You may have noticed whilst exploring the many rooms in Blue Prince, that in almost all of them, somewhere, are two hand-drawn pictures. As you dive deeper into your adventure you’ll begin to suspect that very little in the game is there by accident, and so you might be wondering for the reason for them all. Well, after spending far too many hours with Blue Prince, we’ve got the solution for you, and it’s wild, and is a perfect example of just how well-crafted a puzzler Blue Prince is. So read on to discover the secret behind all the Pictures 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.
Please bear in mind that some of these spoilers are for later in the game than some of our other guides, and spoil significant puzzles and areas you may not have discovered on your own. You have been warned.
What Blue Prince Pictures are we talking about?
In almost every room in the mansion, including the Entrance Hall, you will see a pair of hand-drawn pictures on white paper. An example of this is those in the Nursery at the top of this page. When you first started playing you may have only noticed them occasionally, but they are everywhere, and always two pictures. So why are they there and what do they mean?
Draft the Study
Given the nature of this grand puzzle, we at Loot Level Chill, do encourage you to try and solve it on your own. As such we recommend drafting the Study and having a good look at everything in that room. It refers to the puzzle in general and gives a few clues as to how to piece it together.
If you are still stumped or don’t mind things being spoiled, then read on.
The 9×5 puzzle
In the Study on the blackboard, a puzzle is drawn out on a 9×5 grid. Where else have you seen a 9×5 grid? That’s correct, it corresponds to every square on your blueprint. It also ha one letter marked in – that corresponds to the Entrance Hall – the letter F. And then it an arrow leading to it reading:
Face & Ace
The puzzle here then is to take the two pictures in each room and deduce how they are one letter different from each other, and that is the letter to put in that square.
So if we take the example of the below image from the Billiard Room, we can see pictures of a Stag and a (dog) Tag. So the letter that separates the two is “S”. So wherever this room is on the 9×5 grid, that square should have “S” put in it.
NOTE: The pictures are specific to their placing in the 9×5 grid. So if you drafted, say a Parlor one day in the bottom-left corner of the 9×5 grid, it would have two pictures in it, and then if the next day you drafted the Storeroom there instead, it would have the SAME two pictures, just in the Storeroom this time. So it means each square on the 9×5 grid has its own letter, irrespective of the room.
Blue Prince Pictures Puzzle solution
So if you work your way through every square on the grid, and put down a letter each time that separates the two images, what do you get? Well, you get the following cryptic message:
“If we count small gates, eight dates crack eight safes”
What does the solution mean?
ADDITIONAL SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
Well, the brilliance of the solution is that it actually applies to so many other puzzles in the game, not just a single thing. See below the list of references:
- It tells you that each Safe code can be cracked with a date – check out our Safe guide for more info on this.
- It tells you we must “count small gates” which is a big clue to help solve the Drafting Studio Safe.
- There are not technically eight safes in the game, but if you count small gates (of which there are two – the Apple Orchard being one) as well, you do get to eight safes.
- “Small gates” is a wordplay on “small gaits”, which is a big clue to help solve the Drawing Room Safe.
So now you know what all the pictures mean as you make your way through Blue Prince.
