Monument Valley, mobile version

Monument Valley follows Ida, a cone-hat wearing figure in white through ten or so chapters of a perspective-based, 3-D puzzle à la M.C. Escher. Each chapter is accessed by clicking on its particular side of a rotating building.

The overall feel of the game is very dream-like, due mostly to its visual design, which uses a colorful, but muted palette. This dream-like, Zen state is fitting for these M.C. Escher structures come to life, and the sound also adds to the ambiance. The phrase “Enya on Dramamine” seems like an accurate description of its new-age music with occasional chimes and wind (or white noise) when the music fades. When moving certain objects, there is a calming sound of a flamenco guitar, or plucked harp. Similarly, when buildings rotate, grow or shrink, there is a pleasing stone-on-stone sound, kind of like when someone rolls a heavy boulder in a movie.

The first chapter, or level, serves as a tutorial. Here you are introduced to the basic mechanics of the game and how you are able to move certain pieces to advance Ida to the end of the level’s path. Throughout the game, you must direct Ida to step on buttons (or plates) on Ida’s path to activate a structure’s transformation to add new paths for Ida; slide parts of a structure to cause another part of the structure to change; turn available levers to cause pieces of the structure to rotate; and walk through doorways to emerge from other doorways elsewhere on the structure.

Since you touch an area of a path to move Ida, I was curious what would happen if you touch the final spot on the path where she should go, without properly figuring out how to navigate to that point. There is a pleasant, airy keyboard sound, but Ida doesn’t move. When you touch a piece of the structure where she cannot go, there is a sharper, clearer sound of a piano key. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case in later levels, where nothing happens, and no sound plays. I suppose the game designers assume you know what you can and cannot do by the time you get to these levels.

As the levels progress, “crow people” appear, pacing the structures, and the difficulty increases. Thankfully, though, the game maintains its relaxed ambiance and though the crows become irritated and caw when you cross their paths, you don’t die. And so, you learn to time your movements after observing their pacing routine, and you notice the game designers have placed hideouts to the side of paths in appropriate places where you can wait for the crows to pass. Similarly, there are levels where you can once again time a crow’s path to turn a dial that moves the walkway to direct the crow to another area isolated from you.

[Mild spoiler ahead]

One level was a little difficult at the beginning, because it doesn’t appear that anything can be done. However, as I moved Ida around, I eventually realized that she had started on a portion of the path that was movable. Because of this, the levers that turn it are contracted. I had noticed the column but couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Once I had Ida walk off of the movable portion of the path, the levers expanded from the column, and I realized that Ida wasn’t stuck on this level after all. [I didn’t include photos of this in case this would be too much of a spoiler]

I probably could have finished Monument Valley this week, but the Zen ambiance left me wanting to prolong my time, lest I finish too soon, and be forced to leave this relaxing world before I was ready to bid it farewell.