Weary commuters and bored college students play some games to pass the time (ahem, Candy Crush Saga), but there are other games, like Monument Valley, that make people wish they had more time to play.
The beautiful graphics and fanciful storyline of Monument Valley get a reprise in the title's sequel, which hit the App Store on Monday following its unveiling at Apple's WWDC. Monument Valley 2 promises to be everything the original was: you help Ro, the main character, explore virtual worlds with her child, solving puzzles and marveling at M.C. Escher-like geometric structures along the way.
To get a sense of Monument Valley's cultural cachet, consider that it was a minor plot point in the third season of the hit Netflix series House of Cards, in which the main character Frank Underwood was so impressed with a reviewer's description of it that he asked that reviewer to become his biographer.
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A typical level in Monument Valley 2 will have you navigating your way through landscapes like a botanical garden, in which "strange doorways offer new possibilities." But if you're especially adept at clearing levels, you may find yourself running out of places to explore: one of the few complaints from early downloaders is that, like its predecessor, the game doesn't include enough levels.
"I'm hoping this game will be updated to include more complex puzzles," one player wrote in a review on the App Store. "As with the first, still an extremely short game. Finished in around 2 hours or so."
Monument Valley 2 sells for $4.99 and requires more than 800MB of space on your iOS device (it's compatible with both iPhones and iPads). While it's far from the largest or most expensive iOS app, it's not exactly an impulse download. The original Monument Valley, meanwhile, is $1 cheaper and also available on Android, so it could serve as a better intro into the universe of beautifully-designed mobile games.
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Relax Escape Your Commute With the Gorgeous Monument Valley 2 stories
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