The game that I decided to play for the critical play is Monument Valley. Monument Valley is an exploratory puzzle game developed through Unity and published by Ustwo Games. The game can be played on numerous platforms – such as Android, Microsoft Windows, iOS, and Windows Phone, for example – however, I played the game on my iOS. The primary targeted audience of Monument Valley is players who are at least 4 years old.
The type of fun that the game exhibits is exploration, challenge, and discovery. At the start of the game, I was transported to this aesthetically pleasing dimension where I had to navigate. The central premise of the game is to assist princess Ida to navigate through and successfully solving the different mazes. The mechanics of the game involves princess Ida being able to navigate and walk around the illusory world through rotating, zooming, and shifting elements within the game. For each level that she successfully passes, the level of difficulty of the subsequent mazes increases. In conjunction with the mechanical components of the game, the exploratory nature, aesthetics, and visual graphics of Monument Valley create this beautiful and immersive experience for the players.
There was not necessarily any onboarding in Monument Valley. Instead, players are expected to complete an “easy” level on their own to essentially figure out the mechanical elements of the puzzle. While this might not seem ideal for some players, I, a person who had not played the game before, personally felt that the game was quite intuitive and did not require any onboarding. Nonetheless, for people that still experience difficulties in solving a maze, the game does provide hints to assist to in your journey and overcoming roadblocks.
Overall, I immensely enjoyed playing Monument Valley and will definitely incorporate some of its elements into my team’s game.
