Puzzles typically call to mind the image of a single person sweating over a problem, trying to find a solution by careful observation, organization, and deduction. Given how internal the struggle is, it’s hard to imagine that a puzzle game could form a spectacle worthy of drawing in viewers. Yet Blue Prince, a new title combining escape-the-room style puzzle gameplay with roguelike elements, seems to have cracked the code for engaging an audience on live-streaming platforms.
Even more strangely, the game seemed (to many) to have come out of nowhere. Blue Prince holds a Metascore of 92 (the highest of any game so far this year) and is already garnering support for a Game of the Year nomination at this year’s The Game Awards – just take it from previous GOTY nominee LocalThunk. Even more amazingly, Blue Prince is developer Dogubomb’s debut title (a team headed by director Tonda Ros), being published by Swedish indie video game publisher Raw Fury (known for adventure/exploration games like NORCO and Sable). Despite this, the game is putting up viewing figures on live streaming comparable with AAA titles – let’s take a look at how this underdog achieved such incredible numbers.
Even as Original IP, Blue Prince Immediately Grabs Live-streaming Attention
First off, it’s worth outlining how successful Blue Prince was on launch. In its debut week, Blue Prince brought in 4M hours watched with a peak viewership of 72K. To put 4M hours watched in perspective, Krafton’s latest game inZOI pulled in just 1M more hours watched in its first week, and that was with a far grander marketing push, a week of advanced access, a Twitch Drops campaign, and, of course, the reputation of a mega-successful publisher behind it. The peak viewership for Blue Prince wasn’t as impressive, but that’s most likely due to a delayed wave of hype as streamers slowly adopted the game. In a moment, we’ll see how Blue Prince still managed to be a launch day success even without loads of marketing.
Aside from the initial success, the reason for other streamers jumping on the bandwagon is largely down to a clever mix of game mechanics. Blue Prince has many elements: It’s certainly a puzzle game, but this comes with mystery elements (from its gradually unearthed narrative), escape-the-room-style problem solving, and a roguelike gameplay loop. The roguelike element is particularly intriguing, with players exploring a mansion by choosing which rooms appear behind closed doors. This echoes exploration in many board games like Betrayal at House on the Hill – unsurprising since Jewels in the Attic was one of Tonda Ros’ key inspirations for the game. Crucially, this roguelike element means no two runs are the same, increasing the incentive for viewers to watch on live streaming.
Twitch streamers and their audiences alike were attracted to this kind of gameplay. Almost all of the top 10 streamers in Blue Prince’s debut week were on Twitch, led by CohhCarnage and Northernlion with 313K and 242K hours watched, respectively. PirateSoftware followed soon after, having sprung to prominence in 2024 with a reputation for analyzing great games as a game developer himself. The only real outliers in this group were the two French streamers, Laink and AntoineDaniel, in the top 10 (a rare occurrence), and one English-speaking VTuber on YouTube Gaming, Koseki Bijou. Being a member of Hololive, it’s possible Blue Prince could gain traction with other Hololive members in the coming weeks.
Blue Prince Proves High Profile Support + Good Gameplay = Mass Awareness
CohhCarnage and Northernlion’s high positions in the top 10 are no coincidence. While there were other streamers interested in Blue Prince, these two had viewers actively invested in them playing the game, hyping it up even prior to release. On the 7th of April, three days before the game was set to release, daily chat mentions of “Blue Prince” jumped 5X largely thanks to mentions on CohhCarnage and Northernlion’s channels. This was the first real sign of the game having live-streaming appeal, having previously sat at just a few dozen daily chat mentions. Chat mentions then took off on release day, rising into the thousands, before receiving a second wave of support on the 14th of April as word spread and other big streamers learned the humble puzzle game could attract a decently-sized audience.
Was there any earlier way to predict the game’s success? For that, we need to dip back to June 2024 when the game saw 178K hours watched thanks to Blue Prince’s Steam Next Fest demo. The main streamer supporting the game back then was – you guessed it – CohhCarnage: Following a stream sponsored by Raw Fury, the game stuck with Cohh and converted him into a passionate advocate for the game when it fully released. Outside of live streaming, a similar effect took hold with influential figures in the gaming community supporting the game, including game journalist Jason Schreier and PlayStation BAFTA winner Shuhei Yoshida. Glowing reviews for Blue Prince’s demo from IGN and Eurogamer certainly helped, and puzzle game enthusiasts (the most likely advocates for the game) were assured of its quality by puzzle-loving community Thinky Games. In summary, then, it took great gameplay and consistent support from key influencers (on live streaming and off) to remind people that Blue Prince was a must-play game upon its release.
Puzzle Games Open Up New Avenues For Engaging Live Streaming Audiences
As mentioned earlier, puzzle games lack the hallmarks of the typical live-streaming-friendly game. There’s no PvP competition, the gameplay is slow-paced, and they have little to no replayability. Blue Prince at least addresses that last point: The roguelike gameplay loop increases the game’s duration and makes repeated runs necessary to beat the game (with hidden lore encouraging players to complete even more runs for 100% completion). It may be this replayability that led Blue Prince to soar while highly similar titles like last year’s Lorelei and the Laser Eyes only brought in 372K hours watched in its first month (despite equally positive reviews). Ironically, negative Steam reviews actually pan the game for forcing you to rely on RNG runs to complete puzzles even when you’ve already found the solution – yet it’s precisely this Gacha-like RNG appeal that seems to have hooked streamers and their audiences.
Let’s take a look at a wider sample of puzzle games in the same vein as Blue Prince, though. All of the selected games are 3D puzzle titles with escape-the-room-style mechanics (rather than, say, Match-3 puzzle games and the like). Among this group, we notice just a few titles with significant hours watched in their debut months: Blue Prince (4.5M so far), Inscryption (3.3M), and The Talos Principle 2 (1.1M). However, what’s more impressive is the healthy long-tail viewership on many of these titles. Where single-player games like RPGs and Action-adventure titles typically drop off steeply in viewership, puzzle games seem to have a diffusion effect where new streamers discover the game over time. Outer Wilds, Inscryption, and the Portal games all have this viewership pattern. Unlike action games which become irrelevant over time due to outdated mechanics, a puzzle game has an evergreen quality where any player who hasn’t solved it yet can enjoy a fresh mystery.
But why do certain puzzle games work on live streaming in the first place? For starters, beating a puzzle game is a badge of honour, comparable to proving your superiority by beating difficult bosses in Souls-likes. In the words of one commenter goading xQc into playing Blue Prince: “If you beat Blue Prince I’ll be convinced you are the smartest person on the planet… that’s full GTA RP level of intellect”. Secondly, puzzles can often benefit from collaborative problem solving, where participants all actively contribute to making observations or deduction. Receiving hints or suggestions in chat capitalizes on one of live streaming’s strongest features: Immediate feedback. It also creates an inclusive atmosphere similar to going to an escape room for a team-building exercise. Blue Prince particularly benefits from this, as the RNG room generation means viewers can provide information not available on specific runs (if the streamer wishes).
This second option offers an exciting new prospect for puzzle games: What if a new puzzle game existed that leaned into the interactivity of live-streaming platforms to find a solution? A developer that utilized Twitch’s community engagement to enrich gameplay could make a viral hit. For now, it’s enough for puzzle game developers to follow Blue Prince’s example and look to find genre synergies that make puzzles more attractive to a live-streaming audience.
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