Monument Valley

Monument Valley is an indie puzzle game developed and published by Ustwo Games. The player leads the princess Ida through mazes of optical illusions and impossible objects while manipulating the world around her to reach various platforms. Monument Valley was developed over ten months beginning in early 2013 based on concept drawings by company artist Ken Wong. Its visual style was inspired by Japanese prints, minimalist sculpture, and indie games Windosill, Fez, and Sword & Sworcery, and was compared by critics to M. C. Escher drawings and Echochrome. The art was designed such that each frame would be worthy of public display. After a closed beta test, it was released for iOS on April 3, 2014, and was later ported to Android and Windows Phone. The game received generally favorable reviews. Critics praised its art and sound design, but noted its lack of difficulty and short length. It won a 2014 Apple Design Award, was named Apple's best iPad game of 2014, and sold over two million copies by January 2015; by May 2016, sales of the game exceeded 26 million.

Two expansions titled Forgotten Shores and Ida's RED Dream were released in 2014 and 2015. A sequel Monument Valley 2, was released for both iOS and Android in 2017. Monument Valley+ a Apple Arcade exclusive was released April 2, 2021. The PC-Version Monument Valley: Panoramic Edition was released on Steam in July 2022. A third game is reportedly in development.

Gameplay

In Monument Valley, player character Princess Ida journeys through mazes of optical illusions and impossible objects, which are referred to as "sacred geometry" in-game, as she journeys to be forgiven for something. The game is presented in isometric view, and the player interacts with the environment to find hidden passages as Ida progresses to the map's exit. Each of the ten levels has a different central mechanic. Interactions include moving platforms and pillars and creating bridges. The player is indirectly cued through the game by design elements like color, and directly cued by crow people, who block Ida's path. Critics compared the game's visual style to a vibrant M. C. Escher drawing and Echochrome. The game includes a camera mode where the player can roam the level to compose screenshots. It includes filters similar to those of Instagram.

Development

Monument Valley was developed by Ustwo, a digital design firm founded in 2004 that has produced iPhone apps since 2007. Their Whale Trail game received millions of downloads, and their other apps include design app Granimator and photo sharing app Rando. Monument Valley was conceived as a touch game for tablets. Its development began in the beginning of 2013, and lasted 10 months. It was developed under the working title, Tower of Illusion. It began with a piece of concept art drawn in the style of M. C. Escher, and the final design did not deviate far from this original. Ustwo management did not give the development team a timeline or budget, and instead told them to focus on "making a high-quality product". Games development is not a large portion of Ustwo's revenue, so the company focuses its games development on producing "great products" that reflect well on the company, rather than highly profitable apps.

Of the art style, game designer and artist Ken Wong said he aspired to make each frame of the gameplay worthy of public display. The project began as Wong's concept drawings before it became a game project. The visual style was inspired by Japanese prints, minimalist sculpture, and indie games Windosill, Fez, and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. Wong added that the gameplay was designed to let the player find the object of the game through exploration, without direct guidance. The game uses colors to signify where the player can interact, similar to Mirror's Edge. Wong compared the gameplay experience to a cross between the wonder of a toy shop and the world of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and its story to a symbolic "song" rather than a narrative book. The game was designed to be completed by most players, a style uncommon for games designed for popular audiences. It was intended to be a "premium experience" rather than a difficult challenge.

The game's soundtrack features music by Stafford Bawler, Obfusc, and Grigori. A limited edition vinyl two-volume recording was released by Ustwo and iam8bit in 2016, which includes the music from the main game and its two expansions.

The game was in beta as of December 2013, where it had over 1,000 testers and the average finish time was 90 minutes. It was planned as an iPad exclusive. The game was initially released for iOS on April 3, 2014, and the company recouped their cost of development within the first two weeks of release. An Android port went through two beta tests and was later released on May 14, 2014. More levels were in development, as of April 2014. Ustwo said they were adding the levels for "artistic reasons", such as ideas they wanted to try but could not fit into the original release. Wong stated that, with consumer interest, the company would consider porting the game to other platforms. The game's technical director said that the game was "not very difficult to port" since it was written in the Unity game engine. But as the game was built with a portrait (vertical) screen orientation in mind, the developer had difficulty converting the game for devices with landscape-oriented (horizontal) screens, such as the YouTube trailer video format and the PlayStation Vita. Jennifer Estaris said in 2022 that they had figured out how to adapt the game for landscape orientation, with plans to release the title for personal computers later that year. The two games (with their DLC) subtitled Panoramic Edition and The Panoramic Collection, containing both games and their DLC, was released on Windows on 12 July 2022.

An add-on expansion, entitled Forgotten Shores, was released for iOS devices on November 12, 2014, on the Appstore on November 20, 2014 and on Google Play Store on November 24, 2014. This adds eight additional levels to the ten in the original game. An expansion pack titled Ida's (RED) Dream was available from June 25, 2015 for purchase for a limited time as part of Apple's Apps for (PRODUCT) RED initiative. This expansion pack could be played with or without the additional purchase of Forgotten Shores, featuring Ida in a red outfit and several new puzzles. Both DLC are automatically included in the rereleases.

Legacy

The game was a "minor plot point" in the third season of House of Cards, in which Frank Underwood plays the game; he is inspired by video gamer reviewer Thomas Yates's elegant description of Monument Valley to bring the reviewer on as his biographer. According to the studio Ustwo, they were approached by Netflix about including the game in the story, and the studio readily agreed without any financial compensation. They made a specialized version of the game for the show to aid in filming and to meet a description of the game provided within the script for the first episode in which it appeared. Ustwo saw the opportunity to introduce the title to a different audience set, and saw an increase in sales as a result of this appearance. The game re-entered the top of the most download app charts on the major app stores a few days after the February 2015 release of the season on Netflix. Monument Valley characters were added to the cast of Crossy Road in late 2015. Jaz Rignall (USgamer) noted that the 2015 Lara Croft Go appeared to have been influenced by Monument Valley. Ken Wong left Ustwo Games soon after completing Monument Valley to create his own studio, Mountains, which created Florence.

Monument Valley was reported to have a significant influence on China's indie game development community, as its ability to tell an emotional story through a video game medium influenced numerous developers to build out their own games with similar narratives.

The music video for Ariana Grande's 2018 song "No Tears Left to Cry" was partly inspired by Monument Valley.

Film adaptation

In August 2018, Paramount Animation and Weed Road, in partnership with Ustwo, announced plans to develop a live action/CGI hybrid film based on Monument Valley, with Patrick Osborne slated to direct. It is anticipated that the film will feature live actors exploring the computer generated settings based on the game. Osborne stated "I’m privileged to be handed the reins to Ida’s mysterious kingdom, to play in her world of impossible architecture where seeing things differently is everything".