The developer of a game called Blue Prince knew exactly what to say to me

Sometimes you get to try out an upcoming game...and the meeting goes perfectly.

Entering the mansion in Blue Prince. Screenshot: Dogubomb, Raw Fury (captured by Game File)

I knew the upcoming architecture puzzle game Blue Prince would be my kind of thing when I was speaking yesterday to its lead creator, Tonda Ros, and asked him how he determined that the title of the game was a good pun.

“Because it’s a triple entendre,” he said.

Wait. What? I thought it was just a double.

“You’ll find out the triple as you play,” he said.

Blue Prince, a game about blueprints (and apparently a third thing), is a first-person puzzler that I’m already breathlessly telling people might be 2025’s Animal Well.

By that, I mean it appears to be another interactive nest of secrets, a game that isn’t what you think it is and whose creator has been hard at work for years setting up all the mysteries.

Animal Well was a side-scrolling game in which you, a jumping bean, explored caverns full of critters and secrets.

Blue Prince (PC/Mac, releasing this spring) is about a young man who will inherit a 45-room mansion, just as long as he can solve the mystery of its rumored 46th room.

No spoilers, but here’s how it works, to the extent that I understand what’s really going on…