hand, it’s very rare that a run results in disappointment for me. Most runs result in me learning something I didn’t know before, and then looking forward to the next run because now I have more information to work with.