Some understand observations I made about blue prince
Hello, I previously wrote a post where I shared some observations I made in blue prince. I wanted these observations to be someone’s problem. With 10 minutes, I received a comment, saying “Use paragraphs please”. That made me realise I made a critical mistake. I found out that my post may not have been the most understandable post, instead just being a continuous stream of thoughts.
I am here to fix that here. This post is a repost of This post which is designed to be readable by other people. I have split the post into chapters so you can stop, take a break, and come back when you are ready. This post is a long one. In fact, it’s too long for Reddit(4000 character limit). Therefore, I should release the rest of the post after a few minutes in 3 comments as there is a 10000 character limit for comments. Also, mega spoilers ahead. I will be talking about endgame content.
The house directory and an example secret
The house directory is the thing that you look at to see all the descriptions of the rooms. I.e. if you want to look at the description of the ballroom, I press r1 and it pops up on the screen. some of these observations I made involved the house directory. When looking at the room description of a room in the house directory, a picture of the room yiu are looking at also appears. I.e. if you look at the description of the entrance hall, then a picture of the entrance hall appears to the left of the description.
This brings up an interesting question. Are there any secrets hidden the room descriptions and pictures that aren’t in the actual rooms themselves. Let’s look at the guest bedroom for an example. In the picture for the guest bedroom, we can see the back wall of the guest bedroom with the bookshelves etc. however, there is a purple line going diagonally down in the picture of the guest bedroom next to the room description. But if you look at the guest bedroom itself, the diagonal purple line going down the bookshelves is not there? So why is there a purple line in the picture of the guest bedroom next to the description of guest bedroom which is not present when you look at the real bookshelves?
The answer to that is the purple line doesn’t represent a line on the actial shelves, but the ceiling itself crossing the bookshelves diagonally downward. I.e. in teh guest bedroom, the cieling of the right side of the room is slanted downwards. This means the ceiling cuts of part of the bookshelf at the end or the guest bedroom. So when you look at the picture next to the description of the guest bedroom, you are seeing the bookshelf being cut off by the ceiling. Then I noticed that the other side of the diagonal line in the bookshelf picture looks like brick instead of a bookshelf. This means we get to see what’s beyond the ceiling with the guest bedroom just from the room description picture.
That is 1 example of a secret that is hidden by the picture of the room next to the room description. Another possible secret or lead to follow may be an extension to the painting puzzle.
The 3rd painting puzzle in the directory.
You know how almost every room in the house has a pair of paintings? like how the entrance hall has a 2 paintings for different poker cards? 1 room may have a painting of a car and a queen card. by finding a word that describes the painting, we can find a letter difference. I.e. “Car” and “card”. the letter difference would be “d”. we need to do this for every room position in the house. I.e, for all 4 rooms in rank 9, all 5 rooms in rank 8 etc. The thing about the painting puzzle is the paintings are not tied to a specific room, like the den, but are instead tied to the position of the room in the house.
i.e.
9 _ _ _ _ _
8 _ _ _ _ _
7 _ _ _ _ _
6 _ _ _ _ _
5 _ _ _ _ _
4 _ _ _ _ _
3 _ _ _ _ _
2 _ _ _ _ _
1 _ _ _ _ _ 1 2 3 4 5
So if I say the room (4,8)=L, I mean the room in rank 8 and column 4 painting puzzle answer is “l”. The paintings are tied to the positions, instead of the room itself. So a den, a ballroom, a solarium or a maids chamber at (2,6) will all have the same paintings.
Why do I bring the painting puzzle up? because something interesting happens if you look at the pictures next to the room descriptions. some room description pictures contain paintings in them, like how the room description picture of the Den has a painting of a deer and a theatre. That’s weird, since the room directory and the pictures of each room are not tied to a specific room positions. The house directory just tells you stuff about a room itself, not where the room is in the house. it tells you it’s room description, the gem cost, the type of room and a picture of the room.
So why are the paintings in the picture of a room next to its room description that are independent of the position that a room is in?
I think there may be another painting puzzle hidden in the house directory. I don’t know for certain as the painting puzzle was one of my least favourite puzzle, and took me dozens of hours to do. that’s why I haven’t solved it myself and just put it off for a while.
Thats more proof that my original post could have explained stuff better, as that all of that information was meant to be communicated using the paragraph: “also, I noticed how in the house directory, some pictures of rooms have paintings on them, independent of their position in the house. so I wonder if their is another painting puzzle for the house directory.”
I have been writing for 2 hours straight now and I need to explain so many more things better.
The ballroom secret
Let’s look at the house directory for more secrets. Let’s look at the picture of the ballroom next to its room description. The picture of the ballroom has something interesting that the actual room does not have, it has dotted lines. Specifically, there is a dotted line that goes on a weird path around the room. On top of the dotted line in the ballroom directory picture are the symbols that blue prince uses to denote steps. I.e. shoe print mark. The shoe print marks are all over the dotted line. Now, if you have a weird line with shoe prints on the line, what does that mean? I think it means I need to walk at a specific path in the ballroom, following the dotted line around to find a hidden secret.
That seems like a simple thing to test out, but there is a problem. The dotted line that shows you where to step only shows up in the room description picture. It is not present on the ballroom floors themselves. In other words, you have to follow this path blind. Now, that’s very annoying and I would rather not do that. One way to make it easier to follow the hidden path in the ballroom directory picture would be to create a map of the room itself. If you draw the map down, and then follow the map that you drew out, you could follow the dotted line path in the directory picture.
Doing that requires you to make an actual map of the room. It also requires that you have a way of knowing where you in the room at all times. So I looked around the room to see if there are any things I could use to know where I am at in the ballroom, and I found it! On the floor, there is a pattern broken up into diamond shapes next to each other. It should be 16 diamonds across from the middle of 1 door end, to the other door end. And from the centre of the ballroom, it also has 8 diamonds on the left and right side, leading to a 16 diamonds on length and 16 diamond width.
I tried to draw the map itself which didn’t go well. You see, I didn’t have graph paper, so I had to draw a graph grid without it using a ruler. Thats hard, since If I get the angle the graph lines slightly wrong, that could have nock on effects. You can see my failed attempt at drawing a graph in the attached photos. The diamonds on the top right side are squished together which is problematic for map making. That’s why I haven’t tested this hypothesis down, I.e. what happens if you follow the dotted line on the ballroom. Still, it’s an idea that may have a lot of merit, given that it’s the only room in the directory that has a dotted line with step symbols over the line, indicating a path to follow.
Room type information background an example
So far, we have seen some secrets hidden in the picture of a room next to its description in the room directory, but what about some secrets elsewhere in the directory? In this case, what about the type of room itself?
In the room directory, in addition to giving a picture of a room and its description, the directory also gives you information about a rooms “type”. For example, the Lavatory type says it’s a “red room, dead end” which is true. The directory says the bedroom’s type is “Entry, Bedroom”, which is true. You get steps when you enter the bedroom, so it’s an “entry” type.
You may dismiss this type information as useless, or filler, but there are secrets hidden among this information. Take the garage. Its type says “Blueprint, “dead end””. Yes, Dead end is actually in quotes in the room description of the garage. The garage seems like a dead end, but if you power it with the utility closet, you can open the garage door to the west side path. That means the garage has 2 entrances, not 1. That’s why “Dead end” was in quotes in the directory room type information. It’s a hint you can open the garage.
Another time “dead end”(with the quotes) appears in the directory’s room type section is the secret passage. If you draft the secret passage, it looks like it’s a dead end, but if you pick a book, a hidden entrance appears. Well, that or drafting the secret passage and going around the house to draft a door to the other side of the secret passage. Either way, the directory is hinting that the secret passage is not a real “dead end” by using the double quotes in the room type information.
The many secrets of room 46
You may be asking why I am bringing up the room type information? Yes, it may contain a few minor hints here and there, but so far I haven’t brought up anything major with this. That’s a great question. Let’s look at the room type for room 46. “Type: Blueprint, Objective”. Did you notice how it doesn’t say dead end? Now why is that the case? Why wouldn’t it explicitly say dead end? After all, when I walk into room 46, it seems like it’s a dead end. But it is not labelled a dead end. Could there be another room behind it?
There is a bit more evidence for there being another room behind Room 46 besides the room type of room 46 not saying dead end. The first bit of evidence requires the clock tower to see it. The clock tower is very big, and at the top of the clock tower there are windows with the clocks on them. Now, your supposed to just look at the clock stuff, Thats the intended purpose. but since the top of the clock tower has windows, this means we can see the roof of the Mount holly Estate(the house we explore).
The important thing for this discussion is what happens if you look north? The answer, you can see room 46. Specifically, from the final rank 9, you can see a small tunnel extending from the anti chamber to lead into another room/tower. At the top of the tower is a giant black moon, in the phase of the “inneclipse” which looks like a cresent moon.
Now, there are a lot of lore implications of this, but the thing I want to focus on is that a tunnel extends to the tower from the antechamber roof. However, when we unlock room 46 from the antechamber, and go into room 46, there isn’t a long tunnel between room 46 and the antechamber? So why is there a tunnel thing when looking at the roof from the clock tower which isn’t present when you are in room 4. My theory is that room 46 is that tunnel, and there is something behind it.
The next bit of evidence for the theory that a room is behind room 46 is its fireplace. At the end of room 46 is a fireplace. That’s rather innocent, benign. However, if you look above the fireplace you see a rather interesting thing. You have the “core” for each country above it. I.e. you have the symbol that represents Eraja, Arch Aries, Fenn Aries, Orinda Aries, Nuance, Corarica, Verra and Mora Jai above the fireplace. Why is that the case?
It could be just an extra detail. Or it could be the key to another puzzle. Room 46 already has the puzzle for Hubert’s journey, which requires you to solve the sigil puzzle, where you need to find the nation symbol, national colour, weather and transportation that a country is known for along with what kind of society that country is. With that, you can open the inner sanctum doors and see the postcards Hubert sent when he traveled the world. You can then use that information to solve the Hubert’s journey puzzle by figuring out the order of the countries that Hubert visited when he traveled the world. Doing so allows you to find his will.
I wonder if the fireplace in room 46 with the national symbols above it is an extension of that puzzle. That you may need enter a new sequence of symbols on the fireplace to reveal a secret passage or safe in room 46. It might be the countries Randolph Moore sent you letter from when he had the forced vacation, or some other sequence.
You might object to this theory by saying that the game doesn’t tell you anything when you press 1 of the symbols above a fireplace. You’re probably not doing anything. That’s a reasonable thing to assume with a game that has good UI. Problem is that blue prince has already opened Pandora’s box.
Pandora’s box
Exhibit 1, to get into the inn side of the cloister you need to press the left and right pillar. However, if you press 1 pillar, no animations occur. Nothing in the game happens that tells you that you pressed the left pillar. But if you then press the right pillar, the cloister opens up, allowing you to get to the angle statue. Note that the game did not tell you that pressed the right thing when you pressed the first pillar. The game only does something when you press both of them
Exhibit 2, the castle time puzzle. Mega spoilers ahead, for people who have gotten this far and haven’t run away due to spoiler stuff. You get to the point in the game where you get to the chess room, do a castle move(swap rook for king), then go into the Aries court. By doing specific stuff, you can eventually make a pillar of stone appear from the ground, which has a clock in it. To solve the puzzle, you need to enter 3 specific times into the clock. However, you can’t just enter 1 time, press confirm, then select the next time, press confirm, and then enter the last time, and press confirm. Oh no, that be too easy! Instead you need to enter 1 time, and then rotate the time hands until you land on the next correct time. If you land on the wrong time you need to start again! I’m not salty! I would never feel anything about a counterintuitive UI.
Either way, exhibit 1 and exhibit 2 shows the game is absolutely willing to make you enter several correct inputs without telling you have inputed a thing. This means that the argument dismissing the symbols above the fireplace as being decoration and not a way to enter the code has a bit less merit given Blue Prince’s previous design decisions.
The title screen and Ovinn Nevarei
There is even more evidence that a secret room or compartment exists behind room 46. This section includes stuff that I didn’t talk about in my last post, as I noticed it after writing the post.
The main bit of evidence is 1 of the very first things you see when playing blue prince. Have you ever paid attention to the title screen of a game? You know, the screen where you can manage your save files, start playing the current save file and mess with game options? Blue prince has that, and it may contain a secret in the background image.
If you actually look at the background image, you will notice that the title screen in actually in room 46. It has the desk in the right place, with lots of stuff on it. It has the fireplace etc. there is a really interesting detail on the fireplace. Above the fireplace is another picture of the inneclipse(crescent moon) in room 46 in the title screen. The same fireplace that has the national symbols(cores) for each country over it. You can check it out right now by just launching the game.
I also just found out by looking over my 4000 screenshots of the game(the ps5 is not built to take that many screenshots since it doesn’t allow you to organise them) that the Inneclipse(crescent moon) is over the fireplace in the actual room 46 in game.
Do you still think room 46 is a dead end? That it’s all a coincidence? Well, I still have more evidence for this theory.
“Ovinn Nevarei”. It’s an Erajan term that roughly translates to “Towards north lies a new future.” It’s the final thing Hubert says in the letter you get once you find room 46 congratulating you for finding your inheritance of course, the paragraph before that phrase was hinting at more secrets beyond just room 46.
This phrase has many meanings. Firstly, it points you to go back to room 46(North) so you can discover and pick the crown of blueprints in room 46. The second meaning hints towards the inner sanctum puzzle, with Hubert’s journey and his will. Why that? You see, Hubert’s letter is not the only the only place where Ovinn Nevarei is written. It’s also written on the floor of the inner sanctum. The inner sanctum is contains the lever to open the north antechamber door. If you look down at the floor of the inner sanctum, you will see a giant circle/possible sigil. In the middle is the crest of Baroness Auravei(will go more into that latter in the case of the disappearing fan section). In the top edges of the circle are the national symbols(cores) for each country. These cores actually point to the inner sanctum door that has the sigil of that country. I.e. the Fenn Aries core on the floor appears point to the inner sanctum door that hides the Fenn Aries sigil puzzle. These same symbols appear over the fireplace in room 46.
At the bottom of the border of the circle in the inner sanctum is the phrase “Ovinn Nevarei”. It is right before the north antechamber lever, so a new future probably refers to room 46. Since the cores are also in the same border bit(edge of the circle) it also ties the phrase Ovinn Nevarei to the sigil puzzle, with the inner sanctum keys. That puzzle ultimately connects to the puzzle where you need to know the order that Hubert visited different countries in 8 months, which contains the deed to the house and Hubert’s will.
That’s the second meaning of Ovinn Nevarei, which is a hint to find the will for Hubert Sinclair that is hidden in Room 46. It’s where you will find your future.
There may be a 3rd meaning for Ovinn Nevarei, which connects to the inneclipse. You can eventually get an upgrade that spawns a blue memo in a blue room if the room is in rank 8. If you draft the clock tower in rank 8, you will find the blue memo that says “Inneclipses only occur in the north sky.” This ties the word north to inneclipse. Well, that and that the prefix “inn” in Erajan translates to north, so “inneclipse” literally translates to north eclipse.
This associating with the direction north and the inneclipse is also strengthened by the secret garden. The secret garden allows you to change the hands that point to directions. If every hand is pointing east, the lever to the east antechamber is revealed. If every hand is pointing west, the lever to the west antechamber is revealed. If every hand is pointing south, the sigil for the nation of Orinda Aries is revealed.
What happens if every hand in the secret garden is pointed north? A statue of the inneclipse is revealed. In fact, it is the statue that you first see when you draft the secret garden for the first time. Doesn’t that tie the inneclipse to the direction of north(beyond the literal name translation)?
Let’s put all the pieces together. Let us consider the fact the phrase “Ovinn Nevarei” translates to “towards north lies a new future.” Then we consider that inneclipses only occur in the north sky and are strongly associated with the direction North. Then we consider that the many bits of evidence I have previously talked about that tie Room 46 to the inneclipse, from it being over room 46 as seen from the clock tower, to an inneclipse being over the fireplace in room 46 in both the actual room and the title screen. Finally, we know that the house directory does not say room 46 is dead end. This is the same house directory that hints about a rooms true nature by using the room type information with the garage and secret passage being “dead end” with the quotes around them.
I don’t think this is all a coincidence. I think the third meaning of “Ovinn Nevarei” hints towards a secret room in room 46.
Now the dead end not being mentioned on Room 46’s directory type information could just be a bug. For example, the tomb say’s it’s a dead end in it’s room type information. That is a lie as the tomb has an exit to the catacombs and hence the underground map, which means there are 2 entrances/exits to the tomb, not just 1. Still, I think there is something else in Room 46. At there bare minimum, there are still unsolved stuff about room 46 itself which I thought I should mention.
Look at all of this text just to describe a few points. I have spent 4 to 5 hours on this so far, and I still have so many more points to write down, to ensure it’s understandable instead of just a trail of thoughts, understood by none by it me. I am starting to feel a bit of regret writing this, but the sunk cost fallacy has fully kicked in by this point. Onto the next point!
The blueprint map
This brings me to my next point, the blueprint map! You can open the map of the current room by pressing R2. The map shows the rooms you have drafted along with your position in the room. The thing about your position being noted is rather important for the next set of secret/things I noticed. What happens when a room has a hidden compartment, like the utility closet or greenhouse? They have to show your map position on the map, but they can’t show you the full room. I.e. the utility closet doesn’t show you the power switch to the mines on the map.
What happens? Your map lies to you in a way you can catch. Take the utility closet. To reveal the power switch to the mines, you need to enter a code, and then the wall will open letting you access the power switch. Say you don’t haven’t entered the code, and then walk up to the V.A.C. System(thing that powers on garage and takes code). If you open the map, you should see that you are at the end of the room. But thats not what happens. If you open the map, you will see that the map tells you that you are in the middle of the utility closet, and you need to move just a little bit more to get to the V.A.C. Box, Even though you are right next to it.
This mismatch between where the map tells you where you are and where you actually are is a hint that there is a secret compartment in the utility closet. If you are at the end of the room, the map should say you are at the end of a room. Since the map does not say that, there must be a hidden compartment.
This is also true for the greenhouse before you break open the wall. If you look at the map of the greenhouse when you are pressed against the wall, you will see on the map that there is some distance between you and the wall. That’s a hint for Denny Revane’s secret compartment in the greenhouse. Once you destroy the wall in the greenhouse, your position in the greenhouse matches where the map tells you are in the greenhouse.
So why do I bring up these examples for the blueprint map? Let’s find out by looking at the Walk in closet. Walk up to the black mirror in the Walk in closet. This should be the end of the room, as you can’t move any further. Then you open your map. If you do this, the map will tell you that you are at the middle of the Walk In closet, not at the end of the walk in closet.
There’s a discrepancy between where the map thinks your position is, and where you are actually located in the room. I think this hints that there is a hidden compartment in the walk in closet. The map information being wrong for the greenhouse and utility closet did hint towards a secret compartment in the room as shown above.
There is some more evidence of this, as a black mirror was seen and mentioned in the final Alzara prophecy. The mirror in the walk in closet is black. This could just be a coincidence that the mirror in the final prophecy shares a colour with the mirror of a room that probably has a secret compartment in it
Keep in mind I have absolutely no idea how you would open the secret compartment in the walk in closet. That’s why I am posting it here, to make it someone else’s problem.
As an aside, the directory room type information for the greenhouse changes when you break the wall in the greenhouse. When the wall isn’t broken, the directory calls the greenhouse a dead end. When the wall is broken, the greenhouse looses that type of information in the directory, no longer calling itself a dead end. This means the room type information for the greenhouse was kept consistent between the different versions of the room(wall broken or not), and hence the room type information isn’t just random filler.
Intermission.
Congratulations for anyone who made it to this point! You reached the halfway point of this post! I recommend that you eat some food and take a bathroom break. The above sections involved examining the UI stuff for the game, the picture of the directory, the room type information, and looking at the map for secrets. The remaining stuff is less connected to each other, but are still useful observations regardless.
Let’s continue on to the next points.
The case of the disappearing fan.
The first thing to talk about is the appearance of a room. Say you draft a room, like the den. The den has an appearance, it has a fireplace, some couches a single gem. In other words, rooms have details in them! I know, what a huge revelation.
If you draft a room again, you would expect the details of the room to be the same. The room may contain different items, it may contain a trunk which you can open, but the fundamental appearance of the room usually stays the same between runs.
Key word “Usually”. You see, the boudoir appears to break this trend. The boudoir has a desk on the side of the room, which has a small statue of a ballerina and a few other stuff on it. Those details stay consistent between runs. However, I noticed that a fan sometimes appears on the wall behind the ballerina statue. You can’t interact with the fan, it doesn’t seem to do anything. But it’s there, existing on the wall. It’s a detail/ part of the environment that is sometimes on the wall. However, the fan doesn’t appear every time on the boudoir, only sometimes in a seemingly random fashion. I don’t know what triggers the fan to exist on the wall in the boudoir or not.
Detail wise, the fan appears to have part of the leaf that is seen of the Crest of Baroness Auravei, which is the thing that appears above the north door in the entrance hall, and is also present on the blue doors that need to be opened with the thrown of the blue prince. The more you look for Lady Auravei crest the more you find it all over the house.
You may not understand the significance of the fan appearing randomly, so let’s make up an example that demonstrates the point. Say one day you tried to draft the library. You know the library inside and out, as you drafted the library 9079 times before. But when you drafted the library for the 9080th time, you find an extra chair next to the table with your mother Mary sitting on it writing her next book! That would be significant. In that scenario, you did not know what you did to cause the extra chair(and I suppose Mary) to appear in the library, it just happened randomly.
Now I made up the library scenario, but it demonstrates why the behaviour with the fan in the Boudoir is strange. A thing is randomly appearing in the room. Is the fan significant? Is it just an easter egg? Is it just a red herring designed to distract the people who have crossed the gap of no return, endlessly looking for secrets when no exist?
Who knows! Either way, it’s a thing I noticed, and now you do too.
Weird drafting behaviour with the boudoir
The fan randomly appearing is a rather weird thing. When I discovered that, I tried to figure out what causes the fan in the boudoir. Now I failed in that goal, but I did discover something really weird about drafting the boudoir.
I wanted to see whether the boudoir would spawn the wall depending on where the Boudoir located in the house. For example, does the fan spawn when the Bedour is left of the antechamber in rank 9? What about if it’s in the middle of the house. Thats stuff I haven’t tested yet, because I got distracted by a weird observation.
In the entrance hall, I could never get the boudoir to spawn the left door of the entrance hall. Using the positional thingy with the 5 by 9 graph for the painting puzzle above to refer to room positions, I never got the boudoir to spawn in position (2,1), from the entrance hall which is in position (3,1).
So I did some testing. I picked up the royal sceptre, which allows you to make a room type more common for the day. I.e. it gives you the king’s chess blessing. I chose purple as I wanted bedroom’s to spawn more often, as the boudoir is a bedroom. I also got the ink well constellation from the observatory, which allows you to spend a star to reroll the drafting options when drafting Stuff. This would increase my odds of getting the boudoir from the entrance hall.
Combining these 2 things would guarantee the boudoir from the entrance hall if it were possible to draft it from the entrance halls left door. How did it go? I spent 30 stars rerolling. I rerolled the draft option 30 times, and I did not see the boudoir appear in any of them! Not once. Eventually I cut my losses and stopped testing. I then closed the game so I could get all of the stars that I spent back, as 30 stars is a lot of stars.
I don’t know if the rules would change if I tried to draft the boudoir from (2,2) which is the 2nd room in the second rank? I.e. can I draft the boudoir at the specific position when drafting If I don’t draft from the entrance hall specially, but instead draft from a different room? These questions may seem excessive. You failed to draft the room 30 times, that should mean it’s impossible to draft it there. However, I only actively tested 1 specific possibility, and the behaviour of drafting could be different if I did different tests. I just can’t be bothered to do the other tests for every other possibility involving whether I can draft a specific room at a specific place in the house.
This observation may not be very useful, but it is once again a piece of information that exists! 6 more points remain!
To read the rest of the post, read the comment that continues this post. Curse the 40000 character limit.