Thanks for the long reply! To me, there is another element that RNG can add: the challenge of adapting. Think of x-com: you’re immediately told the odds that a shot will succeed, and have to decide whether to take that shot based on that chance and the consequences of it failing.

You know that on average things will work out fairly, but you have to be ready to push the successes without letting failure trip you up.

During most of the game, Blue Prince poses many different puzzles and riddles to you in parallel. If you focus on one thing you’ve had a eureka moment about, you’ll be frustrated with the lack of control, but if you approach the situation holistically, and pursue all puzzles at the same time based on what is available, it’s a very different experience. Your thought processes and realizations are shaped by the randomness of the day.

Furthermore there’s always an interesting strategy element of mitigating the chance by ensuring lots of redraws in different ways, upgrading rooms to serve several purposes, piling up resources between runs etc.

I do think it’s novel and interesting, though not necessarily the best idea in the world. To properly do the holistic approach I mention you need a massive infrastructure of photos and notes to keep track of all the clues you’re pursuing. I wish it had some kind of overview of found documents and clues, though I can see how that’s not so simple to implement for this game in particular.