Those thirsting for more of Monument Valley's dreamlike collection of 3D puzzles will have access to eight more chapters soon.
In UsTwo's Monument Valley, players guide Princess Ida, a silent character, through dreamlike landscapes. They help her manipulate monuments to find new paths through the game's surreal collection of architectural wonders and away from the Crow people.
Described as a director's cut of sorts, "Forgotten Shores" will expand on the existing details in the game's world instead of adding new narrative to the front- or back-end of the story. Along with helping them bring in tabled ideas, the expansion will help the team prepare for future titles.
While the game's developer's have indicated that they only decided to create an expansion for Monument Valley after the fact, they concede that there were a lot of ideas that were left out.
"It's very much a self-contained experience," says Dan Gray, Monument Valley's executive producer. "So the question was, how do we create something that doesn't disrupt that?"
Monument Valley's eight new chapters will add more complexity to the game, prompting players to go through more steps to solve puzzles, according to remarks from David Fernández Huerta, one of the game's designers. This time, the developers are asking players to think ahead a bit more when working through the game's puzzles, states Huerta.
The team at UsTwo pour a lot of thought into each level of Monument Valley, according to a blog post from the company, which explains why the developer can't release 100 new levels in short order. They believe in delivering "all killer and no filler," the blog post states.
"One of the things we really cared about when we made the game is to make every level (or chapter, as we prefer) unique," states the blog post. "Each one has a distinct and separate theme, gameplay mechanic or story beat to get across."
The "Forgotten Shores" expansion will mark the game's first in-app purchase and it'll be available for $1.99 on Nov. 13. In a landscape where mobile app developers plop down in-app purchases across games that deliver premium experiences, UsTwo has achieved success the traditional way.
In announcing the expansion for Monument Valley, UsTwo confirmed that the game has sold approximately 1.4 million copies on Android and iOS. "Forgotten Shores" will launch first on iOS and UsTwo states that the expansion will follow on Android shortly after.
