For this week’s critical play I played Monument valley. This mobile offline puzzle game was developed in 2014 by Ustwo games (Ken Wong). The game consists of a series of geometric puzzles that use perspective and 3-dimensional inconsistencies on a 2-dimensional platform to create mind bending gameplay (Whether or not this is a puzzle or game is a somewhat open question, see below). Narrative is woven into these puzzles as a character attempts to traverse the impossible geometries of the world, the player solving these puzzles allows the character to advance, thus advancing the narrative.
The narrative of the game is woven into the gameplay as a character attempting to navigate the impossible geometries of the world. Princess Ida, the main character, is on a quest to seek forgiveness, and to do so she must navigate through the world. This relatively simple narrative gives an emotional heft to the gameplay, creating a sense of importance and time constraint for Ida. This time pressure not only deepens the game’s challenge aesthetic, but allows for the development of a discovery aesthetic as you move throughout the world. One also discovers more of the story behind why Ida is seeking forgiveness in an emergent narrative, eventually revealing that she stole sacred geometry, creating the impossible geometry the game relies upon the player to navigate.
It’s not the right question of how the inclusion of puzzles impacted player experience, but closer to the notion that puzzles WERE the player experience. This means that monument valley doesn’t really count as a game, since there is no objective to win, but merely a correct solution to discover. This makes it a collection of puzzles in the trenchcoat of the umbrella-term “Game”.
The “Game” assumes that people know how to move along a path. This is a pretty safe assumption seeing as if you are old enough to have a phone, you are probably old enough to move by yourself as well. This also implies that you know how to find a path, a skill simple enough for a person comfortable within a 2-D space (think a paper maze) or even a 3-D space (think a corn maze). However, these skills do not directly translate into impossible geometries caused by perspectives. The game assumes that a player is comfortable enough with art and linear perspectives to know that moving a platform will break the conventions of depth and allow Ida to cross.
Despite assuming a level of comfort with linear perspective, the game rightly recognizes that not everyone playing the game is an art major, and adjusts the game loops accordingly, starting off with relatively simple, less-than mind-boggling puzzles and gradually creating greater levels of geometrical impossibility. That being said, it was still incredibly disorienting on the first level to make Ida walk a literally impossible path, but one quickly got used to the lack of standard geometrical laws.
The most similar comparison of this game as a genre would be akin to a sudoku book, since above we determined that this is not exactly a game, merely a collection of puzzles with an overarching narrative (and beautiful colors for what it’s worth – sensation aesthetic). Similar to the increasing difficulty as one completes more of the sudoku book, Monument Valley levels also get increasingly difficult as progress is made. However, Monument Valley not only increases difficulty, but also adds new mechanics, which is simply not present in sudoku, as sudoku is always sudoku, the only difference is how many squares start filled in. Additionally, these newly introduced mechanics are present in all future levels of Monument Valley, making it more than a collection of puzzles and into more of a game (though, again, not a game).
-Noah Leibert
