Monument Valley is a wonderful game who's time has finally come. There have been attempts to do Escher-esque layouts of games before. One 90's era VR demo was you "walked" into a room to see a pile of gold coins on the ceiling, doors and hall ways connected to your walls. The game was to walk in the Escher rooms where you were waling on the ceiling to get the gold.
The game failed because it was only in first person perspective where the majority of the players were falling down in the VR chamber of vertigo. One tester in particular, we ended up placing on a blindfold on them, carrying them out of the chamber, two of us held the tester by each shoulder and we walked with them outdoors with the cool breeze from the bay refreshing them to reorient. The blindfold came off in a few minutes and they were fine but they didn't drive for 24-hours per simulator policies.
The crew that made MV cracked this issue in two ways: (1) the game is in the "god" perspective allowing the game player to see the play space from almost any angle and (2) the small screen did not immerse the player avoiding disorientation. I look forward to their future updates. Love to see themed MV's such as steampunk, art deco and even Lewis Carrol or H. R. Geiger styled walking puzzles.
You must look at where Angry Birds originated -- Finland! That place is a socialist country that will subsidize the hell out of anything that looks remotely profitable and novel to justify that their government model works. While Angry Birds made a ton of money, where did it go? How much in taxes did the Finnish government take from this where they could not afford to re-invest into new product? Look at how Nokia fared after the iPhone / Android pincer move crushed all contemporary mobile platforms of the time.
