Monument Valley 3 (Ustwo Games, directed by Jennifer Estaris, 2024) is a puzzle/exploration game first released on iOS and Android via Netflix Games and now available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows, and again on iOS and Android. I played the iOS version on my mobile phone. The target audience is roughly 13 and older, oriented toward casual mobile and PC players who are already familiar with touchscreen interaction and are interested in short, architecture-focused puzzle-art experiences. The game narrative follows Noor, a lightkeeper trying to find a new source of light before rising water swallows her village.
In MV3, the mechanics are not the vehicle for challenge but instead storytelling. Most puzzle games separate puzzle from narrative, seeing narrative more as a backdrop of the puzzle solving. MV3 fuses the two layers into the game play. By sliding, turning, and clicking, players receive sensory pleasure while solving the puzzle and expanding the narrative. The story is more often not conveyed in text but shown through environmental architecture. Read through the MDA framework (Hunicke, LeBlanc, and Zubek), we can see how in MV3, the calming, playable aesthetic is achieved by the careful design of appropriate mechanics. For example, in this image, we understand that Noor is now in the stomach of a big choy fish by the abstract hollows and irregularities, after the animation of the fish appearing and swallowing Noor’s boat.
The spatial manipulations of MV3 are the highlight of its mechanic: rotating columns, sliding bridges, shifting perspectives that resolve impossible architecture into traversable space. With no fail state, MV3 uses the trial-and-error dynamic as players spin elements without a plan and see what happens. Each chapter brings new inputs, and a pre-testing dynamic follows, where players try the mechanic before the larger puzzle requires it. A dwelling dynamic also forms, since the lack of time pressure lets players linger in finished sections to absorb detail.
MV3 introduces more dynamic mechanics than its previous iterations. For example the boat sequence introduces a swipe-to-steer mechanic that lets the player navigate a small three-block vessel through varied locations. Instead of moving on tap, the boat mechanic tracks the swipe, which gives the player a continuous sense of direction. Another sequence replaces the standard rotate-and-slide vocabulary with a paper unfolding mechanic set against grainy, sketch-textured environments. The unexpected unfolding effect when players have adjusted to seeing turns introduces a different and exciting response, keeping players engaged. This also adds to the exploratory aesthetic that this particular story line is trying to convey.
These shifts function the way Henry Jenkins describes spatial storytelling in “Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” Each chapter is what Jenkins would call a distinct evocative space, and the mechanic specific to that chapter is what makes the space coherent. The boat chapter feels like travel because the input is travel-shaped. The exploration sequence feels like discovery because the unfolding paper input is discovery-shaped.
Sensory design reinforces this. The color palette is reserved and tonally indicative. Light, macaron-leaning hues accompany gentle plot moments. Grainier and dimmer textures take over during exploration. Environmental shifts inform Noor’s situation. Sound is also a great add: footsteps, the soft mechanical click of each block rotation, ambient wind and water specific to each setting. Together these components form a unified sensory frame.
MV1 (2014) is the first of the MV series. It established the puzzle vocabulary the series is built on. Its mechanics, however, are more limited. The player encountered the same handful of inputs across most chapters, and the sensory variety came primarily from architectural style rather than mechanical change. MV3 shows great improvement. The art direction is still varied, but the mechanic now varies with it. MV1 used mechanics to deliver puzzles inside narrative-styled environments. MV3 uses mechanics as the narrative itself.
A place for improvement is the end-of-chapter sequences. Every chapter closes with the same architectural route, the same set of clicks. Because the game has trained the player to expect mechanic-as-story, the repetition of an identical closing sequence is not as satisfying. Distributing those closing narratives more evenly across the chapter would better cohere the game play.
MV3 does make specific assumptions about what the player already knows. The player must read swipes, holds, drags, and clicks as distinct inputs. The player should perceive subtle color and texture shifts as narrative cues. The player must hold spatial relationships in mind to resolve impossible architecture. These literacies are not universal. They concentrate among people who have grown up with smartphones, who have unimpaired color and motor function, and who have had familiarity with spatial puzzles. A player without these prior literacies does not encounter a hard puzzle game.
Furthermore, Ustwo’s architectural references include Islamic geometric tiling, stepwell geometry, Japanese minimalism, and the Penrose-Escher impossible figures. A player with art-history or design education reads more layers of meaning than a player who does not. Because MV3 makes mechanics carry the narrative, it depends more heavily on prior literacy than a puzzle game that delivers story through dialogue or text. This is a intrinsic trade off where the same design choice that produces the game’s spotlight is what makes its meaning hardest to access for players outside the assumed audience.
