Ondrej Holzman Most of us have played dozens of games on iPhones and iPads. There are tens of thousands of them in the App Store, from turn-based strategies to shooters to racing titles. However, there are still developers who manage to break through with something completely new that won't let you shut your mouth. Studio ustwo succeeded in this with the puzzle game Monument Valley.
Monument Valley can hardly be described, because it is a real work of art among iOS games, which deviates with its idea and processing. The App Store for this game says: "In Monument Valley, you will manipulate impossible architecture and guide a silent princess through a stunningly beautiful world." The key connection here is the impossible architecture.
In each level, of which there are a total of ten in the game, the little protagonist Ida awaits you and each time a different castle, usually of eccentric shapes, and the basic principle of the game is that there are always several parts of it that can be controlled in a certain way. In some levels you can rotate the staircase, in others the whole castle, sometimes just move the walls. However, you must always do so in order to lead the princess in white to the destination door. The catch is that the architecture in Monument Valley is a perfect optical illusion. So in order to get from one side to the other, you have to spin the castle until the two paths meet, even though this would be impossible in the real world.
In addition to various scrolls and sliders, it is also sometimes necessary to step on triggers that you meet along the way. During it, you will also encounter crows, which appear as enemies here, but if you encounter them, you are not finished. In Monument Valley, you can't die, you can't fall anywhere, you can only succeed. However, this is not always so simple - you have to keep those crows out of the way by cunning and moving objects, other times you have to use a sliding column.
You move the main character by simply clicking on the place you want to move to, but the game doesn't always let you go there. The entire path must be perfectly connected, so if a step is in your way, you need to rearrange the entire structure so that the obstacle disappears. In time, you will even learn to walk on walls and upside down, which will add to the difficulty, but also the fun, due to the numerous optical illusions and illusions. The great thing about Monument Valley is that none of the ten levels are the same. The principle remains the same, but you always have to come up with a new mechanism to move you forward.
In addition, the fun of playing each level is perfectly complemented by the amazing graphics of the entire environment, when you walk in amazement through a castle with a gushing waterfall and underground dungeons. The pleasant background music, which also reacts to your every movement and action, seems like a matter of course.
The developers at ustwo had a very clear idea of what kind of game they wanted to make when creating the big hit of recent days. "Our intention was to make Monument Valley less of a traditional long-term, endless game and more of a movie or museum experience," he revealed to The Verge chief designer Ken Wong. This is also why Monument Valley has only 10 levels, but they are connected by a rather impressive story. The smaller number of levels may upset the user, because the puzzle game can be easily finished in one afternoon, but the developers argue that if their game had more levels, their originality would no longer be sustainable, as it is now.
What is certain is that if you like to occasionally play a game on your iPad (or iPhone, although I definitely recommend going through the world of Monument Valley on a larger screen) and you are tired of the titles that are over and over again, you should definitely try Monument Valley. It brings a completely unusual experience.
[app url=”https://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/monument-valley/id728293409?mt=8″]
The game is great, but I was quite surprised when less than 60 minutes passed from the purchase in the AppStore to the display of credits at the end of the game. For €3,59, I would expect entertainment for a little longer...