This week, I played Monument Valley, a puzzle game developed and published by Ustwo Games. The game is available on PC and mobile (I played on PC) and is designed for players of all ages and experience levels. Monument Valley relies heavily on its environmental design, so most of its narrative comes from exploring and changing these environments. Because of this, solving these puzzles also becomes the main way the player learns about Princess Ida and the world around her.
At their core, Monument Valley’s puzzles rely on changing how the monuments appear from the player’s point of view. When two paths line up and appear connected, Ida can walk between them even if that connection seems impossible. The game introduces this idea gradually, beginning with simple paths before adding handles, rotating platforms, and other movable structures. There is no punishment for making mistakes, so players are encouraged to experiment and explore the environment by clicking to see where Ida can be moved. This dynamic of exploration via experimentation does more than just make an interesting puzzle. Learning how to navigate each monument also teaches the player how Ida’s world operates without requiring dialogue, which the game does not rely on.
In addition, the game also uses its environments to control when the player discovers new information and progresses the narrative. This stood out to me especially in the box level. At first, the level appears to be a single closed object. As the player moves through its different sections, however, it opens to reveal several rooms and paths inside. The player cannot understand the full environment until they begin solving the puzzle, making the puzzle in control of the order in which the level is revealed. Another example of this type of narrative progression is the crow people. These characters’ movements block Ida’s path and create obstacles, creating a new challenge for the player to face. At the same time, they also make the monuments feel occupied and provide a new inhabitant of the world for the player to consider when piecing together its story. These features act to create embedded and enacted narratives within Monument Valley, with information placed within the environment becoming meaningful only once the player interacts with the given puzzle.
The puzzles themselves also have a major effect on the player experience and their understanding of the world. Monument Valley focuses on the discovery of the puzzles and world more than a challenge that comes paired with frustration. Comparing it to a game like Portal 1 and 2, Monument Valley removes any stressors like time constraints and damage sources such as turrets. Instead, it leans into narrative and aesthetic-driven puzzles, opting for more focus on observation and understanding of the world rather than logic and skill-based ones. In turn, it can seem more simplistic and easy, but this is also what allows it to be such an easy game for all ages to pick up and play.
When considering the wide player base, a relevant ethical issue to bring up is the simplicity of a game’s controls and puzzle structures. When creating a puzzle game such as Monument Valley, designers must consider what knowledge people of all ages and backgrounds will be coming into their game with. In the case of Monument Valley, the puzzles require no outside knowledge, no competitive skills (such as reaction time), and no culture-specific information. This, paired with the simple controls, makes the game accessible for all in both physical and informational capacities. Overall, Monument Valley does a great job of making its puzzles work as parts of its world and narrative.
