Ustwo makes mobile software for the biggest companies in the world. How—and why —did it make the most beautiful game of the year?
The most popular app on the paid section of the iOS store—ahead of the sleep cycle monitors, photo editors and fast fitness programs—is Monument Valley, an indelibly beautiful puzzle game that I called, last week, a "head orgasm". In a few obvious ways, the game belongs among the great indie gaming success stories of the past five years. Like Braid and Limbo and Journey, it features an arresting and unique aesthetic, no explicit violence, and a thoughtful, nearly philosophical tone.
In another, fundamental, way, Monumental Valley isn't meaningfully "indie" at all: ustwogames, the 8-person studio behind the hit, is nested within ustwo, a 187-person digital product studio which counts among its clients Sony, Barclay's, Fujitsu, and JP Morgan and has offices in London, New York, and Malmo. Founded in 2004, ustwo is the kind of place where the founders—two British graphic designers—go by a joint nickname (Mills and Sinx), where the only office rule is that there must be a song playing (the choice of which is adjudicated by special voting software), and where a custom company intranet aggregates employees' Instagram feeds.
The production conditions of most "indie" hits have mostly fallen into a few categories: acute privation, Kickstarter-funded subsistence, and for a very few, major corporate backing. Surely cultivation amidst a thriving, achingly hip digital product startup has not been among them.
But that's exactly the environment in which Monument Valley was born, and to which, according to the game's designer, Ken Wong, it owes much of its success.
"Being surrounded by so many non-gamers had a really good effect on the project," Wong told BuzzFeed. "We didn't want to make something that they wouldn't understand when it was all done."
To make sure of that, Wong and the game's executive producer, Dan Gray, regularly enlisted employees from throughout the London office to test Monument Valley. "We saw what made them smile and what made them frustrated," Wong said. "I don't know if many other teams of this size have the luxury to do that."
And unlike the testers at major game studios, the testers at ustwo weren't worked-to-the-bone game fanatics hoping to break into the industry. They were animators, graphic and user interface designers, and programmers, people with a broad cultural palette and a deep understanding of the way people use mobile devices.
Wong and Gray both say that the feedback they've received since the game's release—from adults who had never finished a game before Monument Valley to parents playing with their children—has been a testament to that inclusive testing process.
"We seem to have created a game that people want," says Gray.
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