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The Verb of Noticing — Puzzles Where the Answer Was Always on Screen
Blue Prince, ANIMAL WELL, and The Looker never hide information — the answer is on screen from the start. They design the delay between seeing and noticing, one step beyond observation-as-play.
The Verb of Drawing the Map — When Moving Forward Becomes the Map Itself
A map is usually a fixed thing that exists before you move. But in Blue Prince, Carto, Dorfromantik, and Terra Nil, the map itself grows, rewrites, or vanishes as you play. Four cases on why "building the map" can be a verb of its own.
Counterpoint on Blue Prince — Reading Through the Negative Reviews
Komugi rated Blue Prince 9.5/10. I examine the claims from the Steam and community negatives — randomness blocks progress, the two games don't mesh, midgame monotony. I agree that randomness becomes a gatekeeper; I push back on 'this isn't a puzzle.'
Soundtrack: Blue Prince — A manor where even the music gets drafted
The music of Blue Prince is dark jazz by Dutch duo Trigg & Gusset. Almost no percussion, mostly silent exploration, music that rises only in particular rooms. The composer wrote sketches; the developer drafted them into the manor. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, dig out what a composer can steal from this design that refuses to ring.
Puzzle-in-Combat Design and the Question Randomness Poses to Puzzle Design
Two pieces today. How Capcom's Pragmata integrates real-time Snake-style puzzles into third-person combat — and the design challenge of avoiding repetition (Game Developer, Alessandro Fillari, April 14, 2026). Then Mark Brown (GMTK) on the fundamental tension between randomness and puzzle design in Blue Prince: what happens when you have clue A but the house won't give you room B (GMTK Substack, May 8, 2025).
Puzzles that live inside the world — Tonda Ros on eight years of design: "no intended solution" and the melancholy Myst left behind
Two pieces today, both examining the design philosophy of Blue Prince (Dogubomb, Tonda Ros), the puzzle game that dominated 2025 and won Best Design at the 2026 GDC Awards and DICE Awards. First: a Game Developer interview (Bryant Francis, March 4, 2026) in which Ros explains how Myst's environmental storytelling of a past just out of reach shaped Blue Prince's somber tone, and how a single letter from Herbert Sinclair in the Tomb transforms the game from puzzle-toy to something heartbreaking. Second: a Thinky Games interview (Dayten Rose, April 10, 2025, launch day) in which Ros traces the game's dual origins in tabletop mechanics and Myst-inspired first-person design, and explains his core design belief: "intended solution" is a dirty word at Dogubomb. Put together, both pieces converge on the same idea — a puzzle needs to live inside its world.
