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Soundtrack: Monument Valley — An accompaniment, not a guide
The music Stafford Bawler, Obfusc and Grigori wrote for ustwo games' optical-illusion puzzle Monument Valley never pushes to the front with melody. What accompanies the short journey of rotating isometric monuments into paths is soft-edged ambient and a single chord that rings each time you turn a column. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take it apart through one lens: how does music that stays pure accompaniment become something you can touch?
Inside Ken Wong's Philosophy — a whole world inside one frame
A study of Ken Wong — lead designer of Monument Valley and creator of Florence — built only from what he has said in public. Starting production on the assumption that "70, 80, 90 percent" of the work will be thrown away. The "little worlds" rule that no puzzle information leaves the screen. Illusions built like magic tricks. His admission that the team lacked the vocabulary to discuss music, and the anxiety during Florence about wasting someone else's money. The line he drew for himself on representation. And his 2019 restatement that his most famous game is not a puzzle game at all. Ends with Kizuki's own reading.
