Press B 252: Is Blue Prince Game of the Year?

When building your dream home is a nightmare. Today on.

Welcome everybody to another episode of Press me to cancel. Your favorite, I don't know, contractor building construction, podcast games. I don't know. I am your host this week, Sick Jake and I'm joined by two friends. And this week we are going to talk about indie critic darling Blueprints and discuss whether the game is good or is it RNG hell. And to join me this week I'm with Wolf. How you doing this week?

Surviving RNG hell.

And with our, I guess of all the people on press B, our number one AAA gamer, Chard. Chard, how you doing this week?

What am I, a triple A gamer? Wow. I need to stop moving my shoes into different rooms of this house because every time I go to pick them back up, that room isn't there anymore and it's get really bad.

Gosh, I wish I had as many rooms as this house. Actually. No, you know what? I take that back. I don't need 45 rooms in my house because I would have to clean them all.

That would be hell to clean.

Yeah, imagine if I can clean that. Gosh.

All right, so this week my wife, when I see a house that's like 2,000 square feet or more, she's like, who's going to clean all that?

Yeah, it's a good point. All right, so we're talking about a game called Blueprints, which is from what's, what's the name of the DogU bomb software. Dog Bomb. Yeah. And I had all these notes, Ted, though, I'm so bad guys. Oh, I want to do this right. Wiki Blueprints. I had notes.

Mind palace.

Yeah, Mind palace. Tonda Ross is the, the main developer behind that, behind this game, Blueprints. It, I don't want to call it a rog like deck builder. I feel like that's a disservice. It is at its core very much a carefully crafted puzzle game. From what I was reading on WikiLEAR today, he based this actually on a book which I'd never heard of. It's called Maze Solve, the world's most challenging puzzle. It's a, it's a book that came out in the 80s that is very much actually like blueprints and that is a, it's a not choose your own adventure, but it's like a puzzle based book where you flip pages to go to various rooms in a house. 45 rooms, much like blueprints. And at the time it was actually a contest. You could actually win $10,000 by playing through this book and being the first to solve it. So it's kind of interesting. That was the origin of his idea, but he's. He worked on this game for, I think it was eight years that I saw.

And that's what I saw.

Wow.

After 25 hours of me playing blueprints, I can see why this is a game where I. I heard about a couple weeks ago, a lot of games critics on their various podcasts and YouTube channels have been. Were secretly talking about a game that they were loving, but they weren't allowed to talk about it because of embargoes. And then I heard a few let it slip that it was blueprints. So I was really interested to see what all their hype was about. And then it did release. And I think with game critics and those type of folks, it's probably going to be a game of the year contender for them in terms of the amount of work and crafting in this unique world that has been built. But for a lot of gamers, especially on Steam, people didn't like it. There's a lot of criticisms about it being too hard, confusing, relying on RNG and the whole nine yards. So it's kind of an interesting disparity between critics and us average gaming folks. So I want to talk about with you guys, because I think of the three of us, we're probably maybe varied on whether we like this game or not. I'm kind of curious to see what your guys take is on it. So for those who are not aware, Blueprints is. I'm going to use the word roguelike, although I feel like it doesn't fit all those bucket check boxes. But you are basically, your name is Simon, you're the character, and you've inherited a mansion from your. Your dead uncle. But it comes with a stipulation like the Haunted House clause, where you have to actually go to the house on Mount Holly, I think it is. And your goal is to solve the puzzles and navigate to the secret room 46 in this mansion. And you do that by entering the mansion and drafting rooms at random. From think of it like a deck of cards. And you're building this mansion room by room, and every single room has been very carefully crafted. At a glance, you may zoom through a hallway, thinking it's just a hallway. But there's a lot going on in the game that you don't quite pick up right away. But at its core, the first mission is build a path of rooms to the top of the map where it's room 46 or room 45, the antechamber. And then that's how you beat the game, and that's how you get credits. But there's a whole lot more going on. Every room is a puzzle. Every room has clues. There's books of lore literally everywhere that tells a. A backstory to the world. That was quite surprising to me. And even when you get end credits, there is still countless puzzles and fun stuff to. To explore. So I kind of want to talk with you guys and get your first impressions. We're going to start with the episode. We're going to avoid spoilers because we want to. Want to pitch you on this game and see if it's something you would enjoy playing. But I do want to spend the last part of this episode talking about some of the secrets we found and maybe some tips on how to beat this game, because I'd hate for anybody who's bought in this game to have bounced off it and not at least seen the credits because I think this game is worth beating this year. So who wants to start? Charter or Wolf? Who wants to start about your opinions and first impressions of blueprints.

All right, Char, do you want to start?

You go for it, Wolf. It's you.

All right.

You got some things to say?

Well, I. I will say I'm. I'm really, really enjoying the game.

Okay. I wasn't sure that comes with.

That comes with an asterisk. I'm really enjoying the game. Except for the room drawing mechanic, because the RNG of the room drawing mechanic has screwed me more than anything else in this game.

Okay.

So I really love the puzzle design. I love the. The aspect of exploration and navigating your way north in this five by nine structure. And by five by nine, I mean, it's like five rooms wide, nine rooms deep, and you start at the third, like the middle room at the bottom. So you. Every time you go up to a door, it presents you with three cards. Those three cards are a room that that door opens to. So you never see the same room in the same. Well, not never, but it's. The rooms are not stationary, except for maybe one. Yeah, we'll get into that later. But yeah, other. Other than that, the only rooms that are stationary is the starting room and the anti chamber. Anti chamber, not anti.

That's my fault. I called it the anti chamber.

And so you. You. Every time you open a door, it swings. Like, it's like, all right, pick your room that you want this room to be from the three that you've got. And there are mechanics in place to where you can reroll and later there are mechanics in place that you can rotate the rooms. But most of the time, you're stuck with those three. Us. There we are.

Make sure we're still live. Okay, that's great.

Yeah, we're. We're still live area.

Okay. Interesting. All right. We're still good.

Sorry, guys. All right. Okay, you were saying.

What was the last thing you heard me say?

Rotating rooms.

Okay. So aside from those, usually you're going to open a door and just get the three options you've got and the directions they're facing, and that's it. Now what Those different rooms have different properties. Some are bedrooms, some are shops, some are just hallways, which is the weirdest, lamest descriptor for a room.

But that's what they are.

Those are a room descriptor, and they do. Going on for them. The spare room. Actually, we'll come back to that because I find the spare room very interesting. There are also special rooms, I think. I don't know what the type is called, but they're blue.

Well, like, the blue is almost like generally room, I think. Right. Because, I mean, the basic. The first couple rooms you see and it's. The first five rooms you see are like the den, which is just, you know, a den, and there's a table and two doors and a gem.

They generally have some sort of thing going on in them, though.

Right.

So, like, they have a puzzle or they have some. They have something to interact with.

Right. You get something from it. Gems or keys.

So they'll have. They'll have a puzzle or it'll have something that affects another room or something along those lines. That's what the blue rooms are. Or it's just goodies. Because I think the closets also count as a blue room.

Yes.

And you're. You're showing a puzzle on screen right now. When I first figured out that puzzle, I was like, I'm a genius.

So. Yeah.

Was really wild.

Yeah. Explain what the dartboard puzzle is for the audio listeners so they understand what it is. It's like the first puzzle you get in the. In the game is the dartboard.

Yeah. And I actually did come across something that kind of explains it in a classroom.

Oh, you found it in a classroom? I found it in one of the rooms that has other information on it that just talks about whatever. And it's a little drawing in the bottom corner of the postcard. And if you have a magnifying glass and you hover over it. That's how I learned how to do it.

Was.

It had all that.

I've not seen that yet.

Yeah, that's cool.

For those who are listening to the audio, it's basically. It's a room where the feature is a dartboard and the dartboard is a. Is a math puzzle, basically. And it starts out with. With different sectors of the board that are lit up, and you have to click the numbers in a certain order to open it up and get keys from it. And it's a reliable source of keys for all your runs. But what you don't realize is that every time you complete it, it gets harder. The next run, and it gets harder and harder. And it starts with basic math and minus and then eventually division and then fractions and then reversing digits and then.

Negative integers and all sorts of crap squares.

Crazy. Yep.

It's nuts. Yeah. But it's like the first, like, rival puzzle you get.

Yeah, yeah. And all the information is just there on the dartboard with colors. That's it.

Yeah.

Yeah. Which I did consider, like, could have a negative impact on anybody who's colorblind.

Huge. Yes.

Because the colors are green, yellow, violet, and violet, Pink, indigo.

Yeah. Oh, okay.

The best way I could think to describe them. And then it's very strange. I'm not going to spoil how it works. But yeah, all the information is there on how to do the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division based on the colors and the placement of those colors. And then you have to click on the outside number on the board. That is the answer to the question for that particular puzzle. It's really cool.

Yeah.

And then what was the other thing I was saying before the dart board? I was talking about room types.

Yeah.

And then there's red rooms, which usually have a negative. Sometimes they eat your stamina. Sometimes they just make red rooms more common to appear. Sometimes they take your money. And so I really dislike the red rooms. I gotta say.

Yeah, red rooms are awful.

Never like, yeah, I'll take this one. I'm like, I guess the only time.

I grab a red room is if there's.

If it's.

If a cross. Like if there's a four door for it. Because then I go, okay, I have a choice. And then maybe I don't have to come back to it. And. And the one that takes your money is I. I can suck that one up a little bit more than half the other one.

The one takes one coin, but it's also a three.

First time you go through it.

Yeah.

Which I do wish it clarified that, because when I first got it, I assumed it takes half your stamina every time you go through it. And I was like, I'm only gonna have to go through this once, and I have a lot of steps left, so it's okay. I'll do it. Right.

Yeah.

And I walked through it again. I was like, wait, took it the first time. Okay.

No.

And the worst part is, is when you drop when you first put the room down, but you don't enter it. But just putting the room down, it takes half your steps. That's what it does. Like, that's how the game's working. You draft a room. If it has an immediate effect, it hits you immediately, which is good and bad. Right. Depending on the room. So. And it's important to know. To know that, because you can draft a room and not walk into it right away. And sometimes you don't want to because you do have a limited step count. I think it's 50 at the beginning of the game. And when you run out of steps, the day resets, the house resets, and it's all over again. Right.

To reduce confusion, steps are every time you go through a doorway, essentially, every time you go from one room to another, one named room to another named room, you lose a step. So it's not like you have 50 steps and you got to make it count across, you know, maybe 17 rooms, and that's your day. No, I'm going to.

I'm going to throw another caveat to that, because there. There is a point where you can go outside and walk around outside, but it's pretty much any kind of archway or entryway will also count as a step against you. So if you're like, oh, I'm just walking around outside. No big deal. Watch that, because you'll lose steps if you're passing back and forth underneath a grate somewhere.

Right. And I did that at the beginning of the game, and I assumed outside didn't mess with you, because I ran around everywhere I could outside at first, right. And it didn't take away steps from me. And I was like, okay, cool. And then later, I unlocked more outside and went through there, and I was like, wait, where'd my steps go?

Y.

And I thought it was, like, a timed thing, and I was like this. What happened? I don't get it. So I kept trying to, like, rush there and back as quick as possible, thinking it was timing, and then I started to put it together. Like, oh, no, the name changes from here to here. And that's why I'm losing a step there. Okay, fair enough.

Right? Yeah. Right. And like, you can increase your step count as you play through the the day. Right. If you pick up any kind of food item, depending with an apple, I think is plus three steps, meals can be as much as 20. So there's definitely ways to kind of get your step count up as you play through the run.

Yeah, there are definitely ways to be a walk star in this game.

A walk star? Yeah.

It sounds like a restaurant down the street.

Gosh.

But I've had days where I think the day that I actually completed this and got credits, I had used like 154 steps and I still had, I don't know, 36 remaining or something. So I had a particular good day that day, I will admit. Like, at one point I thought I was closer to beating it than I was. And then at another point I thought all was lost on a run and then later realized I didn't actually enter the antechamber when I could have. And so I literally burned through about 70 steps doing nothing when I could have gotten the item out of the antechamber and gone and done the rest of the stuff.

Yeah. And we'll say that for the last.

I could have beat it on 19 and didn't. So I was very upset with that once I realized that was the case. And it took me another seven days. By days. Usually, you know, let's. Let's say in any given roguelike or road light roguelite you play a run is what they're. What we tend to refer to them as or whatever. But in this, those runs is a day. So each new attempt at trying to complete it is a day. So that's what we say by day one. Day 17, day 33, whatever those are. Like, that's how many runs you've had.

Yeah, I've had a few pretty. Because I was runs up here today. I had a strong run and I. I had gotten to the antechamber but couldn't. Could not enter it at the point that I was at. So I was looking around, I had enough gear to do some things to do it, but I ran out of steps and I wanted to toss my steam deck across the freaking room. I am the only one. I am the only one on the podcast that has not rolled credits on this yet. The only one.

Okay.

So I'm the one who's.

To be fair, I only did it today.

Working on it, that was.

I had four or five runs in a Row where I made zero progress on anything.

Okay, so well, if you got today, maybe that's day 25.

Day 25, day 26. I sent it to you. Let me check that in.

Something like that. So I beat it. I got credits at. And I don't want. I shouldn't say beat the game because getting credits is just, it's just, it's a goal. But it's not the only game. Yeah. And I got, I got to the credits at day 31 and chard you, you're only at day 15. So like you. You still have much, much more stuff you can do because it is.

It is a rogue.

Like elements to it. It can be beat one day.

It can't be beat. It's impossible.

But the more you play it, the more you unlock to make things easier. So like it's hard now. Like there is a Steam achievement in this game and I think it's on console as well. One of the Achievos says beat the game in the first day. So it is possible, I guess to beat this game in one in game day.

I don't know how.

I don't know how either. But I think when I look at people playing it on Reddit and whatnot, the average seems between day 20 to day 30 plus. So like, it's not like you beat this game in the first couple runs. It's a roguelike. It takes time to get to the end credits and it's more of the journey with this game than anything else. It's not necessarily the goal.

Yeah.

So, I mean, so like Wolf, you.

Said dungeons easier than this game.

Well, it is not an easy. It is a difficult game. Right? It is a difficult game in that it's. There's definitely a resource management aspect to it, which I wasn't expecting how deep that goes. Right. Because I mean, maybe to explain a bit, there's. There's keys to open some locked doors. Some doors are locked, some aren't. There's gems which you can use to draft when you get the three rooms to draft. Some of them may have gem costs. Better rooms have gem costs. And then there's coins, there's money. Right. Which you can use for the stores. And the difficult thing when you first start out is that there's. That everything resets on the beginning of the day and you have to accumulate resources to kind of proceed. But as you play it's a roguelike, you eventually make things easier in that regard. So it is definitely a game that gets easier the more runs you do. And there's times when my runs were 10 minutes and for me, I didn't look at it as I lost rng. I look at it as well. Did I get any kind of clue or did I get any bit of backstory or lore in the game? Like did I find a new book or a note or letter that tells me some story that to me was good enough? And I'll explain in the last half of the episode a bit. Another goal I had where I didn't feel like a run was wasted and if it was like five or five ten min, It's. It's so quick to just pick up and do another run right away. And it's. I didn't feel it was that impactful to me. So I didn't, I didn't mind. I didn't call it a failed run, a waste of time. I just kind of rolled with it and that was just, I guess, the way I looked at it.

So I, I want to say I've had fail runs that I refer to as a waste of time because I did not discover anything new. The run took me 30, 40 minutes and I got near the end and couldn't get into the antechamber for one reason or another. Usually because of bad RNG, not pointing the direction I need the doors to go.

That. That was my big thing.

Yeah.

And I will touch on that a little bit. There's an item in the game called a compass. That thing is fucking useless.

Yeah, no kidding.

Says it makes doors more likely to point north.

Oh, is that what it's supposed to do?

Yeah, that's what it is supposed to do. No, it doesn't. Okay. So I was at rank eight, which is the eighth, the eighth row up from the bottom. Right, Right. You want to get into the ninth row or you know, a door. Anti chamber door from the eighth row up, whatever. But I had both sides of the antechamber opened. I just had to get up to it on one side. I had three attempts to make a door go north and I had a compass. Guess what? Didn't happen.

Okay, you didn't go north.

How many doors went south? Oh, all like probably seven out of the nine.

Yeah, that's. That's. There is definitely RNG there. But part of it too, I feel like is when I say deck builder elements, I mean that in that all the rooms you get. Of which it's basically 45ish. Right. In a. Think of it as a deck of cards and you're drafting them as you build your house and Once, for the most part, once you've used a room, it's gone. There's exceptions to that. It's a video game but so it pays off. If you, for example, draft the closets or the single dead end rooms in the corners on the bottom of the map, use those red rooms that you can manage in the beginning. Put them in like I'll put the chapel near the beginning so I'm not constantly going in and out of it and losing money. I'll put the, you know, the bathroom which is useless. Red room does nothing. I'll put that in a corner so that you know it's there. Or I'll put the closets not. I won't cut off, you know, if I have a three way pathway to take, I won't close off one of those pathways with the closet right away. I'll try and explore a bit more and use more rooms and I try and weed out the rooms I know are not going to be useful the top of the map early. So I can manage it and that's, that's why I do. And by doing that, for the most part I've been okay at the top of the map. Getting to the antechamber on the side I want. Not all the time for sure, but more often than not I do. And then there is there, like you said, there's ways to manage and get rerolls in the game. Like there's items that you get even early on in your playthroughs that will help you reroll draws and whatnot. And that does make it easier. But there's definitely luck involved. Absolutely. For sure.

Yeah. There's also ways to sort of enhance your next days run.

Yeah.

There'S a couple of rooms. One that lets you start with extra gems the next day. One that lets you start with extra steps the next day. Is there a money one? I don't know if there's a direct like add money to your pockets the next day room. But there is a way to increase the money you start with. And I say that because I have 13 allowance on the every day.

Yeah.

So.

So there's a. There's a couple advanced rooms but I'm going to save it for after we. We give our impressions and I'll talk about. Yeah, it's like overall. It's overall wolf. Then like would you still keep playing this game? You saw credits today. Do you think you'd.

Oh, I'm still gonna keep playing because I have seen like if you look around you can spot other puzzles that you can't access yet, or puzzles that you can, but you don't have the answer to yet as you progress and open up new areas.

Okay.

And so I've got like 1, 2, 3, 4, maybe like 7 or 8 goals right now after rolling credits.

Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty much my take on it as well, is when I got to credits, I think I still had 10 or so rooms on the. Because you have a directory. Rooms in your. On the option screen so you can see what you've explored. There's still at least 10 that I had unexplored, I'd never even seen before. Lots of rooms that were completely new to me when I stumbled across them. There was, when I got credits, at least five puzzles I wanted. I genuinely wanted to solve and go and do. So there's that. But the more I played it post credits, I found something. I found one item that adds a bunch of rooms to your deck. And I found out each one of those rooms has its own puzzle that's part of a larger puzzle at play. And when I saw that, my mind was blown. I'm like, this is going to take me 10 hours to solve, but I want to do it. I want to solve it. So I'm pretty invested in the game. For me, it's just like the careful design of the rooms. I think the graphics really do well for this kind of game. The atmosphere, I think, is on point. It's not a horror game, but it's definitely atmospheric and there's definitely tension involved, especially when the steps are dwindling and like, you know, you pass the kitchen five rooms back, you could probably make it, but. But if you keep going, you might be able to get something on the way, and you want to keep going and making that push, that. That push, that risk reward mechanic is really on point. But even the music, like, the. The higher you go in the map, the better that, like, the music becomes more intense and more. More impactful. There was some cutscenes that were, like, out of nowhere to me that are very mysterious and awesome. But just for me, there was a story that is told in the mansion. Even every bedroom you come across, there's notes and books and diaries, and it all gives you pieces of a larger puzzle. There's history about the land and the world you're in, which is pretty wild. And I thought, oh, this is neat world building. But once you get credits, some of the stuff you find later on, you realize this is probably part of other puzzles that you can unravel, and that's really freaking rad. There is a lot here and like, Even now, like 25 hours in, it's just there is more and more stuff I'm seeing that I just. I genuinely want to solve. And that's. That's pretty rare for me. This is like, I go back to Inscryption and Tunic, which I think is games that we mostly. That most of us liked on the podcast. Like, Tunic was one of those games where you beat the end boss, but there's a whole other meta puzzle and I beat that meta puzzle. But there's a stuff even further, deeper down that road I did not want to touch because it was too much for me. But the deeper, wider puzzle in this I actually want to engage in. Right. Like Animal well, was another game right. With this. I think I liked it a lot. I think, well, if you were like hit or miss on it. But there was like a end game after credits puzzle in Animal well, that was neat, but it wasn't enough to hook me. Like, this game is like Blueprints has its hooks in deep for me in terms of what I want to peel back on this game, so.

Oh, yeah, I am. Oh, yeah, Go ahead. Chard.

Yeah. You haven't really said much, but we want to hear. I want to hear your thoughts because I feel like you. You probably want to bounce off this game.

No, I don't. I don't. I actually don't want to bounce off this game at all. But it is. I share Wolf's frustration of the RNG aspect of the game that. That drives. Drive me insane. I. I get annoyed when I get, like the same eight rooms every single run that I do, and I don't see anything new and I don't catch anything new. When I get like one or two new rooms, I'm like, oh, cool. Something like, like Jake said, what did I learn on this run? What did I open up? What did I unlock? Because you do unlock some things that are permanent if you get to them, and they are very helpful. There's certain rooms that will help mitigate bad rooms. There's certain rooms that'll help do all this other stuff, and you can kind of launch those at the beginning of each run if you choose to do so at certain times. So when I unlocked that thing, that was like a big. A big win. I was like, okay, cool, I can do this all the time. But then, of course, all those rooms are randomized and you may not get stuff you want out of that room either. So it's like, it's A gamble. And it's. It's fun. I really enjoyed this game. This was not something. When. When Jake had mentioned it and described it at first, he described it as, this is like our. Well, it's not our generations, because Myst is our generation, but this is like this generation's mist. Right. This is the kind of the game that we grew up playing. 3D art, puzzle solving. There's no risk of death, but there is risk of failing. You know, and.

Yeah, and.

But you. You know, it takes the roguelike element or the roguelite element of the restart, where you get to restart and do it over again and keep playing ad nauseam until you solve the puzzle or whatever. That dartboard. I must have hit my head against the wall for hours just trying to solve it as it stood, because I. I'd click on it, and it would change, and I'm like, oh, all right. I'm already onto something here. And I'm not even. I wasn't even close. Like, I wasn't. Didn't know it had any mathematics to it. I just was looking. I was looking at directions. I was looking at patterns. I wasn't looking at arithmetic when I was trying to solve that one. So I just keep hitting my head against the wall. And then the box gems, which is one of the earlier puzzles you get that tells you, like, two. One's a truth, one's a lie, and one always has the die or gems in it kind of thing. I don't know how many times I felt that one going by going, none of this makes sense. I don't know how to get the riddle, and. And I don't like games that make me feel stupid. That's why I play Dark Souls, because I just hit my head against the wall till I win. No, I know that's. You can't.

I will say there. So there is a room that lets you up. Well, there are ways to upgrade some of your rooms.

Yes, I did solve one of the. I did get one of those items that helped make those make that a little bit easier.

I've probably had five to seven of those now.

Okay.

But one of them that I got to upgrade was that parlor with the box puzzle. And one of the upgrade choices was to give me two attempts at those boxes.

Oh, that's cool.

Okay.

So I picked that one.

Did you?

I have failed it once since doing that.

Nice. I took the one that gives you an extra gem. Personally, I wanted the extra gem because I've been pretty good with that one. It's not math. So I was pretty good at the riddles on that one.

So generally I would say yes, but sometimes it's so vague that it's just not really possible and you're still left guessing.

Some of the ones I'm getting now, it's like, one will say, like, the blue box has the gems, and then the blue box will say the. The white box has no gems, and then the black box will be, like, blank or something. Like, it's. It seems like such a silly thing.

That are missing gems.

Yeah. Or there's one where it's like any. Any box that has blue in the word change to black. Right. Like, it gets pretty creative with the variations in this puzzle, because this is another one. Like the. The two puzzles that change every run are the dartboard and the. And the three gems. The two first puzzle rooms you get. You see them every run. For the most part, you want to do them because, you know, the dartboard gives you keys. The. The. The gem boxes keep. Give you gems, and you need both those resources. And once you got the mechanic, it's easy. Two gems, two keys. Right. So you want to do them all the time. But they do get harder. And there are some of them where I'm just like. You want to smack your face against the screen. It's awful, but it's. But it's fun. I like the riddles. I. I get it. But I'm surprised at how many variations of this puzzle has been built into this game. Like, nothing repeats. It's always something new. And that's, yeah, pretty awesome.

No, it's been good. Like, I haven't seen a single one of those phrases reused on any of those puzzles that we've gone through. So, no, I think my biggest thing.

Is very similar, but not the same yet.

I think my biggest thing is my impatience tends to win out at times. And then when I get irritated and I restart a run and I'm on day 18 after 17 was so close. I literally just throw stuff onto the map, not thinking about what it will do for me or how to position it so it will benefit me just so I can get back to wherever I was to continue on going forth. And you can't do that. You. You gotta. It's a new run, it's a new day, it's a new start, it's a new path. You gotta find a different way to get up there. You can't keep doing the same thing you've been doing. And that's my biggest thing is I get so irritated with the damn Thing because, you know, I'm in a room where I can't see what. I'm lying down and I'm so close, and I hit. I just close my eyes because you can't see which one you're picking. And it slams down. It's a goddamn red bathroom. And I want to. I want to lose my mind over it. It's just. It's ridiculous, but in a good way. It's very challenging and it is very intended. The music is very ambient. The sound effects, the graphics are beautiful. The game just really lends everything to itself in a very, very perfect way that a person like me that's more into, you know, my RPGs and my action RPGs and. And my. My murder games. This game is very. A good night, go to sleep kind of game. And that's kind of something I was looking for. Like, when I'm done with a long day at work, I could sit down and I can do two or three runs of blueprints and see what happens with it. And if I don't get to the end, then I turn off and go to bed. I'm not, like. I'm not so mad that. That I can't sleep. You know, it's like playing Binding of Isaac or Gungeon or something where I was. I was right there and that one stray bullet took me out or something that. That happens in those particular games. I think this is a fantastic game, and I'm. I'm more excited to uncover more of the lore of. Of the world and the person and the mansion itself than just beating it. And I think maybe that's my other thing is because I'm trying to dig deep before I even can get. I need to get past the house to dig deeper into the lore of itself. So I'm like. When I first started this up, I was literally looking at every picture, every drawing, taking pictures on my phone so that I have it so I can review it. I've got so many pictures of this game on my Steam Deck window, my little Steam deck window, so that I can review it later and blow it up if I need to see something. This is a really well done game. It's extremely clever.

Yeah.

And I. I would. I would recommend this to anybody who just wants to play. I don't want to say mindlessly, because you have to be very attentive to what you're doing. It's like playing chess and. And observant of what's going on, but it's not. It's not so Extreme that you're going to lose sleep over it. You know what I mean? It's not so action packed that you're like your adrenaline is going to be rushing. Like Jake said. It does get a little stressful when you see that step count going and you look at your map and you've got 10 steps and the room is nine steps away and there may be food in there and you don't want to kill your run just to try and get back to get to something. Because maybe my dumbass put one room on one side that had a door on it that needed an electronic lock. I turned the electronics locks off on the other side of the house and to get through that, that had a key card in it, by the way. I grabbed the freaking key card to get in there and I'd go all the way back across the house, turn it back on, go back over, and I lost my steps halfway through. And that was, that was a really good run. So, you know, you gotta, you have to be attentive to where you're putting the stuff down and pay attention to what each room does. I mean it's, I mean that's duh, right? But I mean it's not as duh as you think.

And like you need to be, you need to be adaptable on the fly. Like you may have a certain preference of how you attach you, you do each run where like I, okay, I love using the shovel I need or I need the hammer and I want the hammer this run. But you don't always get the same items every run and that can be a bit frustrating. But you have to be learning to kind of roll with the punches. For me, the one puzzle I was stuck on was something called the pump Room. And I couldn't do it. I said I'll try it again next time. And there never was a next time. I got credits without ever seeing that room again. And I wanted to try to tackle that room again, but it turns out I didn't need it. And that's the thing with this game is that there's multiple ways to achieve your goals and you're not always get the same, you're not going to get the same layout of the land as you normally do. And that's okay. You just have to be flexible.

Yeah, I've, I've only messed with the Pump Room. I think I've placed it twice, successfully messed with it once and I had a lot of steps that run. So I was actually able to do multiple things with the Pump Room. So you know it drains different bodies of water around the house. I was able to drain one.

I had the pool next door to me. So I was watching the water in the pool, I was like, oh, okay.

So I drained to the pool so that I could go down and get the loot.

Don't spoil anything else. Let's, let's maybe at this point let's just say that I think out of the three of us we all recommend this game then.

Yeah, I, I, yeah, it's a, it's got Charmon seal of approval. I think this is, this is a lot of fun. It just frustrates the hell out of me because I'm not good at it yet, but I will.

Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a recommendation for me. I love this game. This is one of my favorite games, not only of this year, but I think of the last five years. It definitely ranks high for me. This is, this is a great game. This is, this is up there with how much I love Tunic.

Honestly, look out, Monster Hunter Wilds, you've got a competition.

Seriously?

Actually, yeah, this is a really good game and honestly the roguelite part of it is one facet of the game. You're always going to have to to some degree, I'm guessing, partake in some of a run before you can participate in other puzzles around the property. And those puzzles are really interesting. Like I've actually got notes, I have notes that I've been taking.

Yep, you have to.

So that way I can keep track of stuff. And I also, I have a ton of pictures too. Chard. I have both.

I have 100 photos or screenshots from this game on my Steam deck. It's obscene. Yeah, I did what Chard did. Every screenshots, every step of the way, every note, every clue and I go back to them all the time. Okay, so we're gonna say that I think all three of us recommend the game. It's also like 35 bucks, which I think is a steal. It's on game pass. If you're paying for game pass, this is a no brainer. So I think anybody who has not played blueprints, you should go out and play it. All right, I want to talk about. There's a lot of folks I've seen who have bought in this game and are bouncing off it for various reasons. So I want to spend. If you're, if you have not played blueprints, please go buy it and play it and come back for everybody else who has played blueprints and you're here to Vent and tell us how much you hate this game or you're stuck and you can't get to the antechamber and you can't get credits. I'd like to give some tips. Or maybe we can talk about some rooms that we saw that are really cool. Then there might be some interactions that people are not aware of. So I stopped you at Pump Room, Wolf, because I want you to explain the pump room and explain what that does, because I think when I got credits, I never used to be vague.

About it, but spoiler warning.

Spoilers.

Yes.

Yes.

Here we go.

Okay.

Okay. So continuing with the pump Room, I was just messing with it to figure it out. At first, I didn't even bother reading the instructions. And I don't know if the room itself has instructions. I know there's another room, the library, where you can check out the instructions.

Yes.

Not the biggest fan of the library and its mechanics, but that's fine. It works. But, yeah, I just. I winged it and figured it out. And first I was able to. I was like, okay, I want to mess with this. I want to drain the pool. So I had to figure out how to drain the pool, and I wanted to see if it would actually do it because I didn't have the pool room right there. It was like five rooms away. So I drained the pool according to the little map on the side, like the little chart showing where the water was, and then went over there and checked it out, and there was loot down there. There was coins and maybe something else. I don't remember, but I thought that was neat. So I was like, okay, that means this actually does directly affect. Because this was still pretty early on for me when I found this, like, we're talking day five. You know, I just.

Just to add for the pump broom. This is going to piss Jake off. So. So my job requires me opening closing valves and stuff for work.

Okay.

I'm not kidding you.

For.

Because I got to get the flow to the proper part of my pump that I'm working on at work, right? So this thing's pretty good how it's set up. In reality, I was flipping switches, going, hey, look, that's how that should go. While following the pipes on where they need to go. Like, feeling about work right now, and I'm draining left and right, watching the levels going like, yeah, this is my job. I do this for a living.

So what. What messed me up in the pump room? And I figured. I eventually figured it out. So for those who are stuck, like me is Go behind the pumps, and there's another pump behind them. But there's also a little toggle switch where you can direct the flow from tank one to tank two. There's a third tank, depending on the room you're.

Depending on the body of water you're pulling or pushing.

Yes. Yeah, that's right. It's not for everything. And that's what's messing me up right now, is I got the pool down to, like, one step above dry. And that's my issue, is I've never been able to drain a room except for the kitchen, which doesn't even matter. So I never really messed with it very much.

But yeah.

Did you figure out what to do with the kitchen?

I had to fill the kitchen so that way I could drain the well.

The fountain, right? The fountain, yeah.

And so in draining the fountain, I had to fill the kitchen. And I was like, the kitchen has water. I was like, I guess that makes sense. But what. So I went back to the kitchen, and I looked at the faucet, and I turned it on, and I just left it running. And I walked around a little bit and left it running. And then I had enough time to go back and check, and I was like, I wonder. So I went back and checked, and sure. And, like, the water level hadn't lowered. I was like, okay, so that's not a way to get rid of water. Gotcha.

Unfortunately. And the neat thing with the pump room is whatever changes you make in the pump room do stay in effect until you change it in the future. That's one of the things that crosses the run. So I drained half the most of the pool, and it stayed that way until I came across the pump room again. But there's a couple things that are useful for the pump room, but the main one is, I think this is the fountain. You drain the fountain, which is in the front of the house, and it's one of the ways to go into an area underground. And that's where a lot of people are probably stuck playing this game, is that there's an underground, and you need to get to the underground to ultimately get to room 46.

There's a door or there's an opening if you go into the front of the the for the house. Like, you leave the house, you go in, you walk past fountain, you go downstairs, and these. There's these. Like a. A vista is the best way to describe it. And it's got those four points, the four flame things or whatever. And if you turn around, there's an there's an opening, but it's, but it's boarded up. And I was like, there's got to be a way into that. I'm assuming that's how the fountain, the word.

I think I found where that access point is on the run that I actually got credits, but I didn't have what I think I needed to be able to get through there. So I wasn't able to do anything.

Gotcha. So there's a large amount of secrets in the underground. But the thing that the takeaway, I think, for people who are stuck is there is more than one way in the underground. If I'm not wrong, there's, I think, five ways to get into the underground. The fountain is one of them. So when I got credits, I didn't go through the fountain, which I think is a common way to do it. I actually went through the tomb. So the tomb is an outdoor room. You can draft randomly. Yeah. There's a bunch of puzzles in that tomb. Yes, There's a, there's a, when you do the tomb, there's a puzzle that opens a way to get in the underground. And that's how I did it. So that's why I said, like, I've only gotten, I've only gotten through the antechamber once to get credits. I haven't seen a single puzzle in the tomb.

Yeah, I, I, I know what the puzzle is. It's the arms, right?

Yes. There's various statues. And I'll say for those who want.

To solve it, I didn't even look at them.

If you look at the statues, all the statues are different. They all are basically careers. It matches what you find in the chapel. So if you go, which is a red room, which just takes your coin every time you go into it. Next to me in the chapel, look at the stained glass windows, and it tells you what you need to puzzle out. There's also a clue in one of the books in one of the rooms that also says, hey, look at the chapel and look at the windows. So that's the neat thing with this, is that every puzzle that you're stumped on, there's a clue somewhere in the house that will tell you what to do. Right. Like, the other thing I had an issue with was there's like a bunch of safes in the house. Right. And for the most part, those safes have lore bits behind them. And the code open them is usually within that room. But I didn't know that. But there is a room you, you later draft that tells you straight up there's. When you see a safe, basically this is like the code is somewhere in the room. I don't want to give it away. So there's clues to all the hard.

I've seen a few red papers that say code to safe is this.

Yes, yes.

But I haven't.

The other thing with that is one of the first rooms you get. Security room. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. Okay.

The security room on the desk there is a notepad that says memos on red paper are false, memos on green paper are true. So if you see a red memo, it's lying to you.

Okay.

There is an exception or two and I've seen specific specifically in one case what that. Except what one of the exceptions is. And so. But I. I honestly have no clue what that. Where that exception is.

So I don't know what that room is. The note you just described in the security room, if you take the magnifying glass, which is an item that's very common.

Yeah, yeah.

You read the. You put the magnifying glass of the note, there's small text that says unless the note is handwritten, that's the exception. So it's like red is lying. Unless it's handwritten, then it's true. And it's all there on the note. So that's the thing that's wild with this game. It's all there.

It's all in there.

Guys, come on. That's why I'm saying if you're stuck in a run and you can't go any further, but you have access to a magnifying glass in some way, if you can buy it, you know, in the commissary, it's worth going through and looking at the notes with it because there's shit there. And that's one of the things that chard you mentioned. There's like a little tutorial slip in one of the rooms. I think it's the nook. And it just tells you basically how to draft rooms. But if you magnifying glass over it, it tells you the clues to the dartboard puzzle. And there's lots of that examples all over the house. So the magnifying glass is like an important item and you want to use it in every single room if you can and keep notes. This is where notes become important. So like I have notes now. Have I been to the room? Yes. Have I used the magnifying glass in the room? Yes or no? Because that is also key. So that's the thing is wild to me. The other. Because that's one of the notes that you see in the house. It tells you. It says west indoors are more likely to be locked or something. But it's in red, which means it's false. So the other tip for this game, if you're stuck, if you're. If you're ever having issues with keys, go to the west side of the house instead and explore there. You're less likely to encounter locked doors. The higher you go, the more locked doors you get. But the west side will be less on, will be less locked. That was one of the things I took away. You had mentioned key cards charred. That's something that everybody should be doing early on. With the security computer is there's a lock, there's an option to change tinker with electronic locks, you can make it so that locked doors or electronic locks show up more frequently or you can make them show up less often. You can also choose the default lock behavior when the power's out. So you had mentioned that you can turn the power off and on. Yes. So on the security computer, you can make it so that when the power goes out, all electronic locks are turned off.

That makes sense because I didn't add those two together. I just. Every time I saw them, I turned them off, thinking, well, if they're off, then that means I can go through them. And then this one today that I lost because I ran out of steps because I had to run across the house to turn back on because I had a goddamn key card screwed me. So there's things that again, you're learning as you play, right?

Yeah. So like if you have a key card, then then it makes sense to go to the security computer and make it so that more electronic locks appear. So it's that security to maximum. So you have more electronic locks because you can open them. And the avers. And same thing. If you have a. If you find the circuit breaker early on and you can disable the power to the locks, then make sure you're on the security computer. You turn that, that locks will be off. So, like, you can tinker with that. That saved me a lot of headache in a lot of my early runs by tweaking the locked doors issues. That's cool. But so I really want to express to people who are stuck in this game, paths are. There's definitely different paths to get to the end of the game. Right. We said there's the underground, which is a big part of it. There's definitely multiple entrances to the underground fountain tomb. There's a bunch of Others actually the antechamber itself. Like, as for all of us who played, there's three ways into the antechamber. There's three different doors. Each of those doors is opened by a lever. Right. Have you guys seen all three levers yet or.

No, I've only seen one. I only found the one.

I believe so, but I never remember where any of them are. Except the one in the garden.

Yeah, that's the only one I've seen. It's funny you mentioned that, because the Secret Garden is how I did it. That's how I got credits. But I feel like I've stumbled upon the Secret Garden. Right. It's a key you use at a certain spot, and you get this green room that has. Has one of the levers. The other two, for folks who are probably stuck not with the Secret Garden, is the greenhouse. The greenhouse has a lever plain sight, but you need a broken lever piece to get to work. So I feel like a lot of people will go to the greenhouse as their first way to get to the antechamber. The other way to do it is the a room called the grand hall, which is a crazy wild room that has seven doors, four of which are actual exits. But the other doors are compartments, and there's lots of cool stuff, like items and stuff in there. But one of them is a switch to the antechamber. So that's the thing.

That's right.

So if you don't get the Secret Garden key in a run, you have the greenhouse. You also have the Grand Hall. The grand hall sucks if you don't have a lot of keys. But there's another room you get fairly decently. It's called the foyer. And if you draft the foyer room, which is another hallway, it ensures all hallway doors are unlocked. So if you can get the foyer and then get the grand hall, the grand hall will be completely unlocked and all the stuff is there for you. So, like, it's like cool combos like that are really, really worthwhile. I know you mentioned the upgrade bits where you can upgrade rooms. The first upgrade, like what I had access to, it was like the dartboard. It changes the billiard room into the speakeasy, and it just makes it. So the dartboard now does easy math problems. I could not have turned that on fast enough. So I don't have to do the squiggly line math anymore on that stupid dartboard puzzle. I don't get maybe some of the better rewards that you can get from upgrades, but I thought that was Worth it. So I thought that was neat, but.

I thought, over here, upgrade for that room.

Yet over here, promoting synergy like a boss.

You have to. This is. But this is the thing, right? One of the cool. One of the first upgrades I got, I think the first one I did get was you have the nook, which is basically a corner room that gives you a key. I took the reading nook, which I think, Wolf, you took the same thing. And I love that one because what the reading nook does is it ensures that when you. If you have the reading nook, when you go to the second door in that room, it always gives you the library as one of your draft options. The library is great because it gives you a higher chance of a rare room to pull on that door. So it's like a neat combo reading nook in the corner. You get the library. Library usually leads you to something else. If you have gems. And that's. And that's the thing. The gems is what can hit you. So there's like a lot of great room combos that I thought are really good in this game.

I have a question about an item, since we're in spoiler territory. The wrench that allows you to change the commonality of something or the rarity of something. You want to turn everything common. Right. And then maybe turn like. Like the gym, like, into a rarity so that you don't get it as much. Is that where my head. That's where my head goes.

It doesn't work on every room. It only works on rooms that are marked with a gear. Right.

But does that make it more common? If I kick it to the common.

Yes.

Levels, will I get it more often?

I did that with the laboratory, and so I see the lab all the time.

Okay.

Yeah.

I made it common. And I love messing with the experimental features.

Yeah, me too.

So to the point now where I have unlocked a way to access terminals. Once a day, I can access a terminal that hasn't been accessed yet.

Yeah.

And so if the first terminal I come across is not the laboratory, I generally access the laboratory. If I've already accessed the laboratory, if I've been in the room for a while, or like, if I've been around for a while, I will go for the office so I can spread money around. So I have ways.

Does it give you a lot of money that way?

I do it all the time. I've had it give me 16. So it can give you quite a bit. Yeah, yeah.

The. The laboratory. I didn't even think to do the experiments outside the house. That's actually a good move because that. That laboratory can basically break the game to your benefit. Right. Like the. The one I had today was the. The first trigger is if you see a red room, lose five steps then. And then I had. The second step was set your steps to 40. So every time I hit a red room, it resets my steps to 40. So basically a whole lot of steps for that run. It was pretty awesome. I've seen the one that will increase your allowance by one coin every time you trigger it. Another one.

I've done that quite a bit. That's why I've got 13 allowance.

Yeah. Because like, there are allowance bonuses hidden in the harder puzzles. But I feel like you get more of them from the laboratory experiments. Like that's how you break the game to your benefit. I'm just waiting. I'm trying to find. That gives you more gems. I want permanent gem upgrades. I have two each run. But I want more than that. And I don't know if that's.

That would be nice. I gotta figure out how to do that. You know, I have not set foot in the greenhouse yet.

No, I've seen it, but I haven't dropped it.

Yeah, I drafted it. Well, I. I didn't draft it. I drew it for the first time today.

Okay.

After I beat it, after I got credits, then I finally saw a greenhouse in another run.

There's definitely rooms you don't see, you just. You don't encounter. Like the. More rooms. Whenever you see a room that in their draft options that you have not seen yet, you should take it because I think. I think it leads to unlocking other rooms is way I think it works. Also, some rooms only draft on certain sides of the house. Like the garage, which is very important. Right. Because it lets you go outside for the first time. The garage is only on the west side of the house. Right. Not the east. The east, I think, has the greenhouse.

It comes with three keys. And then if you have the car key, you get more goodies.

Stuff out of the stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can unlock, like Jake said, you can open the garage door if you get power to the room. And a whole bunch of cool shit.

That goes on with that.

Yeah. That gives you access to a daily bonus kind of room.

Yeah. And that outdoor shed. One of the options there was a shrine and. Yeah. The altar. The bonuses you get from the altar. Once you know the right amount of coins to deposit, you can get a bonus for multiple days that lets you rotate rooms for gems. One that, like, affects red rooms. Another one that gives you berries that you can use for a random room, and more often than not, gives you a rare room every time. Like, there's a lot of cool stuff in that shrine, and I've done some really great runs with that. What was the one I told you earlier, Wolf? Oh, the hovel. Right. The hovel makes it so no room cost gems, but instead, it takes steps. Well, if you're. If you've stuck in the game long enough, you probably have a lot of steps. The hovel is great for exploring the house.

I want to tell you about my run, where I actually had 90 steps to start my day. And I had the hovel. So I was like, all right, I don't even need to worry about gems. I would not. The game would not give me a room to go north of the second row. It would not. It just. I got screwed at the row it was on. I was like, I had so many steps and so many ways to spend them, and you screwed me.

That's so weird. I've never. I've never had that.

This is the kind of stuff I've dealt with, which is why I hate the rng of the car drawing.

Yeah, same.

I've never been screwed that early in a run. Like, never. Like, there's always been some way to, like, redraw rooms or. Or something. Like, I'm getting the drawing studio so I can redraw rooms. Or it's the nook to the library, and the library gives me something decent. Right. There's. I've never been stuck like that on the second row.

Yeah, I ran out of steps to rank three, and I was like, what the hell? Because they're all. They're just giving me nothing but reds, and I'm trying to get pathways open, and everything else was either a circuit breaker room or a closet or a one, you know, a bedroom you can go get steps in. But the one time with no way to leave, it wasn't a pass through. I was like, what in the hell? And I was like, well, I'll take the gymnasium. It's got four doors I can go in through. Yes. Sucking your half of your out. It's like, come on, dude.

Well, it's two steps, right, for the gymnasium.

Which one is the one?

Oh, the weight room is the half your steps. That one sucks.

Yeah.

I hate that one.

That one sucks.

Yeah. But you know what's funny for me is until I saw credits, I never got the wrench. I didn't get the wrench till after credits. And I've only gotten it once, so I've only changed the rarity on. I've changed the rarity on the. The boiler room now because that's one of the rooms I wanted to tinker with. And I almost never got it, but I haven't seen it since. The other one was the workshop. So there's crafting. In this game, you can combine items. I've only seen the workshop twice, and there's a few times where I've had an inventory full of all kinds of items. I've had batteries, shovels, compasses, everything I could use to make new stuff. And I haven't gotten the workshop and it's driving me nuts. I only find it when I have nothing in my inventory. So I like, have you guys messed with that at all?

One time.

Just one time. Okay.

And it was able. I was able to make a dowsing rod by combining the compass and the shovel.

What does that do?

So I'm going to say I. I greatly prefer the shovel to the dowsing rod. But basically what it does is when you draw your three cards rooms, it'll like, wing around a bit and point at the one that's gonna have extra items.

It's neat, but I think I.

Is neat. But by the time I was able to do that, I was near the north end of the manor and I was like, that's not all that useful anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah. I've found. I have found more places to dig and the shovel twice. And every time I get the shovel, there's no place for me to dig. Every single.

Early on, I found the shovel so often that it was just ridiculous. Like, yeah, I was. Most runs, I would get either the shovel or the sledgehammer. In like, my first 14, 15 runs, I've had the sledgehammer, and in a lot of them, I got both.

What?

Yep, once.

So you know what it is? Chart is the green rooms. The courtyard is great. I love the courtyard because more often than not, there's usually a shovel or sledgehammer in that room. Every time I should.

I should probably stop trying to find paths and just use the rooms. And if I run out of paths, then get what I can out of the rooms and move on.

Yeah.

Because my thing is I. If I see a green room, but there's only one way in, I don't. I don't drop it. I. I need. I need a way out. So I get mad because I've run out of a path. And when I get to that Very last step, like, getting the red bathroom. I wanted to put my fist through my tv. I was so freaking mad, dude.

That.

Because it was. And it's in the. When you go in the dark room, which is a red room, the next room, you pick. You can't see what they are. It just has the three of them. And you pick whichever. And I was like, I gotta pick something. So I picked it. And it was the damn bathroom. And it was my last door before I ran out of doors to keep going. And I was. Oh, God, I was heated. I was heated.

But if you use the. The bathroom when you earlier on the run, like, you control when you drop it. If you can use it earlier, then you know that it doesn't come back up to haunt you later on. I think that's the big trick for the game is use those shitty rooms early so that you can kind of navigate it. Or if your room is dead early, at least you know it's early. The. The shovel's neat. Like, that laboratory is funny as hell. Like, one of the combinations. I will add dirt piles to the driveway so you can trigger it. So you're just creating a. A. Just a ton of. Of dirt holes on the driveway to dig up. The fun one was adds two chests to the front lobby. I had that one in an easy trigger. I forget what the trigger was. I think it was like every bedroom after the second spawn two chests in the front hallway. And I found, like, all the bedrooms and the aquariums I have count as all room types, so they counted as bedrooms. And I have a bunch of aquariums. So I had like 12 chests in the front of the. Of the house. And I had the sledgehammer. So I'm just whacking them open. I got so many resources, but I just sadly didn't. I couldn't do anything with those items. But I had so much from breaking the game that way. That part's really, really fun. I know there's a way to make something that lights candles. Like, there has to be, because I see several rooms where it looks like you have to light fires, like light candles as part of a puzzle. But I have not been able to find one or build anything because I haven't had the workshop enough. So that part's kind of frustrating.

Yeah. I found in the route I used to get into the basement and actually get credits, I came across a part where there was a hidden room card that I had to dig up.

A room card, really?

Yeah. It was marked on a piece of a map somewhere else. And then when I got to this side of it, I was like, this is what I've been looking for. So I wandered around, and it was just. It wasn't even a dirt pile. It was literally just a spot that you have to stand in and dig.

That's funny. Okay. Crazy.

And it found me lost and found, which is a red room that gives you two rare items, but every time you enter that room, you lose one of your inventory items at random.

Oh, good.

I'm bad. Well, you know what? That could be worth it, I think. I haven't. See, I've got.

It has its. It has its benefits, but. Yeah, that was interesting. There was something else. Oh, yeah. In the. The clockwork room. It also had another room down there that I don't know if I've actually drawn yet.

Yeah, you had mentioned about saving money and gems for future runs, so I didn't want to spoil it in the beginning of the episode, but I'll say it now. There's the freezer. Have you guys gotten the freezer yet?

I have not placed it yet, because every time I see it, I'm like, no, I don't want to freeze my funds right now.

Yeah, Right. So it locks your gems and money for the rest of that run, but then you have those gems and money for the next run, and that's. That's been huge for a few different things. I'm at the point now where there's. There's stores I've unlocked now that the cost of items and they're. They look like really awesome, unique Items is like 40, 50, 60 gold plus. And I'm like, I can't afford these, so I need ways to get money.

Every run. The showroom or something like that.

That's one of them. And then the bookstore is another one. And then there's also a gift shop, and they all have really expensive items.

I've bought a book. I've bought the first three things in the gift shop. I'm so upset because I had spent a bunch of money that I didn't need to spend, not realizing it. And then I got the showroom, and it was sale. Sale day because I had found something that made everything 50% off. And had I not spent that money, I could have afforded the master key.

Oh, which. That locks all the doors, right? All the basic doors.

Any basic locks it unlocks.

Yeah.

That'S great. I wouldn't need to worry about that. But now I was a dumbass early on and bought a bunch of gems. And then after I did It. I was like, wait, this was a stamina run. I picked the hovel. The gems are useless.

It's really cool how much you can do, but for anybody who's still listening and is stuck, there's definitely a different path. I didn't. People complain about the boiler room because you use it to power up other rooms, Right? There's a puzzle in the laboratory you can't do without power. So, yeah, the boiler room will let you do power, but you have to place it and line up rooms, and that can be very frustrating. It's not the only way to power up rooms. There was other ways to power up rooms, but I beat. I got credits. I got to stop saying beat the game, but I got credits without using the boiler room at all. Like, the way I did it was literally, I found the secret garden key I kept in my coat check until the run was lining up where it would be useful. I used it. I got the antechamber, and I used the. The tomb to go underground, and I beat the game, and that's how I did it. But there's so many ways in the underground. There's so many ways in the antechamber. There's multiple ways to win this game. And I think people get too stuck on the boiler and that RNG thing because it does not pop often. People are right. It's rare.

Yeah. Well, what is? Because the boiler, it looks like you can send the power three directions. The only one I know about is the lab. And doing that, I think, opened up the ability to access other terminals. Right.

So it does. A lavatory is one. If you can supply power to the furnace room, that does something for you. And, like. And the way. And what's kind of weird is that.

No, I placed it once, and I was like, this is useless.

Well, what's weird is useless, if you.

Freeze your funds and you drop the furnace, it'll unfreeze your funds.

Yes, but you still get the bonus. You still get the bonus for the next run, but you've unlocked it. You can keep going. But, yeah, the furnace also does something else on top of that. And the freezer room, if you get heat to it, gives you stuff. So there's. There's that combination. But what's weird about those room, the boiler room, though, is you have to look at the ceiling of all rooms. Not every room will carry power. There's, like, ducks, and you can. You can see the ducts. Like, the hallways have it, red rooms have it, but not every room has it. So you're trying to build a path with the boiler is very frustrating. So, like, the other way.

Is that how that worked?

Yes, that's how it works. And that's why people. That's why people get pissed off. Because to line up the room is a whole other level of rng. But you don't need it, though. But you can do it.

No. And I. Apparently, I just lucked into it because I was like, all right, clearly the power is going one of three directions here. So I just, like, I tried one of them, and I ran over to the lab, and there was no power. So I ran back to the boiler room, tried a different one, ran back to the lab. It had power. I was like, all right, that's. I don't know how I was supposed to know, but I did it.

Yeah, it's totally. If you looked in the rooms, you'll see the ducts, and they'll tell you if power is going through that room. That's freaking funny. But, yeah, I've only gotten the boiler room a couple times, and I see that people look at that room thinking, oh, I must power things up to use the extra pump or the extra reservoir tank in the pump room. Yes. That's one use of the boiler room, but you don't need it. There's ultimate pathways. Even the. I won't say where, but even the basement portion of the game where you need to go to the basement to get the final room unlocked, even that thing is one of several ways to open the last door in the antechamber. There's other ways to do it, but you need to look at item crafting and other features. So there's definitely multiple paths to beat this game, which is good because the game is hard. And I'm at the point now where I realize how rare it was for me to get the tomb, unlock that pathway, and get the secret garden key to get to the antechamber. And now having that all line up for me in one run was pretty. Pretty awesome. But I don't know if I'm going to get that again, so I have to figure out the pump and the reservoir and all that stuff.

I have a question for you, if we're not opposed to talking about this, because the way you beat it, the way you got credits, sounds very different than the way I got credits. You used the tomb to get to the basement.

Yeah.

Where does that spit you out in the basement?

I'm trying to think of. It's like it's on the one. It's on the One side next to the cart. I think it's next to one of the minecarts. Because I had a. Less. Yeah. Because I had issues. I had issues trying to go through the fountain and through the. The foundation elevator. Whereas with the tomb, I was able to go around all that stuff because. Yeah, there's an issue with the minecarts I had with the foundation. Yeah. Because one of the things. The underground is there's a lake and there's a boat, and I've never used the boat. I've never had a reason to. Because with the tomb on one side and the foundation elevator on the other, I was able to go through both sides. It took some walking, but I was able to do it. And that's how I got through the game.

I want to explain that I've been to the basement.

I didn't take my earbud out, but there's so much shit that I am completely missing.

It won't help you charge. It's confusing no matter how much, you.

Know, I'm sitting here like deer in the headlights right now.

What? So I. The first time I got to the basement was through the fountain.

Was it? Okay.

And I wasn't able to access the chamber with the puzzle to get to the. Like to open up the last part to get to the antechamber again.

Yeah.

I wasn't able to do that from there. There was a cart blocking my path.

Yes. So how you're supposed to do it. Did you take the foundation elevator?

I didn't have the foundation at that point.

Okay. Okay.

The first time I got there, I hadn't seen the foundation yet. It was day nine, and I was like, hey, cool. I'm making great progress. And I got down there, and there was nothing I could do. I had moved the cart. I think I took pictures of a couple things because that's how I found the information about the secret. With the magnifying glass.

Yeah.

The lost and found room. And then the second time I got to the basement was through the foundation, and doing that got me to the other side. The cart was still moved. So I was able to just go in through there. The cart was out of my way. I was able to solve all that puzzle and go get the. Go open up door 46.

So I want. So then moving the minecart persists from run to run is. Must be what it is. So then that might make things a little bit easier. Maybe I did that because I've been. I made several trips to the underground just messing around. I must have Moved the minecart to make a future run easier by accident. This game is just full of headaches.

Yeah. I saw that there was like a doorway ahead of the minecart and then there was this doorway to the left. And the doorway to the left seemed like it was something important, but I couldn't do anything from it from here. So I pulled the minecart back like, okay, maybe this will stay. And sure enough, it stayed. So it's. There's. There's a lot to this game.

Yeah.

There are about so many puzzles. There are. Have you guys seen. What is his name? Al Zahra.

Have you seen the rumpus room yet? Have you used the machine?

I've used the machine, yes.

Yeah. So I've seen a few of those cut scenes.

Four of those now.

Have you?

I don't know what any of them are, but they show locations that are like, I've not seen this location, but it looks like I'll be able to get there at some point.

Yeah. And I've never seen them. Right. I haven't seen them either. Yeah.

The fact that it's showing these things, these premonitions and like I don't understand what's happening in them. One of them, it looked like it was something from way in the future. Like I don't like that. Must be some weird meta ending or something.

Yeah, there's. There's a lot of cool stuff in the underground that don't. That does not make sense. Like there's these red letters you can find in certain really off the beaten path situations. I've gotten a few of those and those have a lot of really interesting lore stuff. I won't say it here, but that's what hooked me on the game now is post credits is I want to unlock the rest of the lore. I want to hear more of the story and it's. It's interesting. The one thing I know we're going long but the. There's. Every room has a chess piece. Have you guys all have both seen that and have you been keeping notes in them?

No.

Have you guys not kept.

Not.

So you want to keep notes of every. You want one of every chess piece. You want to know what room has that chess piece and a note somewhere because that will come into play later on. That was a cool ass puzzle. I'm still trying to get. I know what to do for it, but I'm still trying to find rooms that have a king piece and I've only found one. So like getting, getting a setup on my map with all the different chess pieces has been challenging, but I know what to do when I have that lineup for me. But that was really rad to see those because I noticed, like, the nook has a rook, and like, you know, the security room has a night piece and, like, pawns everywhere. And, like, I know that means something. So I was screenshotting them all and keeping notes. I'm glad I did. The other one is every room has two drawings. You guys have probably seen those. Have you guys messed with that at all?

I have most of it solved.

Okay. So I haven't started solving yet, but I've been taking notes, trying to figure it out. But that's another puzzle where even if a run is doomed, just capturing which spot on the board has what drawings. I feel was worthwhile to me to kind of note down these things. And again, these are all puzzles that are not part of the credits. They're not part of the main game goal at all. They're just all other stuff. And that's just so weird to me. It's great.

I have four rooms I have not been able to solve, and I have no clue what those clues are. But given that I've solved everything else, I've kind of deciphered it.

Yeah.

Like, at this point, I'm at the tail end of a wheel of fortune. And so.

There'S definitely some puzzles where you can just, like, brute force it. Right. Like, even the dartboard, like the math I'm at now were the stupid squiggly lines and whatnot. And I thought I was real smart until I hit the six squiggly lines. And it took me forever to figure that one out. But there's a point where I just brute force it until, like, okay, not this one. Catch back up again. Not this number. And I went around the wheel until I figured it out. Like you sometimes you brute force the puzzle. There's one where you have these statues you have to place in a certain order. And there's riddles on all of them. I had, like, three quarters of them I figured out on my own, but there's, like, a couple I couldn't figure it out. So I'm just messing with them, shuffling around. And eventually I got the. I got the thing open. So I don't feel bad about Bruce forcing some of this stuff. I've only had to spoil one puzzle in the game so far, and I won't say what, but it's the gallery.

I had to spoil that same puzzle. And honestly, there was no way I was going to solve any of those. Even the first one I thought I had, I didn't.

Yeah.

And there was no way I was getting that. I was like, nope, this. I was not going to solve these. So, yeah, Chard, don't feel bad about cheesing that one if you get there, because that one is stupid.

I feel stupid only being able to sell the damn dartboard one. I felt real good about that for a little while.

No, but, like, I think it's a game where don't feel bad if you need to look up at the answer to one of these puzzles or ask for a hint or whatnot. Because, like, there's so many other puzzles to figure out. Like, if one puzzle is. Is screwing your. Your. Your mindset on the game, just look it up. I think, honestly, there's just. There's just so much more.

I found a thing. Have. Have either of you guys seen the treasure map yet?

Yes. Yes, I found two of them.

Okay.

You found the treasure, though?

I found two, yes. Yeah.

So, I mean, Chard never finds the shovel, apparently, so that would be part of it.

I found it, like, twice. I've dug up one thing because I was like, oh, I know where there's something to dig up. And I ran down and dug it up, and it goes, there's nothing here but a hole. And I was like, you and ran away.

Is it. So do you think it's persistent, then? The treasure maps are fixed, or you think they're random?

My first treasure map I saw three times before I actually dug it up.

It was the same spot.

Yeah, mine looks a couple spots that I've been to, wondering if. If does the. Does the treasure map trigger what's in there? Or can you get there without the treasure map?

I think you have to have the treasure map and the shovel.

That would make sense. That would make sense.

That makes sense because when I got.

To that spot, he kind of whipped out the treasure map and was like.

Oh, maybe around here it triggered the.

Okay, okay, that makes sense, because that makes sense. I gotta play this guy.

Metal detector, right? The metal detector gives, like, finds other items and rooms, but the items aren't there unless you have the metal detector. Yeah, right. That was one of the things where I'm like, am I really missing gold coins everywhere? I'm like, no, I'm not.

Yeah.

Because I look now in the spot that I find them, and I'm like, yeah, never anything. And then I get the stupid metal.

Detector, and then you walk by. It's all beep, beep and I'm like you.

I was just there.

Damn it.

Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty.

Well, I got it. We gotta. I gotta play this. Let's wrap this up because. So I can smartly.

I do need to say I don't like playing it as much on the Steam deck as on my PC.

Really?

I believe that. Okay.

I don't. Like, you said it wasn't an issue, but I think sometimes the text is too small, which is what one of the asterisks is on how playable it is. And then the other thing is, I find that I don't tend to really take everything in as well because with the mouse and keyboard on a big monitor, I'm investigating and really keeping track. Track of things. And then on the Steam deck, I'm just like, eh, go this way, go that way.

Maybe that's my problem.

Like, it highlights things for me, which is like, it. It's kind of nice, but it also makes me lazier about playing.

Right. That could be my problem.

I don't know. Because, like, there's a zoom shortcut in the Steam deck. It's a steam button L1 that will zoom the screen.

Yeah.

It's a pain in the ass, though.

It is.

I play it on my tv.

Especially when I'm like the TV and.

Play it, but it's still with a controller. Like, I'm still playing with a controller. So I don't get. Like Wolf says, you're not using the mouse to look around with the mouse hand. So that would make sense because I'm turning my body, you know, with the controller, and I don't see anything that's grabbing my attention. I leave. Or if I put down a spare bedroom, I just haul ass through it because I don't think there's anything in there. Because it's a white room with a bunch of all over the place.

Yeah. The spare room. You made it into a spare bedroom.

I've made it a few. But it's just a hallway. Right. Is this the white room with.

Yeah. Spare room. You could upgrade it later to where it becomes a spare bedroom or a spare. Something else, like spare hallway or. I don't remember what the third option was. I made it a spare bedroom. And so now very often I will find a sleeping mask in there.

Oh, nice. Yeah. Because right now it's useless as a hall. It's a hallway, basically, without the upgrade. Okay.

But the amount of things that are like bedrooms, and I'm like, all right, bedrooms are great for stamina. So sure, yeah.

Hell yeah.

And the bonus is probably about one in three times. I'll find a sleeping mask in there, huh? It's. It's fairly common.

Yeah. Like, I got a roll boudoir with two dice, and those dice are godson. I use them all the time. So every time I get a boudoir, it's two dice plus a bedroom. Okay. Yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff. Yeah, there's.

Yeah, there's like.

Like I still have room.

Oh, yeah. I have a feeling that the way you beat it is extraordinarily different from the way I beat it. Is going to be extraordinarily different from the way Chard beats it. Like, it's. It's.

No, no, no. I might follow the things you guys just talked about tonight and.

Well, have you seen the foundation yet?

No, I have not.

You don't have a foundation.

Okay.

Oh, then no wonder you're back. Chart. The foundation is like. Once you have that unlocked, it becomes a lot easier to get around. So like, because it's. It's a fixed room, so you always know where it is. Mine has the door always pointing up, which makes things easier and just. It's just always there. I don't know.

So stupid.

Well, yours is like.

Oh, I wish mine was way down there. No, mine is a T. Okay.

Mine's like row.

So that's guaranteed one room that I will never get to go north from.

Okay. Okay. Mine's higher up, which sucks, but it is on its side. So it's always. It's always like going up. So that's. That's why it's decent for me. But yeah, once you have the foundation, it doesn't move. But there's stuff around that room and there's always dig spots in there. So. And there's. It's, you know.

Yeah, I don't know.

But it's also way to the underground, right? So like, there's different ways of the underground. But yeah, like the. And like, once you get allowance and you have guaranteed coins every run, once you have the. You unlock the thing that gives you two gems every run. That makes things a lot easier. And the game gets easier the more you play it, so definitely keep at it.

Day 18.

Still hard to see that two gems thing.

Yeah. Yeah, the gems can be frustrating. Anyway, great game. Game is great. I know when we talk about game of the year, this is. This is probably gonna be one of my two picks. Like this is. This has been awesome game.

Honestly, I spent last night we. I. I told you guys, I've been Playing Gunfire Reborn with a friend of mine for a couple months now. At this point, last night, the first, like, 10, 15 minutes of our gaming session, I was telling him about blueprints, and I was like, it's probably not for you, but I think your girl would dig it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I told my wife the same thing. She goes, what are you talking about? In the episode? And I was like, blueprint. She goes, what? Like the game that I've literally been telling you about and playing on the TV the last couple of nights. Oh, this is the first time I've heard you mention it. I was like, no, it's not. It is not.

No. He said it sounded really cool. He had read articles about it. He was like, it sounds really cool, but I don't think it's for me. And I was like, yeah, I don't think so either, but I do think she would enjoy it either.

So now I'm jonesing to go find all these things you guys brought up.

Like, there's one there. When I. When I beat and got the credits, I couldn't stop thinking about the stuff that I haven't figured out yet. Like, there's a red door. Yeah. I found somewhere that I can't open, and it's just there. And I know there's probably something neat behind it, and. But I'm trying to figure. I have nothing that points me toward it. I've not seen any other keys that, you know, make sense for that door, and I want. I want to figure out how to open it. Like, there's just so much in this game, like, eight years to make this game makes a lot of sense. When you. When you realize the chess pieces, the drawings, the. The soil map.

I didn't even know about the chess pieces. Like, I don't even know where that puzzle is. The drawing room. Like, once I figured out the drawings were a puzzle, I was like, oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

And so I drew up my little chart.

Jesus God.

Started keeping track of it.

Yeah. So.

And I have to wonder where the hell the last gas line is, because I got three or four of those.

So I have all four of those. That was. That was. That was fun to do, too. And you both could probably do it. So.

Killing me.

There's a lot. No chart. It's. There's so much in this game. Like, I think I'll be talking throughout the year.

I've meant to mention this a couple times. I've been solving the. The. The answer keys for the classrooms in case that comes back up.

So that's what I meant earlier in the episode where I found a room outside. One of the. One of the options for the outside room adds eight classrooms to your. Your pile of rooms. And each one of those classrooms is its own puzzle. And I have an idea what it's for. And it has to do with, like, the. The history of the world. There's different kingdoms and the sigils and heraldry that they do. Heraldry flags, guys. Like, the colors and symbols mean something to some kind of puzzle. And I've only gotten bits and pieces of it, and I think the classrooms are part of it, but that's the kind of puzzle level you're at, where it's like, yeah, I've only. Tunic in the manual is nothing compared to what they're doing here with fucking heraldry and K histories. In a game where you're in a house, like, it's. It's weird how far it goes. It's weird.

That's the one. Like, when I get those puzzles, I have to open paint over here and start screenshotting all the. The. The sheets. So that way I could go through and compare and be like, okay, this is right, this is wrong. This is right, this is wrong. And then have an actual answer key and then take a picture of it.

It's. It's crazy. It goes so deep. Like. Like, char. This game is. Is. Goes so far. Like, it's nuts.

And I'm like, I'm just. I'm doing that because I assume ultimately it will lead to a puzzle where I need to have this information.

Yes. Because I'm pretty sure it does.

Yeah, I haven't seen it yet, but I've also only been through four grades, and I think there's eight, so.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah, it's crazy, right?

All right, guys, this is a really cool game. Highly recommend. And, like, if you have someone. If you're playing it and something stump stumps you, talk to someone else playing it, get some insights. If. Yeah, if you really get stuck on a puzzle, look it up. Don't feel bad. There's a hundred thousand more puzzles you'll get stuck on.

There's plenty of other stuff that you're good at. Like, I'm no good at math, man. So when I had the option to make the math on the dartboard easier, I'm taking it. Screw math. But there's a lot of that. Anyway, we got to wrap it up, guys. We are part of the Superpod network of podcasts. Superpodnetwork.com. there's a lot of great podcasts. Just like Press B over there. Check them out. Otherwise you can find Press B to cancel anywhere you listen to your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, fuck SoundCloud, not there anymore. And any other place you listen to your podcast. Or of course find us over at YouTube at presbyter cancel or visit our website at presbytercanced.com there's a link to our Discord Come come join us in Discord. I love talking about this game. Go talk in the channel about blueprints. Just use spoiler tags for the folks who are earlier than us. But this game is one I'll be playing throughout the year. For me, I know for you. So I think Wolf, are you doing anything that you want to shout out real quick?

No.

No charge. What are you doing up lately?

Clear Obscura Expedition 33 hits the shelves on Thursday. I will be making video recordings and putting them up on my YouTube channel to watch my first initial playthrough of one of the most anticipated RPGs coming out this year from an unknown French studio. I am so freaking excited about this game, as is a lot of the people that are talking about it in our inner circle. So yeah, you'll be seeing my first, my actual first reactions of this game as we play it. They will be recorded. They will be posted on YouTube. So I won't be doing anything live just because it's easier to post them and record it and then nobody misses anything as we play through the whole thing. If I sit and wait on it for a couple days for one reason or another. So that's what I've got coming up and I'm very, very excited to share that with everybody.

For me personally, I have my Sisyphe in game to continue my progress there. I'll probably install it, I don't know. When I beat Blueprints later this year, we are press me to cancel. Thanks everybody. Have a great week.