Monument Valley lead designer Ken Wong talks about how the impossible art of M.C. Escher and being embedded in a UX studio led ustwo games to create a chart-topping game in which every screen was a piece of art. He discusses how rethinking games as user experiences inspired the team to trade challenging puzzles for an aesthetic journey, and why keeping that journey short but sublime won the game new audiences.

Although your results may vary, Wong gives a great discussion about the driving force of the game: creating a user experience. His ideas are pure and inspiring but I wouldn’t read too much into them with respect to the success of Monument Valley. I’m sure others have had the same idea with their failed games. What’s more important, I think, is the execution of the team, which I agree resulted in something stunning. 

Here are some screens of Monument Valley from my recent playthrough.