Some notes on Monument Valley
Oct. 18th, 2015 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
estiroseI own this on two platforms - free on Android via Amazon, and paid for on iOS because I wanted to support the developers.
So, Monument Valley is a puzzle game, a rather plain but gorgeous one, that relies a lot on perspective. You get impossible landscapes that depend a lot on perspective, and quite a few puzzles that rely on you arranging things so that the perspective falls into place. Sometimes you get the help of a thing called Totem, which is a set of yellow blocks that you can move around in certain places. You're sometimes hindered by the Crow People, who are humanoid crows, because they can block your path, and you meet a ghost sometimes, who provides the only dialogue in the whole game. (Or monologue, really, because Ida doesn't speak.)
Monument Valley is 10 levels long. There's a free level called "Ida's Dream", which is also fun and worth doing, and "Forgotten Shores", which is an additional purchase but so much worth it. My favorite levels are "The Box", "The Descent", and "The Thief" so far.
The ending for the main game is very beautiful, but also ambiguous. Is it a dream? Or does that really happen to Ida?
There's a video of the ending here: https://youtu.be/feGel5DefJo?t=23m20s
And walkthroughs of the puzzles in this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuhgk1TKevavsZHYPTnDwT_nSmFfsO65h
So, Monument Valley is a puzzle game, a rather plain but gorgeous one, that relies a lot on perspective. You get impossible landscapes that depend a lot on perspective, and quite a few puzzles that rely on you arranging things so that the perspective falls into place. Sometimes you get the help of a thing called Totem, which is a set of yellow blocks that you can move around in certain places. You're sometimes hindered by the Crow People, who are humanoid crows, because they can block your path, and you meet a ghost sometimes, who provides the only dialogue in the whole game. (Or monologue, really, because Ida doesn't speak.)
Monument Valley is 10 levels long. There's a free level called "Ida's Dream", which is also fun and worth doing, and "Forgotten Shores", which is an additional purchase but so much worth it. My favorite levels are "The Box", "The Descent", and "The Thief" so far.
The ending for the main game is very beautiful, but also ambiguous. Is it a dream? Or does that really happen to Ida?
There's a video of the ending here: https://youtu.be/feGel5DefJo?t=23m20s
And walkthroughs of the puzzles in this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuhgk1TKevavsZHYPTnDwT_nSmFfsO65h
