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Blue Prince has been making the rounds at physical and virtual conventions like EGX, Gamescom and the PC Gaming Show, and its already high on the puzzle communitys figurative list of most anticipated titles for 2025. It was just featured in the Day of the Devs showcase before The Game Awards, one of its highest-profile debuts yet. So, if youre getting excited about Blue Prince for the first time, hello and welcome to the club. There are snacks in the parlor but in order to eat them, first youll have to build the parlor. In Blue Prince, you are the literal architect of your own future. Its 1993 and youve inherited the expansive estate of Mount Holly from your uncle, but the bequest comes with a catch. There are 45 rooms in the manor, and you have to find the mysterious 46th room in order to collect your inheritance. If you dont discover the impossible space, you lose everything. Its not just a matter of exploring a mazelike mansion, either: The estate changes shape every day and the layout of its rooms is up to you. Dogubomb Every time you approach a door, you get to select what lies behind it from three options, which include areas like a den, dining room, kitchen, billiards room, patio, bedroom, cathedral, pool, and observatory, to name just a few. Connecting the doorways of these spaces in logical ways is crucial to progression, as it seems youll have to touch every available square on your blueprints (get it?) to unlock the 46th room. Each area comes with its own riddle, item dump or unique function that resets at dawn. Entering a room costs one step and youll start each day with just 50 steps, so strategizing is key, especially considering all the backtracking youll likely do. The demo, which is live on Steam right now, gives you four days to explore Mount Holly and its a solid introduction to the games House of Leaves loop. The entryway has three doors, and you start by choosing one and manifesting the room beyond. Bedrooms grant you two steps every time you enter; the storage room offers keys, gems and coins; the cathedral costs one coin per entry; a meal is served in the dining hall only after reaching rank eight; the parlor has a three-box puzzle that changes every day; the observatorys telescope triggers a specific event based on the constellation in view; the coat check can hold an item for a future run and so on. Dogubomb Youll find objects like a sledgehammer, keycard, magnifying glass, compass, metal detector and shovel in various places, and you can carry these around to help solve puzzles in adjoining spaces. The billiards room is one of my favorites because it has a straightforward but satisfying dartboard riddle, and I can feel in my bones that there are oodles of secrets and room types that I havent discovered. The environments of Blue Prince are dotted with symbols, paintings and statues that Im sure will be relevant in later mysteries, and the games art style and execution welcomes close scrutiny. It inhabits a cel-shaded 3D world with hand-drawn touches and heavy blue shadows, where interactable objects can truly stand out. Each room is crisply rendered, even down to the fine details. Using the magnifying glass to zoom in on the signature at the bottom of a letter, for instance, doesnt uncover jagged edges in the ink. Blue Prince is supremely compelling to look at and it has smooth, intuitive first-person controls excellent traits for an exploration game. Dogubomb The puzzles come in a variety of difficulty levels and mechanical flavors, from deduction riddles and engineering logic to esoteric math problems, and thats just whats included in the four-day demo. Pieces of lore scattered around the estate lay the foundation for a broader family mystery, and much like the mechanics of the game itself, the narrative tension builds smoothly throughout the early stages. Theres more to uncover here than spare rooms and heirlooms. Blue Prince feels like a build-your-own escape room wrapped up in a strategy game and tied together with home-renovation sim twine. Even though it supports a broad mix of unrelated concepts, Blue Prince feels a lot like home. And it will be, once I find that 46th room. Blue Prince is due to hit Steam in spring 2025. Its developed by Los Angeles film and game studio Dogubomb and published by Raw Fury.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/blue-prince-preview-build-your-own-escape-room-and-then-live-there-173816152.html?src=rss
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Nintendo has purchased the remaining shares of Monolith Soft, according to a report by Automaton. Up until recently, Monoliths founders have held onto a four percent stake in the company, likely for symbolic reasons, but those days are done. Nintendo now owns the whole dang thing. Monolith is primarily known for the Xenoblade Chronicles franchise, but recent years have seen the developer assist with big-time Nintendo IPs. It has provided support on games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Additionally, the company helped out on recent Splatoon and Animal Crossing entries. Monolith Soft was originally founded in 1999 by Hirohide Sugiura, Tetsuya Takahashi and Yasuyuki Honne, along with a hefty investment from Bandai Namco. The company created the Xenosaga series, a spiritual successor to Squares Xenogears that co-founder Takahashi originally wrote and directed. Monolith made a trio of Xenosaga games before Nintendo swooped in and bought 80 percent of company shares from Bandai Namco in 2007. Nintendo increased its stake to 96 percent in 2011 and now, well, its got the full hundo. We dont exactly know when this final transaction took place. Monoliths company brochure for 2024 still showed the founders owning four percent. This held as far as October 1, but changed by November 21, as spotted by VGC. We are also in the dark as to what Monolith has been working on, aside from helping Nintendo on key franchises, but Xenoblade Chronicles 3 sure was good. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-buys-remaining-four-percent-of-monolith-soft-as-a-little-treat-173510990.html?src=rss
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There's something inherently compelling about one-button games since developers are giving themselves a tight constraint for their creativity. Sometimes, they take full advantage of that. One of my favorite games from this year, One Btn Bosses, gets it right thanks to tight controls and never seeming like it's unfair. Faraway is an upcoming game in a similar vein. This procedurally generated title from developer Steph Thirion (aka Little Eyes) and publisher Annapurna Interactive is coming to PC in 2025. Faraway has been a long time coming Thirion announced it for iPhone all the way back in 2010. Since the initial unveiling, the solo developer has remade the game with a captivating new art style. You play as a shooting star and you use the gravitational force of the closest star to swing your way toward your destination. When you get there, you'll use the same mechanic to draw a constellation of random stars. If you create loops between them, you'll get a score multiplier. Along with the main procedurally generated levels, there's a mode that asks you to draw specific shapes. Another puzzle mode prompts you to get the highest possible score from a certain formation. During Wednesday's Day of the Devs showcase, Thirion (who made early iPhone standout Eliss) said he took inspiration from Tetris to create a minimalist, replayable game with random elements and lots of depth. On the surface, Faraway has relaxing audio and visuals, but you'll need to keep your brain engaged if you want to get a great score.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/chill-puzzle-game-faraway-sees-you-drawing-star-constellations-with-one-button-172138741.html?src=rss
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