Video Gamers Podcast - Blue Prince: Indie Game of the Year? - Gaming Podcast [REMASTERED]

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and Ace are diving into their thoughts on gaming’s latest hype craze, Blue Prince. Is this truly one of the greatest video games of 2025, or is this a case of gaming hype gon...e too far? We break down exactly what this game is, why people are talking about it, whether it works and if it’s ACTUALLY as good as people say. This is one video game packed episode you don’t want to miss from the Video Gamers Podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder and Bobby S. Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/ Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1 Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the video gamers podcast. Blueprints burst onto the gaming scene with some truly incredible hype, Game of the Year, best puzzle game ever, best game someone has ever played. The reviews and hype reached a frenzied level. But are they true? Is this game equal to the likes of Portal 2, The Witness and Outer Wilds? Or was this an internet frenzy that didn't quite match the game itself? Well, we're about to find out because we've played it and we're here to let you know what we think.
Starting point is 00:00:47 But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh. And joining me, he loves the title screen and the intro screen, but he's not sure what all the other fuss is about. It's Ryan. You know, being called out by Santar was not the best day for me. I'm like, oh, come on, man. How are you going to call me out like that?
Starting point is 00:01:10 Just to be fair, I have put, if not the same amount or more time than Josh into this game. Same amount. We were both sitting at 14 hours. Perfect. So Ryan did absolutely play this game an awful lot yesterday. Mine was just in one day, is all. Yeah, ACE is like, oh, man, is it me? Am I the guy that didn't play this game?
Starting point is 00:01:31 Yeah. Well, we're going to find out because joining us, you'll find him asking chat GPT how to tell which box is true and which is false, and he never knew dartboard math could be so hard. It's ace. I'll have you know the only puzzle I could get right was the box puzzle. Thank you very much.
Starting point is 00:01:52 It was the only one that every single time was like, oh, one of us tells nothing but truth. One of us tells nothing but lies. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah, I remember this, this was in the labyrinth, man. And I never knew quite how people figured that out. You know, it's like the two doors.
Starting point is 00:02:09 And it's like, one door always tells the truth. One door is lies. And then she's like, what would that door say? And then she figures it out. And I'm like, I don't get this. Yeah. But what I do know is I have a 33% chance of getting that stupid box puzzle right. So, oh, man.
Starting point is 00:02:25 Guys, we're going to be talking about blueprints. I mean, this. This game came out of nowhere, dude. I mean, nowhere. It burst onto the gaming scene with people saying this is one of the best games I have ever played. People saying this game ranks up there with the likes of some of the greats. There were people that said, dude, I don't know that I've ever played a game like this before. And when you hear that kind of talk, as gamers, we kind of go like, what?
Starting point is 00:02:53 What? What? What are you talking about over there? and it just so happened that it fell into that perfect moment where at least I was very hungry for like a good puzzle game and the fact that this game had roguelike elements and stuff like that too it made it sound very very interesting as we know sometimes internet hype doesn't quite match what the game itself is
Starting point is 00:03:17 and so we all said you know what let's play blueprints let's see what the hype is about and then let's come talk about it because I want to know if this is all true because if so oh my goodness you're talking some of my favorite puzzle games ever and if it's not then what the heck is wrong with all you people that are saying this is one of the best games we've ever played so we're going to be breaking all that down but we do have a little bit of housekeeping that we need to get to and man my favorite if we're going to call it a chore because it's housekeeping my favorite chore in the world is thanking new people for supporting this podcast a huge, huge thank you to Jagged Sun and you meet in a tavern for both signing up for rare
Starting point is 00:04:04 status to help support this podcast. Both of you rock. Jagged Sun comes in, makes an enshrouded server for everybody because a lot of people on our server are playing enshrouded. You meet in a tavern. I love that name because that is 100% a fan of Dungeons and Dragons. If I've ever known a D&D player in my life, that's one there. So thank you. to both of you. And for anybody else that might be considering it, you know, we, we only exist because of the support from our listeners. You know, I don't know if people know this, but there's a pretty good bit of expenses that go into hosting a podcast, websites, you know, the games that we cover and stuff like that. So if you are so inclined to be a part of that, there is a link in the
Starting point is 00:04:51 episode description that you can click that will take you right to that option. And you can be a hero amongst the world like Jagged Sun, you meet in a tavern and many, many others. And then Ryan, we made a promise, we're catching up on these reviews. We have two more we're going to read and you've got one.
Starting point is 00:05:12 I believe that you're going to start us off with, right? I do. So this one is a five-star review from Ben Bunk and it's titled Top Tier Podcasts. One of the best podcasts out there. I love the culture and discussion of all these games.
Starting point is 00:05:27 I don't know why each of these guys have the best and most soothing voices. Thank you. A great podcast that is very entertaining. Always listening during work makes my day way better. Dude, that's what we're trying to do. That's so nice. That's the goal.
Starting point is 00:05:42 Like, legitimately, like, I mean, we just got done talking about, hey, people can support this podcast to help this keep going. But ultimately, we talk about video games because we love video games. And the hope is that somehow some way we can make your day just a little bit better. If you're driving to work right now, listening to our super smooth voices on your radio or on your, you know, your air pods.
Starting point is 00:06:06 Smooth. Yeah. Smooth. You know, video gamer. Are we making your day just a little bit better? Come on down. Is your commute just not quite as bad?
Starting point is 00:06:16 Did you just forget about the last two miles? Well, then you should probably pay attention while you're driving, okay? You're in behind a car. Come on. oh man all right and then i've got one this one comes in from a dear friend of mine uh named aka wallaby fantastic dude one of the best humans i have ever met in my life um and so thank you aka wallaby for leaving us a review uh and it is titled best gaming podcast and it says phenomenal pod for anyone who loves games the hosts are passionate fun and bring a great mix of news deep dives and
Starting point is 00:06:51 discussions whether you're into retro classics or new releases there's something here for everyone the production quality is top notch two thumbs way up yeah that's six thumbs now guys he would have thought because i know you said that uh how how uh you know our video game knowledge but according to instagram and in tic talk we're just we don't know anything guys dumb old men we have no clue what we're doing you know that's the that's the beauty we've never said hey, we're experts. We're just people that have been playing games for, you know, 40 plus years for me. Ryan, for yourself.
Starting point is 00:07:30 Ryan, not that long. An Ace, probably like, I don't know, 60 years for Ace. Oh, he's getting up there. Oh, man. All right. Well, that's it for the housekeeping, guys. Let's talk about a blue prince. I mean, I kind of already prefaced this with the hype and what people were saying.
Starting point is 00:07:48 but what I really like kind of doing this is I was the one that I think really kind of got rolled up in that hype, you know, and I think I was the one that reached out to you guys and I said, hey, I'm going to pick this game up. I'm going to play it. Should we talk about this? Is anybody else interested in it? And then Ace and Ryan, you guys both went like, yeah, yeah, I'll absolutely play it. And then both you clowns didn't play it for like four days while you guys were playing Marvel rivals while I'm being a good video game podcast host. and I'm cracking out on blueprints. And then I kind of went, hey, guys, like, how's blueprints going? And you guys were like, we don't know, but rivals is going really well. And then I went like, are we covering this game or what? You know, and then, to your credit, you both buckled down and you guys both played the game. Ryan, I don't know that I've seen a marathon session that, like you had yesterday. What a turnaround.
Starting point is 00:08:43 Right? It was impressive. But I will say from my point of view, it was pretty hilarious because you kept sharing screenshots and then you would post like your run that you had in this game and how you made it close to what you thought was the antechamber. And then it was like, I was just laughing because it's like, well, I know things you don't know about this. So, yeah, this is a good place to say, listen, we're going to try to keep things spoiler free in the beginning of this episode so that we can kind of just talk about the game and give people, you know, an idea of what this game is.
Starting point is 00:09:13 If we get into any kind of deep spoilers, we'll do that later and we'll definitely warn people as well, because I think this is a game that you don't want to have parts of it spoiled for you, but we will be talking about things like the different rooms that you can encounter, some of the puzzles you come across, nothing game-changing discovery-type stuff. So we'll try not to spoil anything like that, but just be aware, by the nature of us talking about this, we're going to have to talk about some of the mechanics of the game and things that you come across there, too. So what was y'all's hype level for this? I mean, this came out of nowhere.
Starting point is 00:09:46 we didn't really have a chance to build up a ton of hype on this. So I just want to start off. And Ace, I'm going to go to you because I feel like you are the most down out of the three of us on this game. And I just don't know if it's like, do you not like puzzle games? I don't know.
Starting point is 00:10:01 I think I like puzzle games because I like Portal 2. And I liked what I played of Outer Wilds. And then I just like, I think I just lose interest. I think it's part of that like short form content brained part of me where I just like get into it. You're young and it's not being... Youngens, yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:17 I need things in 45 second increments or I can't... I need that yellow paint, all right? Yeah. Oh, no. Tell me where to go. Where do I go? What do I do? So you were not excited for this then, Ace.
Starting point is 00:10:33 Is that fair to say? Not particularly. I was excited when I saw the graphics and what it all looked like and like the cell shaded look and the 3D environments and it being a rogue like where you decide what rooms go where that excited? me, but once I found out it's just a walking sim puzzle game. I was just like, uh, okay, you're like, oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, man. So I, I, for me, I, um, my hype level was just whatever you were yelling at me the whole time, like,
Starting point is 00:11:05 guys, we got, we got to play this game. It's going to be so great. Look, there's hype all over the place. And so I, I, uh, was like, okay, it's got to be at least decent. You know, I am, Um, not a big puzzle game guy. I like puzzles in games. I love when I'm playing an action RPG or something and I love the, the puzzles that lead to something, but I don't like just strictly hardcore puzzle games. Um, so I wasn't super hyped, but I was interested to see why it was getting so much praise and so much acclaim like this early in to the release.
Starting point is 00:11:39 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I was easily the most excited about this. Again, I kind of already mentioned it so I won't rehash it a lot, but I was definitely definitely in the mood for a puzzle game at the time. It had been a long time since I had played one. I'm going to admit it, man. I'm a sucker for hype. Like legitimately, you know, we always say we're gamers, right? Gamers, sometimes gamers get caught up in hype. Sometimes they get caught up in the the downside of like this game came out and everybody's saying it sucks. And then I kind of go
Starting point is 00:12:06 like, oh, man, that really sucks. So yes, I admittedly am, you know, susceptible to that stuff. So when I start hearing people comparing this game to Outer Wilds, which is one of my favorite games and Portal 2 and The Witness, which I think is one of the best puzzle games ever made, my ears perk up like big time, you know? And so I was definitely the most hyped out of the three of us on this. I dove in, I mean, the day this game released, I was, I was rushing home to come play it. So you were on top of this one, man. You were absolutely. As soon as it was there. We, you know, we talk about it. But it's like, you know, Expedition. 33 is coming up very soon man very soon and it's like do you know sometimes you're just in the mood
Starting point is 00:12:49 for a certain kind of game and i am so in the mood for a turn-based epic RPG right now that it's like i can barely contain myself like and it just so happened that blueprints hit right at that time where i was like dude i could really go for a puzzle game sometimes that's not the case ace where you're like i don't want to freaking play this game man why don't i got to play this puzzle game right now. Like, this podcast is stupid, man. Why don't I got to do this? I thought I got to play fun games.
Starting point is 00:13:19 Yeah. So let's do our best, guys. I want this to be a group effort on this one because there's people out there that are saying, Blueprints, it's a puzzle game. What the heck do you do? What is this game? How do you describe this game?
Starting point is 00:13:35 Oh, gosh. It's a little nightmare for me. I was like, I ain't taking this on. We're all jumping in here. So the thing that I loved about this game, as far as how to describe it, is that it's not just a puzzle game. There is a story. There is a background. There is a goal. You know, you are, what is it, the nephew?
Starting point is 00:13:58 Yeah, you're the nephew. So you're the nephew of this, you know, wealthy estate, and you are the heir to all of it if you can find this secret room. So you have a goal, you have something to strive for. And while you're doing that, you're going through this grid. There's like a grid that you have that you have to go through. Yeah, nine by five grid. Yeah, nine by five groups that can fit into this thing. And you open up all these rooms, you have to find that 46th.
Starting point is 00:14:26 So as you go, different rooms have different pathways. They only have one door. They have two doors or some doors are blocked or locked or a million different things. So to navigate through this kind of a board, if you will, like is pretty tricky. And it takes a lot of pre-planning and in the moment planning of, oh, I'll go back and get this. I'll get that. So there's so much that goes into this game. It's hard to kind of tell in one kind of, you know, fell swoop.
Starting point is 00:14:57 But there's just, there's a lot there. Yeah. So the overarching goal of the game is to find this fabled room 46. Find that room. Find that room. Find the secret room. You know, your uncle says, hey, I'm giving you my estate. Now, here's the thing. This estate changes every day. But your goal is to find room 46. If you do, you inherit everything with this estate and all that comes with it. Yep. So that is your goal. Now, the game starts you off in the foyer, this big entryway to this mansion. And then there are three doors in front of you that you can walk through, basically. And every time you pick a door in this. this game to to open you are faced with a choice of three rooms to draft so you are picking the room that you want to be behind that doorway um and so you know in the beginning you just kind of go
Starting point is 00:15:46 cool well i'll pick this room because i don't know what anything is yeah and then so you get like two rows up yeah parlor billiard hall closet bedroom kitchen closet uh closet yeah you know yeah you get that stupid closet storage room uh parlor boudoir all of a sudden you're like like, oh, wait, that's new. So, you know, the basic gameplay loop for this is open a door, pick a room, go into that room, look around, see if you can find things. Maybe there's a puzzle in that room. Maybe there's a clue.
Starting point is 00:16:17 Maybe there's something very cryptic in that room that you have no idea what it is. Maybe there's nothing in that room. And you spend entirely too long looking around that room for something because you're like, well, the game is tricking me because why would they just give me an empty room? And then you're like, oh, wait, this room actually is empty. there's nothing to do in it. Yeah. And as you go through that room,
Starting point is 00:16:39 there's probably a door at the end of that room, unless it's a dead end, that now leads to more rooms. And so you draft one room from those. And like you said, Ryan, you kind of start to fill in this nine by five grid. You find rooms that you haven't found before. You find new rooms that, you know,
Starting point is 00:16:56 oh, I've never seen this room before. So let me pick this one. Let me look around it. Oh, this room obviously has a puzzle in it. Okay. we try to solve this puzzle or this room has a clue that I don't know what to do with but I have a feeling this ties into that other room that I came across somewhere because they seem to be tied together in some way and so you know this is where you start to get the little the little nibbles
Starting point is 00:17:21 where you get the little nibbles where it's like okay I now I am kind of seeing why I've come across this room and why I need to go back to that room now. with this clue that I was given sort of thing. So that's the general gameplay part of it. Now, Ace, there are roguelike elements to this as well. And what are the roguelike elements to this? Well, the roguelike elements, like you said, is every time you, you know, end the day, as it were,
Starting point is 00:17:52 uh, yeah, every time you end the day, the mansion resets and all the rooms you placed, they disappear and you just have the foyer consistently. That's what you, you'll, always have the foyer and the three doors and then you'll go there and you'll place the new floor plan every day and you'll see how far you can get but also not only do you have to you know place the rooms in a way that you can keep moving forward and connecting you have to watch your steps because if you run out of steps the steps are the key here yeah then uh you have to start
Starting point is 00:18:25 over that's it you can't go any farther you pass out what yeah no matter what no matter what No matter if what you have, if you had all those keys, all those keys, all those coins, all those gems, doesn't matter if you ran out of steps. Yep. Absolutely, man. So let's expand on that a little bit since we're talking about the gameplay portion because this is where this is a frustrating part of the game, but it's also like a rewarding part of the game and it does bring some excitement with it as well. so ace you said the the main the main mechanic in this game is that every time you go through a doorway you expend a step okay so if you go into a room and turn around and walk right back out that doorway you've just expended two steps again yeah exactly so you have to be cautious about how much wandering around you do and you have to understand that every time i go into this room i i am you know going to expend one of these steps um so that is one of the roguelike mechanics run out of step your day is over. You respawn. You start every single day right back in that main entrance way with three doors standing in front of you and nothing is in this mansion. So again, you don't know what you're going to find behind these doors. You might get different choices of rooms put in front of you and things like that. The other part of this game are the fact that some doors are locked. So you have to find keys to open these doors. And if you come across a locked door and you do not have a key, you are stuck. You cannot open that door. Run over. if you have no other doors you're you're stuck yep and then you have certain rooms that are
Starting point is 00:19:59 special rooms that require you to spend gems to have that room appear behind the door that you are that you are trying to open so if the game says hey this is a special room it it has three exits to this room for instance or it gives you an option of you can change the rooms that show up in the other doorways as a perk of this room, but it costs you two gems to open this door and make this room appear. Two whole gems. Oh, the gems.
Starting point is 00:20:28 And so if you are out of gems, you can open the door still and you can select one of the three options, but the chance that, you know, they always give you one option that does not require gems. The problem with this is, is that this drastically limits your draft choice in the rooms that you pick.
Starting point is 00:20:48 because a lot of rooms don't have exits. And so you can very much become trapped in a run because you simply run out of doors to open at that point. Yeah, for sure. And when you open the door and it gives you those three selections, you're done. You have to pick one. Yeah, you can't back out the point.
Starting point is 00:21:09 You can't back out and say, oh, I'm going to go get some gems or try to find some and then come back to this, you know, you're toast. And that killed one of my best runs, you know, because of not having the gems or stuff prepared. So, yeah, when you go to one, it's, that's it. You're picking whatever you're able to pick in that moment. And that's, that's it.
Starting point is 00:21:27 Yeah. That is frustrating to a degree because you kind of go, well, if I just could find two gems and come back, then I could pick this room that I want or need, but you can't. No. So I want to talk about, I want to stay on this topic a little bit because I'll be honest, this is, this is the point in the game where I found the most, the most frustration. and I think a lot of people find the most frustration, and a lot of people that we have talked to,
Starting point is 00:21:53 especially in our community and online, all seem to come across the same problem with this game, and that is kind of how these roguelike elements work. We have to take a quick break, but we're going to come out and talk about that here in just a second. All right, if you're like me and you love Rocket League, then this message is for you. Let me introduce you to Trophy AI.
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Starting point is 00:23:52 this game where you're drafting these rooms and you know if you're lucky a room has two other exits that's if you're lucky a lot of rooms they're just a straight shot and they have one other doorway so if you if you say hey here's a you know this room there's one other door in it you go to open that door and you're presented with three dead ends as your choices through that door that that that path is close to you at that point and this happens a lot dude i can't tell you how many runs i experienced where i had gems i had keys i just had nowhere to go there were no doors for me to open at that point the options were very limited at several times for me it's just like all right time to start a new run i didn't get that far and last one i opened the first door closet open the next door
Starting point is 00:24:41 bedroom, open the next door. Yeah, and then you're stuck. And I'm like, I just started. That's the thing where the RNG comes into place so much is where, you know, you can get a good run with a couple good items to begin with, but then your path is always like, oh man, that's why I would always try to just get as far north and just straight up as I could in the beginning through the middle so then I have options left or ride and as many pathways to go around and circle.
Starting point is 00:25:09 Because there's others where I thought I was dead. in the water, I was able to find a key, and then I was able to get through this one side door that opened it all back up for me, and I was able to get back up. So there's definitely, you have to be so strategic with how you pick every single spot, and you have to have some foresight and planning on like, okay, well, this will lead to this, and this will give me these coins to, in case I get this or that, or, you know, different things like that. So there's just so much that goes into picking each room, you know, with just your selection of three other than just what gems you're going to spend or what, you know, keys you're going to have to use
Starting point is 00:25:47 or half the time I picked a room because it had two exits. Even if I didn't want the room, it was like, well, at least there's two doors in this room that I'm unlocking. So at least I have two options to try to continue. So I found parts of this game to be supremely frustrating and this is where the frustration came in dude i've got gems i've got keys i ran out of doors okay i i have plenty of doors that i can unlock but i'm out of keys now okay so i can't unlock these doors there's no keys to be found run over oh i've got keys and i've got rooms with doors in it oh here's a fantastic choice
Starting point is 00:26:26 but i can't pick it because i'm out of gems now and i can't pick the good room that has three other exits in it or has something i need run over exactly dude i would went through freaking 20 runs 20 days worth of runs where it was just like it was the worst man it was the no path to go anywhere freaking no keys anywhere no gems to be found if i had two i didn't have the other one if i had one i didn't have the other two and this is where i really started to go like what the heck is going on man like i'm not discovering anything i've been through these same rooms 20 freaking times. I'm not discovering anything.
Starting point is 00:27:07 Where are the puzzles? Where is the discoveries? Where is the exploration? It's just the same freaking rooms over and over and over again. And I can't get a good path through the stupid mansion to discover anything at this point. And I really started to get frustrated by that. Did that hit you guys too? Oh, it hit me like a brick.
Starting point is 00:27:25 I got so tired of walking through the same like four rooms. And then only puzzle I was getting was, you know, the box. puzzle and the billiard room. And I don't understand the billiard room at all. Oh, don't worry. We'll talk about that here. I got there. I was like, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:27:45 Yeah. What about you, Ryan? Did this hit you the same way? I don't know if it hit me as bad because I just kind of, I mean, maybe it was just because I was in a zone and I was playing for 12 hours in one day. And that I was I was just click, click, click, click,
Starting point is 00:28:01 go through. If I get locked out, If I don't find a path, boom, new day. And I just start over again and not have as much of a care as, dang, and I'm wasting this day as, dang, this one didn't run out. Let's start again and start fresh. And so I tried to build every run just as much as an easy path up. And then if I needed to come back to try to look for more materials and other things, I was able to do that. But I know what you guys were talking about about the same rooms and stuff, but it becomes like when you play enough, like this room means this, this room means that. And it becomes an asset, you know, to you and you can use that on each run.
Starting point is 00:28:46 And it doesn't really, it's not a negative, but it may not be, you know, a positive as well. It was a negative for me. Yeah, honestly. And it's funny because a few people in our community, we were all just kind of share. our thoughts. And it was very funny to see, like, other people be like, I'm stuck. I'm not accomplishing anything. This game is frustrating for me.
Starting point is 00:29:07 I'm on day, you know, 17, and I feel like I've done the same loop, like seven times in a row now. And that was for me, I would say if I had to guess, I think there was probably a three-hour stretch where I accomplished absolutely nothing. No discoveries, no new puzzles, no new findings, just dumb run after dumb run, after dumb run with bad RNG because I could not progress. Now, if you push through that, if you push through that frustration, the game changes, in my opinion.
Starting point is 00:29:39 Like it goes from being like, I don't understand the hype to this game to I think I'm starting to see why people are liking this game now because once you start to figure things out a little bit and once you start to realize like, oh, I absolutely need gems so that I can get a good layout and like oh this room will always give me two keys so if i have a chance to draft this room even if it's a dead end i need those two keys if i'm going to progress later so i'm drafting this room so i have keys now i have gems now and i'll i'll just hope for the best for a good path like to appear through this this sequence of rooms here so i want to talk about i don't obviously we don't have time to cover every room but i want to talk about some of the different room types in
Starting point is 00:30:24 this game because I think this kind of gives you a good look at like the heart of this game like you're looking around these things you're exploring there's two rooms that have puzzles in them that you will come across a hundred times this is the parlor that gives you a three box puzzle where you know one of the boxes is always a lie there's a statement on the lid of the box it might be something as simple as this box is blue and it's sitting on a white box you're like well I know that's false one statement is always true one statement is always false and based on those two statements you have to try to figure out which box has these gems in it if you pick the right box you get a couple gems which are very important in this game it starts off fairly easy the then dude then it just gets so weird and complicated after a while that i was just like dude screw this man i'm just picking a box dude like did did you guys do that the weirdest one for me was when two of them had statements on them and then one of the and then was just completely blank.
Starting point is 00:31:25 Yeah, I'll have one of those. What is that supposed to mean? Yeah. Yep. That's, I honestly, I don't know what you guys were. I was probably, gosh, maybe 80% on these boxes. The one thing that I hated, and this is just like a personal thing, is that when you get it wrong, like, you didn't know which box had the gems.
Starting point is 00:31:47 So then you don't know the answer. And I'm like, no answer. I want to know what I got wrong. I want to know. know why I didn't get this right because you know it'll it'll say the truth and the lie and stuff and you look at it and I'm like dad this is the one and then it's empty and I'm like wait a sec well which one was it you know there's two more boxes and it's like nope deal with it bro and I'm like all right I'll just keep going on my mission you know and it's so that was super
Starting point is 00:32:12 frustrating with those boxes just not knowing when you got it wrong which one was the right one yeah and then there is the billiard hall which with the dart board yeah you know they showed this off in the trailer so this is not spoilery just like they showed the boxes off in the trailer but the billiard room has this dartboard that has colors overlapping the wedges on the dartboard
Starting point is 00:32:34 and these colors correspond to mathematic like equations that you need to do bro yeah ace is dead already if it's green it just means hey this this number plus right and then if it's yellow it means
Starting point is 00:32:52 subtract if it's pink it means multiply if it's blue it means divide and it starts you off very simple very very simple here's the catch every time you do this puzzle and every time you do the box puzzle the game knows and it gets harder and harder and harder as you progress dude after 50 runs at this game i'm doing the square root of like nine multiplied by the square root of or i'm sorry by four squared minus a number times a number divided by another number and I'm just going like I think I know and then I click it and then you get it wrong and it starts you over at the beginning now the puzzle stays the same for that run but it's like I'm doing freaking calculus here man that's the thing it's it's it's um you get it like you get that square in the middle
Starting point is 00:33:45 and you're like all right I'm doing square roots now so then I'm like okay this by this and then But the problem was, I was thinking, all right, square root by square root, and then I, I, three plus five, is it five? And then, wait, that's got to be. And then, you know, you're like looking around. It's like the mathematical meme. And then, well, and then finally, I'm like, oh, it's still on the inside. So I got to add these square roots after I calculate it. And I'm like, oh, it's this number.
Starting point is 00:34:13 And then you click and you're like, yeah. And then it opens up. And so, and it gets progressively harder. I know that it goes to just, like, crazy levels on a dartboard. Like, and that's one teeny little factor in this whole game. But every time you go in there, you get, like, keys or a security card or, you know, things like that. And so it's always very advantageous to try, but it is also very frustrating. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:40 Yeah, you need to solve these puzzles to get the keys and the gems that you need for playing this game. but they really do get complicated after a while. I will say that this is where I was a little bit like, is this actually a puzzle game? Because these are like the only two puzzles that you keep coming across. And I thought that you would have something like this in almost every room, right? See, that's where I was. I was like, these are the only things I'm going to do is math and guess the box?
Starting point is 00:35:09 Because like, that's not a video game. What's in the box? What's in the box? I know what's in the box. It's two gems. It never changes. Two gems. Well, the colors of the gems change.
Starting point is 00:35:19 I want them. Not that that matters either. So, all right. So in talking about the rooms, yes, you're going to run into these two puzzle rooms time and time and time again. You are going to run into certain rooms very, very often. Now, where the game really starts to dangle the carrot, at least in my case, was when you make it about halfway through these levels and you're getting, you know, further towards the top of this 9 by 5 grid board that you're on. and it shows you the anti-chamber square up at the very top row right in the middle this is your goal you're trying to get there and as you start to get further and it gives you ranks right so it's like you know each each uh
Starting point is 00:35:59 row that you were on is a rank so when you start getting to like rank five or six you start getting options for these new crazy rooms that you've never seen before and you know one of the things and this is a tip for anybody is if you ever come across a new room you've never seen before pick that room because there's this is where the game progresses itself and you start to get clues and things for other parts of the house now the other thing that you find is not only these unique rooms but there are items in the game you know you might get a metal detector that helps you find coins or keys that you might have missed in a room you get a magnifying glass which is very important for solving some of the puzzles or the clues in this game. You can get a sledgehammer, which lets you break open locked
Starting point is 00:36:46 boxes so you don't have to use your keys for that. There's a whole slew of items and they all do something. Part of the game is finding these items and then finding the right room to use these items in. And this is where some of the permanent progression for the game comes in, or you solve like some of these bigger puzzles um so for me i found the magnifying glass and then in another room i found a photo that i looked at and the magnifying glass popped up and i started looking around the photo and i saw this scribbled out area on the photo with the magnifying glass i could make out the letters that were underneath the photo at that point that gave me a huge clue to a password or a code on a safe or something like that those were the you
Starting point is 00:37:34 Eureka moments where I went, oh my gosh, like I know how to open this gate now because I had the magnifying glass and I looked at this photo and there it was. It's the combination to this gate that I'd never knew before. So I beeline it to the gate. I unlock it and then the game says, hey, congratulations. You have opened the orchard. You are going to start every run with 10 new or 10 extra steps every day. And that's when I went, okay. Okay. Okay, here we go. Like, I'm starting to make progress. You, at one point, you get higher allowance that gives you a couple coins to start each day.
Starting point is 00:38:13 Ryan, you talked about you can unlock a certain thing that lets you start with a couple gems each day. And this is where the permanent progression in the roguelike elements kicks in. Did you find that rewarding? When I'd start a new day and I'd have two extra gems, yeah. Yes. Yeah, it's huge, right? It feels like plus the steps and everything else. It's weird because when I say it, it just doesn't, it doesn't sound important, but having two gems at the start of every single run absolutely changes.
Starting point is 00:38:45 Yeah. Big time, big time. Because these men, trying to get to these certain rooms when you get to like, you know, the room that takes one or two, but it's very advantageous for you in that position, in that grid to use that room. If you don't have the gyms, you know, you're kind of just beholden to whatever the other selections are. but if you have them boom then that gives you that bonus head start early on to give you a boost to kind of the rest of that run so um having that early start having those extra resources right off the bat every day like makes such a big difference in this game which i found to be kind of kind of cool like i did like that part of it was very
Starting point is 00:39:27 rewarding you can also through gameplay and getting a certain room or just rngy again you can find an upgrade disc which lets you modify some of the more popular or common rooms that you find to where now every time you have that option for the room you are guaranteed to get two keys or two gems out of that room and things like that so there are permanent upgrades there as well one other thing on the permanent upgrades is if you get through a certain room and an event or a puzzle or something like that that will unlock like permanent like shortcuts uh to a degree like at one point early on, you can unlock this gate. And once that gate is unlocked, you can go to this outside room that I went to
Starting point is 00:40:10 every single time to start every run because it unlocks certain things that modify the house and stuff like that. So there are permanent progression items. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you talking about the shed? Yeah. Dude, I unlocked the shed and I totally forgot about it. I'm not even kidding right now.
Starting point is 00:40:27 I'm not even kidding. I got out through the garage and I unlocked the shed and I totally forgot I ever even unlocked it. I just did 15 days without the shed, and I have unlocked it. Brian. Okay. The shed is one of the best things that you can do to help start your wood. Oh, my gosh. What am I doing? All right.
Starting point is 00:40:45 So, for instance, unlocking the shed gives you a choice of three rooms, just like every other door in the game. But they're unique rooms that are unique to the outside shed, which is like, hey, there's these red rooms which have negative effects. So you can pick something that says the first three red rooms have no negative effect for you. You can pick one that's a trading post where you can actually, if you find, a shovel but you want to trade it for the sledgehammer you can go there and trade it for that they have all kinds of different options for you that you can then it kind of affects your run so i'm so mad right now i unlock inside gate and i totally really started every single run by belining it to the shed and picking a room yeah i unlocked it i got i got out there and then i just
Starting point is 00:41:25 never even thought about it i just went on to my normal runs oh my god it's not part of the mansion what do i need this for what i need this for i didn't even think about it oh man so i don't want to get too bogged down in the weeds there are a lot of very unique rooms there are Ryan you found a room that you shared I was like dude I'm 14 hours into this game and I have never seen this room in my life I thought you were trolling me to begin you know in the beginning of that but yeah no that I've been looking for that room because I needed it for something else yep and I've been searching for it for 15 runs before I finally found it I'm going to go back to the frustrating part again because again here is where I started to get frustrated I start I'm starting to understand
Starting point is 00:42:03 what these rooms are. I'm starting to understand what rooms I need to find. I'm starting to understand that I need this item in this run to go to this room. Okay, like I need the magnifying glass so that I can go to the dark room so that I can look at these photos in the dark room. To do that, I need the circuit breaker room so that I can turn the lights on in the dark room so that I can see these photos. But to do that, I have to have the magnifying glass or I'm not going to be able to do what I need to do. So you're getting RNG three different times. here you need this specific item that you don't find in every run you need this specific room that you don't find in every run and you need to find the circuit breaker room that you don't find
Starting point is 00:42:44 in every run yeah and this is again where I started to get very frustrated right I got frustrated when I was running out of gems and keys and getting trapped in a very small bad draw of doors right and then you finally start to kind of make permanent progression there and then it's like oh okay but then you start to realize that you need R&G to really go your way as you're making your way through the kind of latter half of this game. And I got frustrated all over again. And I was like, this is stupid. I know what I need to do.
Starting point is 00:43:14 I just can't freaking do it because the numbers will not roll my way in this case. And again, I spent 12 to 15 runs trying to get this perfect combination of having the magnifying glass, getting the breaker room, and getting the dark room so that I could actually figure something out. You know, and this just really started to kind of blow my mind where I was like, this isn't fair.
Starting point is 00:43:38 It's not fair, man. This is my main complaint with this game. It's just like, the R&G is just sometimes not in your favor at all. Like, I'll get there and I can only pick from red rooms or something like that. It was like, well, I'm walking through the gymnasium, I guess. And then I just have to walk back and forth
Starting point is 00:43:57 between the gymnasium, which cost you two extra steps. Yeah. And all I can get is, you know, closets. So now I'm hitting dead ends. Or I'm getting the breaker room, and I'm not getting anything to turn on or off. I'm not getting the garage. I'm not getting the dark room. I'm not getting anything. So now I just have
Starting point is 00:44:13 the breaker room for no reason. Yeah. The amount of times that I had, like, uh, key cards and, uh, other rooms that I needed the, the secondary room to even make them kind of viable. like it was just it was almost every run you had multiple things that you needed something else to use it and then you just never could and so that that is a serious R&G thing that just it just doesn't sometimes pan out and maybe sometimes you pick the wrong choice of a room that would have led to something else who knows it's still new in the game we kind of don't know a ton of it but man that part is definitely it is it is frustrating when you're just trying to make these runs work and and you're trying to get a couple good things,
Starting point is 00:44:59 but you can't execute it because there's nowhere to go, you know? You just can't do anything about it. Dude, there was a run where I had the magnifying glass. I had the dark room and I needed the breaker room. And I made it almost to the very top, like rank nine up where the antechamber is, and I could not find the freaking breaker room. And it was like, dude, if I can just find this, I can solve this.
Starting point is 00:45:23 And I just was getting quite particularly. termed because it was like, come on! And then my next four runs, guess what I get? I get the dark room and the breaker room, but I can't find freaking magnifying glass anywhere. I'm running out of steps. Like, this is, all of that to say that there will absolutely be some frustration in this game. It is how the game is built,
Starting point is 00:45:44 and I have not talked to a single person that has not gotten frustrated over the RNG aspects of these rogue-like elements in this game. Now, I will say, when I finally got the three, the perfect combo of three things that I needed, it unlocked a very, like, big discovery for me, which was one of these permanent progression type things where I'm like, I just figured out the combination to this thing. And I can finally open it and I got a big permanent progression reward from it. And I went, okay, cool, that was awesome. Like, that was awesome. I'm still angry that it took me that long to work it out, you know, through no fault of my own. but at least it was very rewarding to finally go okay sweet i've been trying to solve this puzzle for a while now and then you finally do and it's again it gives you some big reveal or something like that so all right i think i'm just not wired for these games man like i would walk into rooms i don't see anything i don't understand what i'm looking at what is this i have a very big
Starting point is 00:46:50 problem where R&G affects my skill in the game. Like, I have this with like Harthstone. I've mentioned this before, but I love Harstone because it's like I like card based games and strategy. But when I don't get a good draw after refreshing the tavern like six times and it's just like not one of the creatures that I'm trying to do like pops up, that's just bad R&G. And then now I suck because it's like I just got hit by bad R&G.
Starting point is 00:47:17 That infuriates me, dude. it really does like hate it so much man so i i don't want that to affect my game but i'm a gambler i'm like yeah this is yeah no it's perfect for you you don't care yeah okay so you know we're running at a time quickly i don't know how we're so far into this already so you know you you start to make these discoveries you make your way to the ante chamber the game is not over i'm not going to spoil anything there but you know it was funny watching ryan get very very excited because he was like one way from the ante chamber and then I just laughed to myself and I was like
Starting point is 00:47:51 this is the R&G man you know you know but this game does a good job of giving you that big reveal that that nice sense of progression when you finally do solve a puzzle there are multiple things and rooms that I never came across ever again
Starting point is 00:48:08 like you know there's a freezer room that had a note that was frozen in ice and some other stuff and I was like dude what's in that note it's really bugging me I want to know, but apparently I have to thaw this room out and then come back to it later on. I never got that room offered to me ever again. Like ever again, dude. So it's like there's just things where it's like, again, the RNG is going to come into play and you're not going to find things.
Starting point is 00:48:34 You know, I think this is the weird question to me because this is a puzzle game that has puzzles in it. And you are trying to solve this goal of getting to room 46. and the game does throw these puzzles at you, but a lot of times they're just like, did you observe something the right way? You know, did you think about using this item in that room? And if you do, maybe you'll figure something out. I kept waiting because the game even talks about this in the very beginning
Starting point is 00:49:06 where it says, forge your own path. Maybe you will realize that you don't need to be beholden to the world around you and all that. And I kept waiting for this. like moment of revelation where I was like guys if I don't have to like I can walk through the doors backwards you know maybe that's the key right like I kept waiting this is my path for some kind of revelation like in the very and I'll say this in the very front entrance room that you start every game and the floor is very reflective and at one point I went like dude I bet if I
Starting point is 00:49:39 look in the reflection of the floor I'll see something that I couldn't see in in the game and that's going to give something away, which would have been awesome, except it doesn't do that. No, no, no, no, no. When I read that note, my first thought was, oh, the door in the front is unlocked, I'll just walk around the house. Yep. Maybe there's a back door. So I, there, like, there's a part of me that's like a little disappointed because this game could have gone all of these different paths and it didn't. Mm-hmm.
Starting point is 00:50:12 But at the same time, I found. myself just wanting to do run after run after run and even when I paused and I was getting frustrated you know it was like I want to go back to this game dude I want to find out what the heck is in room 46 what's in that antechamber how do I get there you know I came across it in one run but the doors were locked well how do I open the doors you know that kind of thing so there is there is enough mystery in this game that it really kept me driven to say say, I want to figure this stuff out. Now, I get that people would get frustrated and just go, forget this game, dude.
Starting point is 00:50:52 It's not worth it. It's not worth it, which is A's I know is exactly what happened with you. Well, on top of just not being worth it, I also think I think I fell asleep like two out of the three times I tried to play this game. Oh, no. It is a chill, tranquil game, dude. Like, this is not action-based. It is a chill experience, that's for sure. So.
Starting point is 00:51:15 A little too chill. for my my liking, I think. There is a story in this game. It gives you history into your family and the estate and some of the things that your family has done in the past and you're kind of piecing together pieces of like your uncle and your other uncle and your mom and your childhood and stuff like that. You discover these things through letters that you can come across
Starting point is 00:51:36 sometimes by solving a puzzle or a combination or something like that. Your reward is a letter that kind of furthers the story along a little bit. I'll be honest, I didn't care. about any of this i don't know who this family is i don't really care that the mom read the kid a book or you know something like that unless it was a clue to solve another puzzle so these people that said like blueprints tells one of the most gripping stories i've ever seen in a video game like i want to know what you're on because it didn't pay that for me um i mean there is a story there that you piece together but again the story for me was not the draw on this game so
Starting point is 00:52:13 all right so that's how this game plays that's what you're looking at if you decide to jump into blueprints what worked for you and what didn't work for you in this game let me start oh brother here we go so what worked for me was of course i really liked the graphics and the environment and i liked the start of the story where it seemed like we were getting somewhere pretty straightforward with the thinking and like whatnot and then it just devoles into dark souls level of lore reading, and I'm just like, I do not want to do this. If the game had a narrator or something, when you pick something up that, like, would start telling me about it, maybe, I would have been more into it.
Starting point is 00:52:54 But, you know, I liked aspects of it. What I don't like is a puzzle game where I am drafting my own path, and it doesn't have all the answers. It's like you threw me into an escape room, but you left out the tools I need to escape. I mean, that's a great analogy, to be honest with you. I can't go anywhere. And I can't escape this room this time. Sorry you had bad luck. You're not escaping.
Starting point is 00:53:17 It makes you feel like an idiot because you're trying to go down the pathways. It's like, oh, no, you see, you got this room, but it only goes in this L shape. So it goes into the wall. It doesn't go anywhere else. Right. Those boarded off doors were like the bane of my existence. It's like, oh, you want to go this way. But you see, the only thing you've got that could move you forward to the chapel.
Starting point is 00:53:34 And every time you walk into the chapel, you're going to lose money. And the money didn't even do anything. So I was like, whatever. Who cares, man? I'll take the chapel every time. At least it gives you two other pathways to go. That's very true. You get two other doors.
Starting point is 00:53:49 Yeah, you get two doors. What didn't work for you on this? And then what did work for you? Man, what didn't work was, it was hard sometimes just the RNG of gathering certain items or devices, like there'd be times where I'd find the shovel. like if I get the courtyard of the green the green room or whatever and there's always something there to get and you get a shovel and then I would never find any dirt to dig up and I'm like or I dig something up and be like oh there's nothing of use there and I'm like come on you know I saw the shovel once yeah so really so I got it a ton I got that a ton the I got the metal detector and the lock picks more than I got the shovel yeah that's probably true um it just it's it's uh I think there might be be a little bit too much of the RNG but I don't know if that makes kind of the game what it is and makes it so difficult or if that just kind of is just an extra thing just you know kind of makes
Starting point is 00:54:52 everybody not like it so I don't know that the RNG part of it that that takes away from your strategic like planning is frustrating um having said that you always get a new run so you can come back in and try again and see if you can line things up and get them to go the right way and then they're all the more, uh, you know, exciting when you get it to line up and you get it to work and you, you get that one item over here and then over there you need it, you know, and so those parts of it, I did like, I, I did think it's cool, um, that it did have a story. I am not a big puzzle game guy. I don't like to do things just to do them.
Starting point is 00:55:38 I love to hike, but I love to hike when I'm going somewhere, not just to get to the top of the hill. I love to hike because I'm going to, you know, go hunting over there or going to that creek because I'm going to fish it or, you know, things like that. I love a purpose to something. So I want to get my estate. I want to win this and find this room so that I can, you know, so I did like the story aspect.
Starting point is 00:56:01 It did draw me in. Um, but I think the RNG stuff is, is taking away a little bit from that, um, from my perspective that my, my, my biggest complaint is the RNG in this game, 100%. I mean, it is frustrating. It is unfair at times. It will slow your progression in this game. Um, I mean, there are other things I would have liked to have done like, you know, figure out the freezer room, for instance, but I never got the freezer room ever again, you know, um, it's, it's, so the RNG for me is the real, real kick in the pants in this game. The other
Starting point is 00:56:35 thing, and I kind of touched on this, is like I feel like there's just a lot of empty rooms in this game, and I feel like that's wasted opportunity. You know, there's a room that's called the spare room, and you walk in, and there's like a ladder, they're painting the room, there's some stuff in there, and it's like, it would have been so cool if there was some reveal
Starting point is 00:56:52 later on in the game that went like, you walked past this a hundred times and you didn't even realize it, you know? Because that's kind of what Outer Wilds does, right? Like, Outer Wilds rewards you with that, that, like, you didn't know you could do this. So, okay, so hold on. Did you ever go through the spare room with the treasure map?
Starting point is 00:57:13 I got the treasure map, but it was not pointing to the spare room. Unless you have to have that as you walk through the room. As you walk through, your spare, your treasure map will pop up and you can click it and it'll show you a spot where you can dig. I think that's specific to the grid, the spot on the grid, though, because I got the treasure map a couple. times. Maybe that's what it is, but all I know is, I went through that a couple times, but here comes to R&G again, because every time I went through that, I never had a shovel. I don't have a shovel. Yeah, exactly. That's my point. Then there's no shovel. And then every time I walk through it, I see the treasure map pop up like on the side of the screen and I'm just like,
Starting point is 00:57:48 oh, come on. I already know I don't have a shovel. Yeah. Yeah. So RNG ruins it for me. I will say what I like about this game is it really just continues to draw you in. I mean, the fact that I'm willing to overcome all this R&G and frustration to continue playing this game and to, to, you know, make progress and to get closer to unlocking room 46. And hey, I never saw this room before. Let me check this out. I can combine items in this room. Well, that's kind of cool. But I never found two items that I could combine. You know, that kind of stuff. Ryan, the room you found, you found some reactor room. And I was like, I've never seen this room in my life, dude so i just i feel like there's some wasted opportunity in this game as well to where it's like
Starting point is 00:58:32 you know i think they could have truly made this one of the absolute greats in the in the puzzle genre and i feel like they whiffed just a little bit you know and as far as things that could have done to really make you look back and go like oh my gosh how did i not realize that um so all right we're running low on time guys final thoughts on this game i mean if you rated on a scale of one to ten um what your thoughts on this game are and whether you would recommend people to pick it up ace we're going to start with you yeah of course we are uh uh uh it's a it's a six out of ten i guess it's not a bad game by any means i just don't like it i like a puzzle game that's been you know thoroughly thought out
Starting point is 00:59:20 by someone it's not randomly generated for me every time i go to do it like outer wilds Out of Wilds is a roguelike puzzle, you know, game. But you're what resets, not the entirety of what you were doing. You know where to go and what to do because you learned it last time. Here, you don't really learn anything from your previous runs unless, you know, you just get lucky on the draw. I'll disagree with you a little bit there. I think you do learn. I think you learn what's in a room.
Starting point is 00:59:47 I think you learn, hey, there's something in this room that I have to discover kind of thing. I mean, I will say, like, even in the failed runs, I think you sometimes do learn something. It might not be what you want to learn. But then again, I had 20 runs in a row where I learned absolutely nothing and I almost quit playing this game. I felt like I wasn't getting enough progression,
Starting point is 01:00:08 I guess, out of it. Even when I was getting these permanent progression rooms, I still wasn't getting enough to say, well, I was so close this time. Maybe I'll make it. And then I'd get there like closet, closet, closet, all right, well, I'm just not over it. It's not a bad game.
Starting point is 01:00:22 Bunk room, closet, closet. It's just not for me. what about you ryan so um man interesting enough like i think it might be the highest on this game uh which is wild because i am not a puzzle game guy i i i when they're hey figure out these puzzles go ahead you know it's just not for me i don't like no sense of purpose or direction and just like cool you can solve this puzzle you know good for you um i do like that there was a little bit of a background, a little bit of a story, some sort of, you know, as you described Josh the carrot, to guide you along. I think the setting, the music, the ambiance,
Starting point is 01:01:06 like, was good to keep you in that mode and that mindset. Again, the R&G is a little bit frustrating, but I think that was some of the magic of it that you couldn't get too comfortable. You always had to be on your toes to try to make whatever running. you had make the best of it make all those items that you found count solve every puzzle because you never know if you miss that one dang you don't have two gems you talked about the freezer room i found the freezer room one time and you know when it was when i unlocked the right door of room 46 i got all the way there and then i went to go in the last room i had to go in to go into the room 46 and lo and behold two of the three rooms needed gems and what do i not have
Starting point is 01:01:54 I don't have any gems. And I have to select the room. The only other room, the freezer room, you know? So then, and then there's no door in the freezer room. It's the freezer room. So I go in, it freezes my assets, cool beans. I at least I'll save this stuff to the next day. I decide to go walk around and look around.
Starting point is 01:02:11 I find a furnace. I melt all my assets. So I lose it all anyways. So it was just a big wash. So it's a lot of ups and downs in this game. I think it was fantastic for a, I understand the hype. It's a 92-1 Metacritic right now for the MetaScore. It's doing really well.
Starting point is 01:02:29 I get why people love it. I get why people hate it. It's probably a lot higher than most puzzle games would ever be on mine. But I'm going to give it something like a 8.3-ish. It's up there for me, which I never, ever would have thought of. I don't play games for 12 hours straight. And yesterday I played this game for 12 hours straight because I wanted to solve it. And I got, I got one room away so many times.
Starting point is 01:02:56 So, yeah, that's my take. Yeah, I, you know, it sounds like I've complained about this game a lot, but I want people to know what you're getting yourself into. Like, honestly, that is, that is the thing is this game will frustrate you, you know, just plain and simple. I think that's most puzzle games in general, though, is like you're getting stuck on a puzzle that you can't figure out. The problem with this game is you're not getting stuck on a puzzle you can't figure out. You're getting stuck on the game mechanics. you're getting stuck on the roguelike elements you're getting stuck on the rngy part of it you are not getting stuck on this brain bending puzzle that you can't just quite wrap your head around you know kind of thing um and and so that frustrates me more i like to think i the witness i think is one of the best puzzle games ever made and it gives you 50 different types of puzzles you know that that kind of come at you in all directions and different ways of solving things whereas blueprints does not the frustration in this game simply lies in the game mechanics itself.
Starting point is 01:03:53 I think it's a fantastic game. I am going to say that. I think this game is really top-notch. I loved the experience with it. I was enthralled with it, even in my frustration. I felt driven to keep trying to make these discoveries and figure out what's going on and make it to room 46 and that sort of stuff. I like that they had some outside areas.
Starting point is 01:04:13 I like that I found things I'd never found in a run before. Sometimes they were a little disappointing because I was like, I don't even know what this is for i i kind of know what i need to do now so what is how does this come into play and that kind of thing but all the negative things aside i think this game is great dude i am going to rate it like an 8.5 um legitimately i think it's very enjoyable i think it's very unique i do not think that this is like the mount rushmore of puzzle games that i have heard a lot of people talk about it is a very good puzzle game like if you were in the mood for one blueprints will absolutely scratch that itch. I liked the roguelike elements to a degree. I think they probably
Starting point is 01:04:54 could use some fine tuning. You don't need four different RNG elements in your game that all have to line up together. Two is probably fine. You know, so like there, there is that complaint, but overall Blueprints is a really, really strong puzzle game. It is memorable. It's beautiful in its own right. You just have to be willing to put up with the frustration of it. And we have seen a lot of people that are doing that and they're like, dude, I'm past the frustrating part. This game's
Starting point is 01:05:24 got its hooks in me. I'm loving it. I want to see what's at the end. And we've seen that from a lot of people but again, just know what you're getting yourself into. So, yeah, I was like, I would say I would say people should definitely just take YouTube's opinion on this game because I'm just not one of the people who's willing to put up with. But I think
Starting point is 01:05:42 that's people. I mean, I have seen, I mean, to be fair ace on social media i've seen people say dude i saw the hype i bought in i tried this game i don't get it man this game is no dumb you know and that's why we always try to explain what a game is like to people you know we always give our opinion on it but at the same time we try to explain it because if you were somebody that is easily put off by frustration and rng this game may not be for you If you're willing to slog through it, then you probably will find the appeal of this game. And, you know, and there is obviously some kind of mass appeal because look at the review scores and things like that. There is some kind of magic to it.
Starting point is 01:06:21 It is just for me, not that Outer Wilds, the Witness, Anti-Chamber, Portal 2 type magic. This ain't no Portal 2 for me. It's close-ish. You know what I mean? Like, when people say recommend me a puzzle game, I'm going to name those other four or five games. first before I mentioned Blueprints, but Blueprints is probably up there in like the top five or six
Starting point is 01:06:43 for me. It's right there. It's like right there. Yeah, it's like right there. Yeah, exactly. So all right, well listen, guys, that's going to do it for this one. You know, check it out. It's on Game Pass. That's one of the nice things. I am just counting down the days till
Starting point is 01:07:01 Expedition 33. I mean, this episode comes out Monday. Expedition 33 comes out Thursday. You guys will not see me for probably four days. You're going to disappear for a while. Yeah, I've already, I've prepped everybody, man. I've prepped my family. I'm prepping my friends.
Starting point is 01:07:15 I'm prepping my job. I'm just like, dude, Josh doesn't exist for like three days after that. So let's hope that game lives up to the hype, man, because whew. So, all right. Listen, everybody, thank you for for hanging out with us talking blueprints. If you want to support the show, it means the world to us. It helps this podcast continue on. There's a link in the episode description that you can
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