How To Solve The Castle Cipher Puzzle In Blue Prince

So, did you get stumped by the Castle Puzzle in Blue Prince? Don't worry, because everyone else will feel the same way once they reach this particular point of the campaign. It's one of the most complex riddles in the game, since it will lead you to all sorts of locations just to obtain a reward. Our guide has all the details that you need, but be forewarned that there will be major spoilers ahead.

How to solve the Castle Puzzle in Blue Prince - Castle Cipher in Chess Room guide

The Castle Puzzle or Castle Cipher Puzzle has numerous objectives, and we'll break down each of these for you. But first, for those who only stumbled upon this guide and would like to prepare ahead, here's a quick summary:

• The Castle Cipher Puzzle can be found in the Underground. Specifically, it's in the Chess Chamber/Precipice.
• If you bring a Power Hammer, you can smash through the weakened wall to reveal a cipher that has the following letters:
  • C _ _
  • A _ _
  • S _ _
  • T _ _
  • L _ _
  • E _ _
• You then need to look for notes and documents that somehow have a cipher that's formatted the same way--i.e. letters arranged vertically with blanks or gaps. These provide you with clues as to what each segment means.
• To top it all off, some of the hints can only be found in certain areas, such as the Classroom.
• Much later, once you think you've figured everything out, you have to fiddle around with the Chess Powers.
• Then, you have to solve a bunch of Mora Jai color boxes.
• And, finally, you have to go to a specific location by following strict requirements.

Our Blue Prince Castle Cipher Puzzle guide has all the information so you can try to work on this objective on your own. But, if you're stumped or if you just want to know what to do, you can skip ahead to the solutions.

Note: This whole task can take you a while, so just pace yourself and be ready for a doozy. You may also bookmark this guide in case you plan on tackling this objective later.

Castle Cipher Puzzle clues: Part 1 - Letters in various rooms

The first step if you want to solve the Blue Prince Castle Cipher Puzzle is to look for hints in various rooms. These are letters arranged somewhat vertically or via a grid-like structure. Here are a few rooms that you can check:

• Kennel - On the shelf.
• Locker Room - Inside on of the lockers.
• Vault - One of the passports from a Deposit Box is a fake.
• Secret Passage - Behind the shelf.
• Cloister - Beside the statue.

Castle Cipher Puzzle clues: Part 2 - Classroom history and geography lessons

Next up, you might want to draft the Schoolhouse as an outer room. Doing so lets you place additional Classrooms inside the manor. Continue plopping these down in a single run so you can see more advanced grades/lessons. The important hints are in the Grade 4 Class (Geography) and Grade 8 Class (Erajan Language):

• Grade 4 Classroom - Use the Magnifying Glass on the lower-right corner of the Moraven map.
• Grade 8 Classroom - Look at the translations of Erajan terms on the board and on the test papers.

Chess Puzzle: How to do a castle move

You can do this part of the Blue Prince Castle Cipher Puzzle anytime you want since it involves heading back to the Underground Precipice area with the Chess Puzzle. You can learn about all the details in our Chess Puzzle guide.

Basically, you need to perform a "castle" move. In chess matches, "castling" involves moving the King toward the Rook, with the Rook moving to the space that the King passed over.

But the game has its own form of castling via powers --i.e. You need to get the Rook power, followed by the King power, or vice versa. This means you have to complete the Chess Puzzle at least twice.

• You must select the Rook power first. Then, you have to complete the whole thing again on another day to select the King power.
• It's also possible to select the King power first, followed by the Rook power.
• If you already have the King or Rook power active, then you can just do another run to select its counterpart.
• If you did this puzzle and you picked something else--i.e. Knight power--then you have to do a couple of extra runs to switch to the Rook and the King.

Assuming you're able to handle this part successfully, then a hidden pathway will open. Head all the way down and be ready for more brain teasers.

The Unknown: Mora Jai boxes and riddles

Technically, you've already solved the Castle Puzzle in Blue Prince, so we could end things right here. But where's the fun in that, right? There are actually more riddles that await further down below. For instance, there are eight Mora Jai color boxes that you can open. Each one contains a piece of paper with a riddle on it.

Note: In our playthrough, we did all the Mora Jai puzzles in this area to retrieve the clues. However, we can't confirm if players must open all of them just to tackle the next part.

In any case, here's the full riddle:

• Passage 1: "In Aries Court where the king now lays"
• Passage 2: "On the Sacred Hour that timeworn phase"
• Passage 3: "Will a youth approach with empty arms"
• Passage 4: "Without gifts nor gold nor mannered charms"
• Passage 5: "And in the sky above a brilliant sign"
• Passage 6: "A sullen cross as five stars align"
• Passage 7: "A patient figure, a reckoning great"
• Passage 8: "The Black Key is lying with the last king of eight"

Castle Cipher Puzzle: The meaning of the riddles and making preparations

The riddles all pertain to the location that you find yourself in, since your character, Simon, is the youth who should approach the area. However, there are several important requirements for this portion.

"Empty arms" and "without gifts" - These refer to your character going to this location without a singular item or resource. This means you have to start a new day/run and do the following:

• Do not pick up your gold allowance.
• Don't even pick up any item or tool.
• Since you likely have the +2 gem bonus from the mine, you need to enter rooms that cost gems until you've spent all of them.

"Sky above" and "sullen cross/five stars" - These passages refer to the Southern Cross constellation. It means you have to interact with the telescope in the Observatory until you have the Southern Cross constellation active:

• The Observatory costs +1 gem by default, so you could spend one to draft this.
• The Southern Cross constellation becomes active when your total stars are at the following values: 5, 9, 13, 16, 25, and so on.
• At 50 and 100 stars, you get to activate new constellations. The game calculates the remainder and determines which extra constellations you'd get. For instance, 55 constellations would mean having Inkwell and Southern Cross.

Note: Some constellation combinations net you free items, which you should still get rid of. In our attempt, we had 104 stars originally, which netted us a key. Thankfully, we drafted a Chamber of Mirrors, which allowed us to place another Observatory--we ended up with 105 stars, which activated the Southern Cross. We then used the key on a random trunk to get rid of it.

Castle Cipher Puzzle: "On the Sacred Hour that timeworn phase" meaning

If you've been checking various locations in the estate, such as the Clock Tower and Room 46, then you'll know that the Sacred Hour is 1:30 p.m. You have to be in the location that you just unlocked before 1:30 p.m in-game.

• Each day/run starts at 8:00 a.m. An hour in-game takes roughly five to eight minutes or so in real-time.
• You can check the in-game time by looking at the large Clock Tower in front of the manor.
• Essentially, you need to get rid of your items, draft the Observatory to make sure Southern Cross is active, and then enter the Underground crypt chamber so you can wait. Go watch some cat videos in the meantime.

Castle Cipher Puzzle: The clock mechanism and the cipher hints

So, let's recap:

• You don't have any items or resources in your inventory.
• You've checked the Observatory and the Southern Cross constellation is active.
• You made it all the way back to the chamber past the Chess Puzzle, and you've been waiting there for quite a few minutes.

Once it's 1:30 p.m. in-game, the tomb will rise, revealing a large clock mechanism. Now, you've got another riddle to solve that's related to the Castle Puzzle in Blue Prince. Your clues come from the aforementioned Classroom map and Erajan words used in the cipher that you're decrypting. You should have the following:

• C - I - X
• A - D - D
• S - I - X
• T - O - R
• L - O - R
• E - T - T

Note: If you want to solve this part on your own, go ahead. The next section has the solution, so don't scroll down if you want to avoid spoilers.

Castle Cipher Puzzle solution and reward

Here's the hidden message formed by the Blue Prince Castle Cipher:

• CIX is a Roman numeral equivalent to 109.
• ADD SIX is very literal. You just add +6.
• TOR, in the map diagram, is reversed into ROT.
• TOR LOR ETT means to "go counter-clockwise to the east."

Here's the solution to the clock puzzle itself:

• Rotate the hands of the clock so that the value/time is 0109. Press the button.
• Move the minute hand six times clockwise to "add six." The value will be 0115. Press the button.
• Rewind the time--i.e. rotate counter-clockwise--until the minute hand rests on the word "EAST." Note that it should be on the word "EAST" itself, not the "V" Roman numeral. The value should be at 1225. Press the button.

If you did it right, a small compartment will open revealing your reward. For all your efforts at solving the Castle Cipher Puzzle in Blue Prince, you'll receive the Key of Aries, which is part of yet another riddle.

For now, though, you can take a breather since you've done the hard part. Also, this area will remain open permanently for future runs. You won't need to solve the puzzle or wait for time to elapse again.