Monument Valley, developed by Ustwo Games and directed by Neil McFarland, is a classic puzzle game. Its main element of fun based on the MDA framework would be Challenge. I started this game a day before my mid-term exam for an AI class, and two hours and a half melted and I had to complete the game. It was short, but definitely money well spent.
The plotline is simple. Princess Ida, who stole geometries from the valley, are putting back the things that she stole and is asking for forgiveness. She manages to return them and pay tribute by the end of the game. The two things that I wanted to note are its level (puzzle) design and its aesthetics.
First, the puzzle has a simple mechanic. Based on the 3d-2d illusion, as you rotate, the places Ida can go change. You have to figure out what to move and how to move Ida based on those moves. This is a really simple, but it requires you to use your intellect to see how the rotation and movement of the ‘friend’ will help you get Ida to where the next button is. One thing that I really enjoyed about this puzzle was its incremental/build-up nature. No tutorial was needed as it gradually built up from the simplest one in Level 1, to a complex puzzle in Level 10.
Second, its aesthetics was absolutely gorgeous and it had a coherent plot and theme. The crows, the dungeon, the pastel colour scheme gave me an illusion of exploration, even though it had no open world element to the levels. It made me excited about what was more to explore, and the aesthetics was overall seamlessly connected with the puzzles.
This moment was genuinely touching. One thing that I thought would have made the game more engaging was its storyline. While the general plot was very heartwarming and thought-provoking, I felt it was too abstracted to really immerse me into the gameplay. It helped in creating a coherent narrative, but I would not say that it was really captivating as a story in and of itself. I heard Monument Valley 2 really built on this in terms of the storyline, so I cannot wait to play it over this weekend!
