Critical Play of Monument Valley
Monument Valley:
Developer: ustwo studio Ltd.
Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone
For this critical play, I decided to go with a phone game again and download Monument Valley. This game is an overall aesthetically pleasing, puzzle game.
How Puzzle Mechanics Influence Game Experience
To understand how the mechanics influence the experience of the game, we must first understand what are the mechanics for this game. You play as a character named Ida and your job is to get her from the start of the path to the end of the path. To do so, you simply do the following:
TAP THE PATH TO MOVE IDA
Like most phone games, the mechanics are fairly simple. It really cannot get much easier than this. In addition to moving Ida along the path, you are able to add and remove different pieces of the path in hopes to get a working path.
Now where does the difficulty come in? The difficulty comes in when trying to get Ida to the end of the path. Getting Ida to the end of the path is a puzzle within itself. You have complete control on the new routes that are created for Ida. Also, you have to figure out which new routes are going to be the route that gets Ida to the end of the path. This is a puzzle that you need to solve, and you will need to try different combinations of routes and use some logical to solve the puzzle. In fact, the entire game is a puzzle that is complemented by beautiful graphics and simple mechanics. The combination of puzzle, player freedom, graphics, and mechanics makes this an excellent gaming experience that has won many awards.
