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Utility Closet
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Utility Closet
One benefit of the restoration of old buildings is that it allows the owners to update and add modern amenities. The utility closet and the circuit breaker box within were set up when gas powered lighting was retired and replaced by a more fashionable home electrical system.
The Utility Closet is a room in Blue Prince, listed as Room 031 in the Room Directory. It is a small, compact Mechanical Room housing a poorly explained breaker box that controls various systems throughout the estate.
Drafting
The Utility Closet cannot be drafted southwards in the Rank 1 tiles adjacent to the Entrance Hall, or northwards into the Rank 9 tiles adjacent to the Antechamber.
Beyond the Estate
This section contains datamined information about rarity. It may contain spoilers for various stages of the game.
Click to view
If it is not Day 1, the West Gate is not opened, and Room 46 has not been reached, the Utility Closet's Dynamic Rarity is set to Commonplace.
If fast early drafts to activate Veteran Mode are done, the Dynamic Rarity is set to Commonplace for the day.
Utility Closet can receive a Forced Draw. The conditions for it to apply are:
- It is not Day 1.
- The West Gate is not opened.
- The Garage has already been drafted today.
- The first two slots are not both a Dead End, or Slot 2 was not drawn by a normal draw.
- A Forced Draw roll for Utility Closet has not succeeded yet today.
- As a Forced Draw, it cannot appear if the Conservatory or Morning Room is in the draft pool for the location being drafted, unless it is a draft along the wings (where Morning Room's Forced Draw is ignored entirely).
If the conditions are met, there is a 20% chance that the Forced Draw roll succeeds.
Items
The Utility Closet does not usually contain random items. However, with very high luck, multiple items from the following list may appear on the right side of the room:
- A pile of 4
- A pile of 5
- Battery Pack
- Broken Lever
- Shovel
- Sledge Hammer
Breaker Box
The Utility Closet contains a closed breaker box that can be opened by interacting with it. Inside there are several controls:
- The first control is a switch labeled "Keycard Entry System". This switch is initially on.
- The second control comprises six buttons, labeled "V.A.C. Indicators". All six buttons are initially off.
- The last set of controls are various switches with labels:
The functionality of the controls is not immediately evident. The breaker box also has an electric warning sign and a danger notice:
DANGER
TOGGLING OF BREAKER SWITCHES MAY RESULT IN UNEXPECTED LOSS OF FLOORPLAN FUNCTIONALITY. PLEASE CALL D.C. POWER IF YOU REQUIRE ASSISTANCE.
Although the switches may have unknown and undesired effects, none of the switches can do any harm that cannot be rectified by flipping the switch again. None of the switches' effects are permanent, and they will reset to their default states at the end of each day.
Keycard Entry System
The keycard switch controls the power to the system that manages the security doors found in the higher ranks of the house. While this switch is off, the lights on the keycard reader for security doors appear off instead of green or red. Attempting to interact with the keycard reader in this state will bring up a prompt saying that the reader is not powered on, even while holding a Keycard.
Spoilers Within
This section contains spoilers for the keycard system.
Click to view
Main article: Doors#Keycard system
There is a second control setting for the keycard system, accessed from the terminal in Security. This fail-safe control determines security doors' behavior when the power goes out: by default, the doors are forced shut, but while toggled, the doors are forced to automatically unlock when the keycard reader is interacted with. As it only takes effect when power is out, this setting only matters once the Utility Closet switch has been flipped.
By using both of these settings together, all security doors can be unlocked, bypassing the need for the Keycard.
V.A.C. Indicators
Pressing any of the indicator buttons will switch that button's color, and possibly its neighbouring buttons' colors. There are multiple possible colors for each button, and both the rules governing the color changes, and the purpose of the system, are initially unclear.
Spoilers Within
This section contains spoilers for the V.A.C. indicators.
Click to view
There are three sources of information on the V.A.C. The first one, from the Mail Room, is a diagram present on the table. It details how to turn a light blue, purple, or how to get all lights to turn purple. This on its own is insufficient for achieving anything with the V.A.C. buttons, but it also includes a note saying that further instructions would be sent via electronic mail.
The second source comes from the terminal in the Office, in the form of an email exchange between the DCPower Inc., responsible for the installation of the breaker box, and Herbert Sinclair. These emails detail the way to make a light turn white, as well as the correct final password of the puzzle. Together with the above clue, this is enough to solve the puzzle, but will require some experimentation with the controls.
The third source comes from the Mail Room once more, but requires the player to trigger a specific Experiment several times. See the Mail Room and the Laboratory pages for more on this. This letter details the last few light interactions, giving a complete understanding of the puzzle.
How to operate the lights:
- All lights start as off
- Pressing an off light will turn it green.
- Pressing a green light will turn it red.
- Pressing a red light will turn it off.
- Turning all lights green will make the next light pressed turn blue.
- Pressing a blue light will turn it off and turn both adjacent lights blue.
- Exception to the above: if the light next to the pressed blue is red then it will turn purple instead of blue.
- Turning five of the six lights purple and then pressing the sixth light will make it turn purple.
- Turning all lights purple will make the next light pressed turn white.
- To solve the puzzle, the six colors must read: off - blue - green - white - red - purple
To quickly input the sequence, click the lights in the following order:
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 - Will turn all lights green.
- 1 2 1 2 2 3 4 5 6 - will turn all lights blue except for the last one, which should be off.
- 6 6 5 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 - Will turn all lights purple.
- 4 5 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 3 3 3 1 1 - Will finish the sequence.
If done correctly, the wall behind the breaker box will open, revealing a hidden chamber containing a large breaker lever. Flipping it will play a cutscene and give players permanent access to the Gemstone Cavern, granting an additional 2
at the start of every day. It will also cause a truncated version of Permanent Ink to start playing, which may interrupt other tracks.
The large switch remains permanently down, and can no longer be interacted with after being flipped. The state of the wall is not permanent and the chamber will be sealed again on the next visit. Reinputting the sequence will open the wall again, though there is no benefit to doing so.
Room switches
Each of these switches has a separate, unique effect on its respective room.
Spoilers Ahead
Each section below contains spoilers for its respective location. View at your own discretion.
Gymnasium
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Turning the power of the Gymnasium off prevents the effect of the room from taking place. Players can then enter the room without losing 
.
Darkroom
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The first time a player enters the Darkroom in a given day, the fuse will blow and make the lights go out. While the lights are out, none of the documents within can be inspected and its negative effect prevents floorplans from being seen while drafting within.
Although this switch is initially on, it will switch off when the fuse blows. The switch can then be flipped to power the lights once more, preventing the floorplan obscuring effect and allowing the player to explore the room. Flipping the switch on after drafting the Darkroom also triggers its items to spawn.
If the Darkroom lights are turned off before the Darkroom is drafted, then it will never blow a fuse. Flipping the switch back on is still required to mitigate its negative effect and explore the room, though it does not need to be entered beforehand. Flipping the switch off and on again before drafting the Darkroom has no effect.
Although the Darkroom has steam ducts, neither the blackout effect nor the Utility Closet switch has anything to do with them.
Garage
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Main article: Garage#Garage door
While this switch is flipped, the Garage button's LED is green instead of red. Interacting with it in this state will open the Garage door providing access outside the house into the West Path. The order in which the Garage and Utility Closet are drafted do not matter. See the Garage page for a complete explanation.
Cabinet
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There is no known functionality involving this label, yet.
Interactions
[Game Mode: Dare Mode] The dare in Dare Mode to press no more than one switch or button in each Utility Closet heavily limits the usage of the Utility Closet and completely prevents solving the V.A.C. indicators. It still allows pressing the same switch or button more than once.
As a Mechanical Room
- Holding the Gear Wrench allows the rarity of the Utility Closet to be permanently adjusted when drafting it.
[Outer Room: Shrine] While the Blessing of the Tinkerer from the Shrine is active, drafting the Utility Closet will trigger the current experiment, if there is one.
[Contraption Spoiler: Powered Electromagnet] Having the Powered Electromagnet makes drawing the Utility Closet more likely.
[Found Floorplan: Mechanarium] Drafting the Utility Closet will cause an additional door to spawn in the Mechanarium when the latter is drafted.
As a Dead End
- Activating Draxus, the Dead makes the Utility Closet more common today.
- [Outer Room: Tomb] Drafting the Utility Closet will spread 5 in the Tomb.
[Upgrade Spoiler: Cloister] The Utility Closet can be drafted from the Cloister of Draxus. Doing so immediately provides 4
.- [Book Spoiler: Drafting Strategy: Architectural Digest Vol. 5] The Utility Closet counts towards the 20 Dead Ends required for the Drafting Strategy Sweepstakes.
Additional information
- The "Cabinet" switch may be related to the non-functional cabinet in the Commissary. According to the Glossary of Terms, this is scheduled for a future game update.
Spoilers Within
This section contains spoilers for Mail Room experiments.
Click to view
The Utility Closet is mentioned in multiple of Randolph's letters to the Mail Room:
- In Randolph's seventh letter, he mentions the Utility Closet's ability to unlock security doors when used in conjunction with the Security keycard settings.
- In Randolph's ninth letter, he provides explicit instructions on how to use some of the more technical operations of the V.A.C. indicators.