Monument Valley, developed and published by Ustwo Games, is a single-player puzzle game available on Steam and the App Store (I played it on Mac), aimed at players seeking accessible puzzles and calming gameplay. The game targets players of all ages and experience levels. In Monument Valley, players are asked to rethink their perception of space and perspective to aid the Princess Ida on her quest for forgiveness. As they move through levels, players submit to the Magic Circle and must learn to think like a person of this world to uncover the embedded narrative of Ida. Monument Valley uses perspective-based puzzle mechanics and embedded environmental storytelling to create a calming experience centered on submission, discovery, and fantasy rather than mastery or mechanical complexity.
Geometry in Monument Valley, a sacred thing to the people of this world, does not act in the way we are used to; the core gameplay loop – solving geometric puzzles to progress levels and move Ida through her world – requires the players to shift perspectives and use the dimensions of the architecture in new ways. From the opening puzzle, the player aligns blocks (that seem by our world’s properties to be on different planes) to create a path Ida can walk on. This mechanic of the core gameplay loop, shifting perspective, requires the player to think outside of their normal world experiences, a dynamic that creates an aesthetic of challenge. In levels with especially alien architecture (like the box in Chapter 10), I had to first understand the geometry itself before solving the puzzle. When I did feel stuck, the simple movement system allowed me to experiment freely and reason through puzzles without frustration. I rarely felt punished for experimenting, since the game has no meaningful failure states. This encouraged me to continue testing possibilities even when I did not fully understand the puzzle, which made the game feel welcoming rather than intimidating. Level design lets the player build experience in this new way of thinking so progression never feels overwhelming. This image from Chapter 7: The Rookery shows an especially challenging puzzle of perspective.
The game world of Monument Valley is an information space where the puzzles themselves hold narrative. The monuments act as the primary game architecture, yet subvert our expectations of how architecture should behave and be used. The crows act as nuisances, obstacles in Ida’s path, before the player learns that they have stolen the sacred geometry from the people of this world.
Solving each puzzle directly advances Ida’s journey, giving every interaction narrative purpose. Through environmental storytelling, the player becomes a member of the world, a dynamic producing the aesthetic of fantasy. The player is motivated to uncover more of the embedded narrative. After each chapter, the next title’s reveal gives a breadcrumb, a new hint of the world. This discovery is particularly poignant in Chapter 9: The Descent, where new paths reveal more of the world.
The puzzles themselves, when analyzed in the frameworks provided by Scott Kim and Bob Bates, are expertly designed to create aesthetics of challenge, narrative, and submission. They hit a happy medium between too hard and too easy with a novel twist (changing perspective), thus satisfying Kim. The solution to each is provided in game (through the instruction of perspective change), and, most importantly, they amplify the themes and narrative of the world. They not only seem natural to the space, they are the space. Monument Valley’s calm, consistent theming creates a dynamic where the player is simultaneously focused on puzzles and submitting to the world, learning its narrative as they solve. These dynamics produce the aesthetics above.
Monument Valley successfully integrates puzzle mechanics with narrative and atmosphere, creating an experience centered on discovery, immersion, and submission. The game is immersive and approachable, but not without flaws. The puzzles aren’t complex, demonstrating the tradeoff between approachability and difficulty. As well, the narrative is simple and not fleshed-out, showing another tradeoff between narrative complexity and puzzle integration. In comparison to other games such as Portal 2 or The Witness, Monument Valley prioritizes atmosphere, accessibility, and visual cohesion over deep mechanical complexity. While those games continually expand their mechanics and require more difficult logical reasoning, Monument Valley instead creates a carefully guided and more meditative style of problem-solving. This design choice limits player agency and long-term challenge, but ultimately strengthens the game’s immersive aesthetic and emotional consistency. Monument Valley could push further by introducing a late game chapter with branching paths or optional harder puzzles, offering longterm challenge without disrupting the meditative pacing earlier players relied on.
I consider myself a novice videogame player, yet I finished Monument Valley quickly without much prior experience with puzzle games. This accessibility reflects an important ethical design choice: Monument Valley minimizes the amount of outside knowledge required to succeed. In the first puzzle, players are introduced to the main mechanics (clicking to move Ida and rotating pieces of the monument to change perspective and unlock more possible moves) through direct interaction and explicit instruction. While some components rely on conventions players may recognize from prior gaming experience, such as stepping on buttons or moving blocks, the game teaches these mechanics iteratively as the player progresses. Along with its subtitles and color-independent design, this makes Monument Valley more accessible than many puzzle games. It is almost overly balanced toward the player. However, the game still assumes players are comfortable with abstract spatial reasoning and pattern recognition. Players attached to conventional geometry may find the puzzles more difficult. Monument Valley therefore demonstrates both the possibilities and limits of accessible puzzle design. It successfully broadens who can participate in puzzle games, while still privileging certain forms of visual and cognitive reasoning.
