On Forgiving: Monument Valley and Healing through the Journey
Monument Valley, the 2014 mobile game developed by small London-based studio ustwo games, is a beautiful puzzle game that is engaging for people of all ages. Its Escherian geometry, pastel palette, and satisfying puzzles lead to it being well-known and loved even today, over a decade from its initial release. However, Monument Valley is not just a puzzle game. The mechanics of the puzzles, artistic direction, and story pace in Monument Valley are thoughtfully designed in such a way to encourage the player to move through the game as a meditative, healing experience that reflects the journey of forgiveness itself.
Monument Valley first and foremost describes itself as a “journey of forgiveness.” Not a game about solving puzzles or interesting geometry, which might be what one actually remembers most. However, it is not a story about the actual journey that one takes to forgive others. Instead, it is about taking the steps to be forgiven after doing wrong. In Monument Valley, the Crow People are cursed because they stole the sacred geometry from humanity. Ida, the Crow Princess, returns the geometry that was stolen, and in doing so breaks the curse and is forgiven.
Upon reflection, it becomes more clear that all the actual mechanics of the puzzles and the game itself are thoughtfully designed to induce this experience of forgiveness in the player. The art and music, with their pastels and meditative quality, encourage the player to be more present and calm during the course of the game (Fig. 1). The fair, clear, gradual introduction of puzzle mechanics (such as rotation, the totem, Crow People, etc) give the player agency and a feeling of competence in a well-balanced way, furthering self-determination theory’s impact (Fig. 2). This leads to the player not losing hope during the puzzles but still constantly feeling challenged, similar to the way searching for forgiveness might be challenging but can be approached through gradual steps.
As another example, at the very beginning of the game I was annoyed that Ida moved so slowly. I kept rapidly clicking the locations I wanted her to walk to, hoping that she would move faster. While this mechanic of limited movement speed initially led to this negative reaction, I quickly began to appreciate it. Later, the mechanic allowed me to experience a dynamic of sitting back and watching Ida move while appreciating the geometric space and music design, leading to an aesthetic experience of serenity. This reflects the theme of forgiveness—it takes time, and cannot be rushed.
Furthermore, I cannot discuss the meditative experience of Monument Valley without describing the puzzles themselves. The creators of the game describe Monument Valley as structurally similar to Portal (Source), which I believe is an interesting but only surface-level accurate description since both these games are ultimately puzzles as games (not puzzles in games). However, an essential aspect of the game’s fun is the strong aesthetic delight gained from just seeing the space move, using logic and unusual use of objects (architecture) to solve puzzles. In this way, the game is more similar to the more recently-released architectural game Manifold Garden, which takes the puzzling nature of architecture to even greater scale. However, Monument Valley still holds its own because of its simplistic but impactful charm, which Manifold does not have.
However, while the design of the puzzles and the thematic ties to forgiveness are closely aligned, there could be more balance of lore vs pure puzzling, especially in level design over time. For example, initially the story is told through realistic environments such as a hidden temple and garden, which provide strong environmental storytelling (Fig. 3). We see ruins and architecture and understand that an actual society lived there previously. However, later on in the game, levels are introduced that have no environmental storytelling impact, leading to some confusion on my end as a player on what relation the level had to the overall structure (especially in the levels of the box and observatory—some of the final levels) (Fig. 4). Instead, it would be interesting to keep up the trend of level design as still leading to environmental narrative, especially since in the final levels of the game there is no more dialogue to drive narrative otherwise.
Finally, while the themes of forgiveness are done well, they do spark ethical considerations of the implications of societies taking from others. Monument Valley is ultimately about a people who was cursed because of stealing art from another society, who are forgiven upon returning it. However, in reality, forgiveness is not so simple. Monument Valley is created by a British game studio, a country known for their colonial history of stealing art from many other cultures. Even within the scope of the game, the creators themselves describe taking inspiration from Japanese flower arrangements and paintings, as well as architecture from India, the Middle East, and North Africa (Source). However, no game from any of those regions with similar themes has reached the same status in the gaming world as Monument Valley has, nor is the fact that the game is inspired from these regions’ art clearly stated anywhere in the game or its marketing. It begs the question—if the Crow People must return all the stolen art to ask for forgiveness, to what extent do we in the real world have to act similarly?
Ultimately, Monument Valley is an experience of forgiveness. In the narrative, in the design, in the puzzles, you are encouraged to enact the journey of what it takes to be forgiven. Nevertheless, it leaves open a more important question to the player themselves—when do you want to ask to be forgiven, and what will it take?
