Monument Valley, the highly-anticipated game by London-based development studio ustwo, is launching on April 3 at $3.99 for iPad and iPhone, the company confirmed today.
Monument Valley, originally teased in November 2013, is a mobile-only puzzle game influenced by the drawings of Dutch artist M.C. Escher: with a mix of impossible perspectives and its own set of physics, in Monument Valley players will have to guide main character Ida through a series of stages that challenge the rules of geometry and spatiality and that are beautifully realized and animated.
Monument Valley, which was originally meant to be an iPad-only game, has been designed to let any kind of player finish the game; according to ustwo, each level is intended to be a work of art that can be hung on a wall (the game will feature a special screenshot button to capture completed levels as images). Monument Valley, which has been in development for over 10 months, is ustwo’s next major game to land on the App Store – the company’s previous hit, Whale Trail, generated over 5 million downloads to date.
In an interview with TechCrunch, ustwo’s Ken Wong shared some of the details behind the design and development of Monument Valley, citing Valve’s Portal and Brian Eno’s music as sources of inspiration for the game. Created specifically for mobile devices, Monument Valley will only run in portrait mode due to the verticality of its structures. In February, ustwo’s Ken Wong wrote that his hope for Monument Valley “is that it might contribute to the argument that the medium of entertainment we call video games is in fact art”.
Ahead of the game’s public launch next week, ustwo has published a Behind the Scenes video, embedded above. You can check out more Monument Valley teasers at the game’s official website.