So, you’ve conquered everything there is to see in Blue Prince. You’ve gathered every clue, solved every puzzle, and pulled every thread of every mystery to their absolute ends. But maybe that’s still not enough? If you crave yet another challenge that will put your house-building skills to the test and are ready to contend with arguably unfair rules that will completely change how you look at the core rules of Blue Prince, then Curse Mode is for you. Complete this and you’ll lay claim to a shiny digital tropy that only belongs to .1 percent of the playerbase.
Despite my dramatic preamble, Curse Mode is a surprisingly engaging and fun way to play Blue Prince. Even though the game presents it as a more extreme challenge than Dare Mode, I found the rules of Curse Mode to be less cumbersome to deal with. It also pushes the knowledge you’ve learned about Blue Prince to the limit as you chart your way to every perk and upgrade you can find to make this challenge possible.
Curse Mode is a late-game unlock, and you’ll need to know where virtually every upgrade in the game is located to succeed. This article will outright spoil the locations of some of these, though complete knowledge of every postgame mystery is not necessary here. Consider yourself warned if you’d still like to find every Red Letter and optional Floor Plan for yourself.
How to Unlock Curse Mode in Blue Prince
While the target audience for this guide should know how to get Curse Mode already, this guide wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t start from the beginning. If you somehow missed the spoiler warning I just gave, know that you’ll naturally unlock Curse Mode as you solve the major postgame mysteries in Blue Prince. This is your final chance to turn back if you’re afraid of spoilers.
Okay, you’re still here on Kotaku. Thanks for reading! Anyway, here’s how to unlock Curse Mode if you haven’t done so already. This should go without saying, but you need to have already reached Room 46 to complete the steps listed below.
- Buy the book The Curse Of Black Bridge for 40 Coins from the Bookstore. As a reminder, the Bookstore is a rare room that can only be drafted from the Library. For best results, try to find Dice or another way to reroll your room options before you try drafting from the Library.
- Go back to the Library and order The Curse Of Black Bridge from the sheet of paper on the table. You may need to wait an in-game day to do this.
- Return to the Library at least one in-game day later and read through the book. It’s fairly long, but it is worth your time if you’d like to learn more about the world of Blue Prince.
- After you’ve read the book, draft the Mount Holly Gift Shop. You should see the Cursed Coffers appear for 13 Coins. Purchase it to add a permanent unlock in the Shrine.
- Whenever you’re able, get the Sledgehammer item and draft the Shrine in the Outer Room. You should see a chest inside that you can smash using your trusty weapon. Open it up and you’ll get the Cursed Effigy.
The Cursed Effigy will immediately curse you, canceling any Shrine buff and subjecting you to brutal rules for at least the next two in-game days. You’ll most likely want to give the Cursed Effigy to the Coat Check so you can save this evil item for when you need it. No matter what you do, you’ll have to ride out the curse for a couple in-game days until things go back to normal.
With this out of the way, start a new profile and select Curse Mode. Simply getting cursed on your normal save file and reaching Room 46 will not unlock the Cursed Trophy: You must start a fresh save file on Curse Mode for it to count. Your main profile will still be readily available to continue, and you can use the Blackbridge Grotto to import your trophy completion.
What does Curse Mode do?
Whenever you draft rooms in Curse Mode, you’ll have to endure the following penalties depending on the room type:
- Bedrooms deplete one Step
- Hallways deplete one Key
- Green Rooms deplete one Gem
- Shops deplete one Coin
- Red Rooms deplete one Step, Key, Gem, and Coin
Fortunately, Blueprints and Blackprints are both completely safe to draft in Curse Mode. Additionally, all the penalties mentioned above will only occur after you’ve paid the cost associated with drafting a room, and you’ll suffer no consequence if you are out of the applicable resource. For example, if you have two Gems and you draft a Green Room that costs one Gem, you’ll pay the one Gem and lose your other Gem as a result of the curse. However, if you draft the same room and you only have one Gem, you’ll pay the one Gem to draft it but suffer no consequence afterwards since you have nothing more to give.
Note that rooms with multiple border colors will trigger each applicable consequence in a row. The Aquarium will trigger every single effect listed above, so be extra careful of which rooms you choose.
Additionally, you’ll perpetually deal with the following nerfs by default in Curse Mode:
- You start with 13 Steps instead of 50 (Tomorrow rooms that add Steps still work, fortunately)
- The sky will take on an appropriately scary red color, and all rooms will be darker.
- The Apple Orchard is burned down, locking you out of ever getting that permanent upgrade. You can still visit the Orchard for other permanent unlocks, such as lighting the Blue Flame
- The Shrine is caved in if you draft it, rendering it functionally useless.
- Everything is a little darker. You might need to turn up your brightness.
Tips for taking on Curse Mode
This should go without saying, but a proper step-by-step walkthrough of Curse Mode is literally impossible in a roguelike such as Blue Prince. However, you can control the goals and objectives you prioritize in a run to maximize your progress. The following tips will help you to slowly-but-surely chip away at this grueling challenge.
Set your expectations low every day
I can’t stress enough just how debilitating it is to start with only 13 Steps. They’re typically an abundant resource in vanilla Blue Prince, but here you really can’t waste Steps if you want to make progress. In other words, don’t play every run as if you might make it to Room 46. Instead, set your sights on much smaller objectives.
In Curse Mode, a day dedicated to getting even a single permanent upgrade should be considered a success. In other words, don’t be afraid to make “unoptimal” plays like trapping yourself into a dead end if it means gaining something or starting the next day with abundant resources. For example, when you start out, unlocking the West Gate and Gemstone Caverns are good tasks to prioritize that will benefit all your future runs.
If you truly accomplish nothing throughout the course of an in-game day, feel free to reset the run and start over. This is especially helpful if you started a day with bonuses from a Tomorrow Room, as those are precious resources that would be a shame to waste.
Be careful of using the Outer Room
I know I just suggested unlocking the West Gate as one of your first priorities, but the Outer Room is risky to open at the start of a run due to how many steps it costs. Those four or six Steps are nothing to spend in the vanilla game, but those are nearly half your starting Step count in Curse Mode. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t go to the Outer Room, but you should think carefully about whether the buff you unlock is worth the cost.
Depending on the run, you might also consider waiting until you get the Garage in your house and accessing the Outer Room that way.
Minimize backtracking
On the subject of conserving Steps (it’s a big part of Curse Mode, alright?), you’ll need to plan ahead as you chart your course through Mt. Holly Manor. Ideally, you’ll want to revisit rooms as infrequently as possible, unless you have a specific strategy in mind. I strongly recommend opening every door in a room before leaving to get a clear picture of what your path forward should be. This tip extends to the Entrance Hall at the start of each run; open all those doors right off the bat!
Try to draft Hallways early
The “ideal” way to draft Hallways, Green Rooms, and Shops is when you completely lack whichever resource they cost (or otherwise meet the bare minimum cost). This way, you’ll negate the penalties and remove those rooms from your deck, making it more likely you’ll get “free” Blueprints later on. That said, you’ll eventually start with gems or money thanks to the Gemstone Cavern and your accrued allowance. Sure, you can opt to not pick up your allowance before you leave the Entrance Hall, but forfeiting resources just to avoid Curse Mode penalties is really risky.
That said, you usually won’t start with Keys in your inventory, and you’re more likely to find unlocked rooms in lower ranks too. For this reason, it’s best to draft Hallways as early as possible. If you enter a room that contains your first Key(s) of the run, try to open as many doors as possible before picking up your loot so you don’t potentially waste Keys on more hallways. Naturally, once you have Keys in your pocket, you should draft Hallways sparingly.
The Secret Garden does not activate the Green Room penalty
If you’re reading this, you should already know how the Secret Garden and Secret Garden Key works in Blue Prince since you’ll have completed the game. You’ll almost certainly need this room to unlock the Antichamber normally, but it’s even more helpful in Curse Mode since it completely bypasses the usual Green Room penalty. The Secret Garden is never “drafted;” it’s free to play despite its classification.
Remember that the Secret Garden also spreads fruit throughout the house, giving you more sources of Steps. Ideally, you can pair this effect with the Conference Room so you can easily gain a huge infusion of Steps without burning too many of them in the process.
The best rooms to look for in Curse Mode
Generally speaking, most rooms that were “good” before are still good in Curse Mode, even with the new penalties. That said, the following rooms are now especially good, and you should strongly consider adding them to your house whenever they appear.
Nursery
I’d argue that the Nursery is the most impactful room in Curse Mode. Getting the Nursery early means you can counteract the penalty of bedrooms and acquire precious steps whenever you draft one. You do have to be careful since this is a Dead End, but otherwise you really want this in your house ASAP.
Laboratory
A Laboratory connected to the Boiler Room will let you unlock the Blackbridge Grotto, a helpful permanent upgrade even if it’s not totally necessary (I didn’t get it before I got to Room 46, personally). Beyond that, the experiments you can activate from the Laboratory computer can have huge implications on your resources in Curse Mode. Nearly any combination that triggers the result “set your steps to 40” is well worth the radiation you’ll apparently seep into the house.
Pool
The Pool in and of itself doesn’t do too much for you in Curse Mode. However, drafting it adds the Sauna to your deck, which is a Tomorrow room that adds 20 steps to your next run. Tomorrow rooms in general are valuable in Curse Mode, and the Sauna is the best room in that category you can find.
Observatory
The Observatory gets better the more Stars you have, and just entering the room increases your Star count by one. It’s not game-changingly powerful in every run, but almost every constellation you can observe has major ramifications for your success during a Curse Mode run. You’ll feel the impact of getting extra Steps and Gems way more than you did during a run of the vanilla game.
Also, if you know how to unlock the Planetarium here, you can nab that ASAP to potentially boost your Star acquisition at the end of a run.
Conservatory
Assuming you’ve already figured out how to unlock this extra room, you can add it to your deck ASAP as soon as you find a shovel and have a handful of Steps to work with. It may seem counterproductive to add a Green Room to your deck, but adjusting the rarity of rooms has huge implications for Curse Mode. Generally speaking, you’ll want to ensure Blueprints appear more often, and rooms with penalties associated with them should appear less frequently. Most Red Rooms are too dangerous to play, and you can feel free to make them appear as rarely as possible as long as you’ve procured any upgrades associated with them.
Rooms with safes in them are free sources of Gems
Gems are valuable in Curse Mode, especially since Green Rooms drain them at a fast rate. However, if you know which rooms hold Safes with red letters inside, you can always earn a free Gem whenever you enter them. To jog your memory, you can find safes in each of these rooms:
- Study
- Office
- Drafting Studio
- Drawing Room
- Boudoir
The Shelter also contains a safe if you decide to play that as your Outer Room.
The best room upgrades for Curse Mode
Once you get the swing of how Curse Mode works in Blue Prince, you can finally start chipping away at finding Upgrade Disk and Allowance Tokens to bolster your odds of making it to Room 46. These are all in the same locations as they were in the vanilla game: Even the Mora Jai boxes are the same as they were before.
Of course, your room upgrade choices may differ in Curse Mode due to the new rules you have to work with. And once you choose a room upgrade, you’re mostly stuck with it until you reach Room 46. So to help your decision making, these are some of the most helpful room upgrades you can choose in Curse Mode:
Nursery > Nurse’s Station
Though the Nurse’s Station is dubious in the vanilla game, the Nurse’s Station is absolutely incredible in Curse Mode. Getting a refill to 20 Steps whenever you enter with less than 10 is indescribably helpful when you don’t even start with that many (barring Tomorrow bonuses like the Sauna). Assuming you can place the Nurse’s Station in a fairly central area, this also enables you to freely explore a wide area of the house and backtrack as much as you want. If you missed items in shops and treasure chests, you won’t have to be afraid of losing the whole run just to chase them down.
There is admittedly an argument for the pure upgraded Nursery over the Nurse’s Station. The Nursery will help you all throughout the house, while the Nurse’s Station technically only helps you within a limited area. That said, a well placed Nurse’s Station will let you potentially recover the costs of entering the Outer Room and Inner Sanctum, the latter of which you’ll almost certainly need to access to complete this challenge.
Billiard Room > Break Room
While the Speakeasy option is convenient, you should have enough math mastery by now to handle the Billiard Room puzzles when you see them. Keys are precious in Curse Mode, and calling it a day in the Break Room lets you start the next day with a Staff Keycard. This lets you instantly set Security to high when you draft the Security Room, giving you some functionally free doors once you reach higher ranks.
Bunk Room > Double Keys
Honestly, all the Bunk Room upgrade effects are hard to plan around given the room penalties in Curse Mode. However, getting exactly two Hallways in the house is relatively easy if you draft them early on. Also, as mentioned above, Keys are precious.
Guest Bedroom > Quest Bedroom
Admittedly, you probably won’t reach the Antechamber enough for the Allowance upgrade to matter that much. However, keeping the +10 Steps effect is enough to make this upgrade worthwhile, especially since the Guess Bedroom can potentially mimic the penalty-laden Aquarium.
Hallway > +1 Key
None of these upgrades are that great here, so you might as well pick the one that counteracts the key you’ll potentially lose by drafting it.
Mail Room > No Contact Delivery
You generally don’t want to prioritize Tomorrow Rooms on runs where you’re already buffed and are trying to make progress, which makes the default Mail Room a little tricky to use. Fortunately, No Contact Delivery makes the Mail Room function like a normal Tomorrow Room, letting you get all the benefits right at the start of your next day. Helpful items are especially impactful at the start of a run, so you can’t go wrong here.
Nook > Breakfast Nook
The Breakfast Nook gives you an invaluable infusion of 10 Steps, the importance of which should be obvious by this point. The Breakfast Nook also adds the Morning Room to your deck for the day, which is incredibly helpful despite being a Green Room. The upgrade that adds an extra Key is nice, but hopefully you’ll get some of the upgrades we’ve covered above to help on that end of your resource pool.
Spare Room > Spare Bedroom > Spare Master Bedroom
Technically, all the Spare Room upgrades are kind of downgrades, since the change from Blueprint to a different color means you’ll now have to deal with a Curse Mode penalty. Of these, The Spare Bedroom will at least benefit from a vanilla Nursery, and the Spare Master Bedroom will counteract the penalty of drafting it. It’s not super likely you’ll get both these upgrades before you reach Room 46, but Blue Prince is anything but a game with predictable odds.With all these tips under your belt, you should have the tools you need to claim that prestigious Cursed Trophy for yourself. Just make sure you don’t turn around afterwards and call the vanilla Blue Prince experience “the tutorial,” because I have some words to say about that.
