Spoilers Ahead!
Last week, I said I would choose a game for this Critical Play that I haven’t played before: I make good on my promises. While it pains me not to be analyzing Drawn: The Painted Tower, a game nestled in the memories of my childhood, I decided that this week would be all about Monument Valley 3. Ustwo released this game just last year on mobile, though I hear they are planning a console and PC release later in 2025. I played on IOS, a platform that tends to provide a smooth experience for games that are well-designed and optimized for the device and its touchscreen. It is a solo puzzle game suitable for all ages, particularly players who appreciate medium-difficulty puzzles and beautiful in-game visuals.
In Monument Valley 3, you play from a god-like perspective, manipulating an impossible geometric environment to help the protagonist, Noor, move from the start of each level to the end. The mechanics in Monument Valley 3 delight the player with perplexing level design and satisfying feedback that work together to give elements of good toys and puzzles to each level.
The game is set in a beautiful, minimalist world that feels like an original take on a cross between Bauhaus and the works of M.C. Escher. Fixed at an isometric perspective, the game uses optical illusions and clever camera tricks to create impossible structures. One example is the lighthouse that acts as the game’s level selector. Despite only having four walls on the outside, the game makes it look like you can keep spinning inside the tower to face one wall per level in the game. There are a lot more than four walls on the inside.
While not technically one of the puzzles, the lighthouse is a diegetic menu set within the puzzle environment. It tees up a sense of otherworldliness reinforced by the fantastical architecture and the puzzles themselves. Right as you enter the first chapter, you are met with a puzzle that is constructed from an optical illusion similar to the impossible cube:
In learning about what makes a good puzzle, we read that good puzzles fit the setting and theme in which they are placed. Puzzles like those found in Monument Valley 3 would not make sense in, say, a realistic war game. However, using optical illusions to create impossible pathways fits well with the otherworldly theme mentioned above.
The optical illusions found in these puzzles aren’t just for show; they demonstrate how the puzzles in Monument Valley 3 are excluded middle puzzles. At first glance, each puzzle looks impossible. However, the player learns over time that there must always be a way in every level to interact with the world to cause a path forward to emerge in an impossible way (such as in the impossible cube level).
Moving on from optical illusions, there is much to appreciate about this game beyond the puzzles themselves. For starters, Monument Valley 3 is an exceptional toy. The controls are responsive and easy; the sound effects are crisp, and moving objects have a nice way of gently snapping to a resting position grid-aligned with the rest of the environment. It is satisfying to play with Monument Valley 3 before you start solving any of the puzzles; this is the foundation on which good puzzles are built. As we learned, a good puzzle is a good toy given a goal. Making the game fun to interact with improves the experience of solving each puzzle, too.
The game also does a good job of preventing user errors that would disrupt the player’s experience. In that first level with the impossible cube, notice how the valve used to rotate the platform shrinks as the player walks across the movable part of the path. The designers disabled moving the path while the character is walking on it to stop you from flinging your character across the room, and they indicated that the valve is disabled through a simple animation. In a later level, you must park your boat at a dock, and the game gently snaps your boat to the dock so that the player can hop out onto the path. The designers anticipated user errors and prevented them from disrupting the gaming experience; error prevention is a design heuristic. The idea is that it is better to stop the player from making an error than to explain to them how the error happened. Instead of telling the player they need to get closer to the dock to park, the game nudges the boat there automatically. Instead of resetting the level and reminding the player not to move a spinning platform while the character walks on it, the game disables that platform until the character has crossed.
Thinking as a designer, I paid extra attention to some of the “A-Ha” moments I experienced during my playthrough. In particular, there was a level where two buttons needed to be pressed. To solve this puzzle, the player had to move their character to stand on one button, then slide a pillar of blocks on top of the other button. This wasn’t too hard for me to solve; I’ve played other games, such as Portal 2, where any weighted object can activate floor buttons. However, I tried to imagine solving this puzzle as someone who had never played a video game before. The concept of floor buttons alone would probably be something I’d never seen before. Earlier, the game forced me to move my character onto a floor button, activating part of the pixel, so I at least have an example showing that the character can activate buttons by stepping on them. But why should I assume that these buttons are activated by more than just the character? The game has established that the laws of physics are not consistent here, so we might not assume that weight is the reason why buttons work.
For me, realizing the pillar could press the button was an “A-Ha” moment, and I was delighted that the puzzle had a unique twist. Still, I can imagine a novice player getting stuck, having no idea how to solve this puzzle. In the worst case, with no tooltip to guide the player, this puzzle turns from an excluded middle to a trial-and-error puzzle on the verge of being a “Designer” puzzle that uninitiated players won’t know how to solve. I would recommend adding a simpler puzzle before this one to demonstrate that other objects can press buttons besides players. Adding this extra layer will help the player understand how to interact with these buttons more accurately.
One final note I’ll make about Monument Valley 3 is an ethical consideration surrounding the use of optical illusions. The game relies on the player’s perception of these optical illusions and how they sit within the rest of the level. Psychology research by Segall, Campbell, and Herskovits reminds us that “the assumption of universality in perception is always a risky one.” Their research showed that a person’s physical environment “affects the dimensions of their perceived space.” People who live in “dense jungles, as opposed to flat land,” can perceive space differently. Since players must be able to work with these optical illusions to solve puzzles, the designers should ensure that their playtesters come from a broad range of physical environments to ensure that players from certain parts of the world don’t have a harder time playing the game.
In closing, Monument Valley 3 creates a fascinating, visually surprising world that creates a fantastical and intriguing environment for the player. Most of the time, the game carefully constructs reasonable and satisfying puzzles while guarding against errors. However, there are moments where the game makes assumptions about the player’s perceptual abilities and understanding of games, which could make the game harder to understand and play for certain players. Still, I think the overall design of this game is superb, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who loves puzzle games as much as I do.
