Monument Valley confirmed to receive its first expansion next Thursday

Monument Valley

Monument Valley by Ustwo, a surreal physics-based platformer and Winner of Apple Design Award 2014, is set to receive its first content expansion next week.

Titled “Forgotten Shores” and provided as a $1.99 In-App Purchase, it’s going to add eight brand new levels to gameplay on top of the original ten levels. The update is scheduled to drop in the App Store next Thursday, November 13.

It will be “coming soon” to Google Play and Amazon Appstore. Monument Valley has seen 1.4 million downloads to date in the nearly seven months since its release. According to Wired, the new levels are inserted between the penultimate and final levels of the original in order to provide “a deeper dive into the emotional story of Ida and her amiable friend, the totem”.

Monument Valley is $3.99 in the App Store.

Developers say the game’s storyline prevented them from just tacking the new levels onto the end of the game because the original ten levels of Monument Valley were conceived as “a self contained experience.”

“It’s kind of like a directors cut,” says Dan Gray, the executive producer on the game. “Like watching the bonus features on a DVD.”

The new levels promise richly-hued monuments with more detail and emphasis on the landscapes containing the monuments, like waterfalls and lava pits. Expect complex environments, more ambitious architecture and a twist to game mechanics requiring players to control both Ida and the totem.

“The basics of interaction are the same, but there are more steps you have to perform,” says Monument Valley’s Technology Director Peter Pashley.

Monument Valley for iOS (iPhone screenshot 003)

“In several places you have to make Ida step on a switch to activate that handle before you can move it,” explains David Fernández Huerta, a designer on the game. “We’re asking the player to think ahead a bit more.”

Released in April 2014, Monument Valley challenges you to manipulate impossible architecture and guide a silent princess named Ida through a stunningly beautiful world packed to the gills with mysterious monuments, hidden paths and optical illusions.

Here’s the original trailer.

The surreal platformer is based on fantastical architecture and impossible geometry inspired by palaces and temples from around the world.

Download Monument Valley for $3.99 in the App Store.

The 152-megabyte game an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad with iOS 6.0 or later and has native display support for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

[Wired via MacStories]