The Parlor is a puzzle room you can draft in the Blue Prince; each has a self-contained key-box puzzle for you to solve. Here at Loot Level Chill, we’ve spent hours poring over Blue Prince, and have a comprehensive guide to help you crack every one of these puzzles by following our simple rules. Read on to discover how to solve the Parlor puzzles in Blue Prince.
SPOILER WARNING
As with most things in Blue Prince, part of the fun is self-discovery, and below this spoiler warning we will be revealing plenty of secrets of the game. We encourage you to try and find out the solutions to puzzles on your own to get the full experience of Blue Prince. Only read on if you do not mind some of those secrets being spoiled.
Where is the puzzle?
In each Parlor, there are three boxes in a corner – a blue box, a white box, and a black box. On a table in a different corner is a Wind-Up Key, which essentially gives you access to open one box – but only one. You will need to work out which box the prize is hidden in and unlock the correct one to claim your prize.
What is the prize?
The prize for successfully completing the box puzzle in the Parlor will always be gems. You will receive two gems for opening the correct box, and the gems can be found inside. Gems are useful for drafting special, often rarer rooms which can help you on your run. So it is always worth trying to solve the Parlor puzzle.
Is there a clue hidden somewhere?
Given the nature of these puzzles, most of the information you need can be found in the Parlor itself. However, if you draft the Workshop room, you will see on the left wall a large piece of paper with the three boxes on them telling you “The true box does not always contain the prize”, which is true.
Blue Prince Parlor Puzzle Rules
Over on the desk where you can pick up the Wind-Up Key, is a note from someone discussing the game. The second page is the one you want to focus on. It discusses the following rules which you need to understand:
THERE WILL ALWAYS BE AT LEAST ONE BOX WHICH DISPLAYS ONLY TRUE STATEMENTS.
THERE WILL ALWAYS BE AT LEAST ONE BOX WHICH DISPLAYS ONLY FALSE STATEMENTS.
ONLY ONE BOX HAS A PRIZE WITHIN. THE OTHER 2 ARE ALWAYS EMPTY.
Its wording is a little convoluted (for reasons we shall discuss later) but essentially, you have three boxes, and at least one will be true, and the other false. So in any situation, you will either have two true boxes and one false box, or two false boxes and one true.
How to Solve the Blue Prince Parlor Puzzle
Now we know the setup, we need to focus on solving it. We now need to read the statements on the boxes in turn to decide not only which boxes are true and which are false, but then based on that, which box the gems are hidden in. We can then use the Wind-Up Key on the correct box.
The easiest strategy is to go over each box and assess whether it can be true or false, based on the other statements. If you work through the options, there will only be one solution of “True” and “False” boxes that makes sense with all statements. If you find contradictions, you have the wrong solution.
Take the following example:
- Blue Box: The Gems are not in a box with a unique statement
- White Box: This statement is unique
- Black Box: The Gems are not in a box with a unique statement
In this situation, because the Blue Box and the Black Box have the same statement, they must both either be true, or both false. Then if we consider what is written on the White Box, we see it say that its statement is unique, which it is, because the statements on the other boxes are different. Therefore we know the following:
- Blue Box: False
- White Box: True
- Black Box: False
If we now know that Blue and Black are false, we know that the Gems are not NOT in a box with a unique statement, meaning they are. And the box with a unique statement is White. So we should open the White Box with the Wind-Up Key.
Harder Puzzles
In a similar vein to the Billiard Room puzzles, the more Parlor puzzles you successfully complete, the hard the puzzle becomes. Mainly this is done by adding additional statements to each box. You will find that the boxes can have two (and even up to three) statements on them. In this case, the wording of the complicated rules becomes more relevant.
There will still need to be a box where all the statements on it are true, as well as one where all the statements are false. But for the third box, it is more random. They could all be true, all be false, or be a mixture of both. Despite this complication, there will still only be one logical solution to follow for which box the gems are in. It will just take a lot more thought and consideration.
So now you know how to solve the Blue Prince Parlor Room puzzle.
