Interactive: ustwo finally launch Monument Valley, a game you'll want to get lost in for days

If I’m honest I don’t give two hoots about the gaming industry in general. When I was a kid I lost two years to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the N64, and I still have dreams about playing it; the characters I met in Hyrule, the tragic death of all the Zoran people and the battles I fought repeatedly until every one of the kingdom’s races were freed from Gannon’s wrath. My sense of nostalgia for that time is palpable. But then I found that no other game offered me the same escapism and abandoned the whole experience for good.

Then Steve at ustwo sent me a trial version of Monument Valley just before Christmas and I remembered why I used to love playing these things – so much so in fact that I spent the duration of a reasonably expensive gig tapping away on my screen until I’d completed it.

Simply put, you have to guide a lost princess through a series of physically impossible mazes, filling in the pieces of her mysterious past along the way. Sounds simple enough, but it’s got more or less everything I enjoy in a computer game including a strong fantasy storyline, serious problem-solving instead of straight-up violence, immaculate aesthetics, attention to detail and that all-important, impossible-to-place addictiveness that can only be achieved when a group of die-hard gamers pool their collective wisdom.

Anyway, the full version is out today and I for one will be playing it until my fingers bleed. I suggest you do the same, even if it means taking a sick day to see it through from start to finish.