Meet Lili Ibrahim, lead artist at Ustwo Games

It’s hard to deny that the Monument Valley series is one of the most aesthetically stunning mobile titles ever created. With a sleek art style that’s simultaneously baroque and minimalist, as well as vividly expressive voiceless and faceless characters, this series of optical puzzles presents a masterwork in delivering big impact with small-scale visual design.

So, how does one pack such a detailed and poignant experience into just a couple hours of gametime on a small screen? We had the chance to sit down with Lili Ibrahim, lead artist at Ustwo Games, to talk about the design philosophy behind Monument Valley, its influence on other Ustwo productions, and future plans for the UK-based studio.

Even before joining the games industry, I always wanted to work on projects with an emotional impact, where art can pull the viewer into a new world and take them on a journey. As I entered game development, I discovered my love for systems. My biggest joy is combining visual storytelling with systems that are fun for the player to interact with.

Our roots started as a graphic design studio. When the company was first starting, our leadership knew they wanted to make a really beautiful game – that was our main goal when Monument Valley was first being thought about.

As the series has grown and changed, so has our team. With each new team member that contributes to the Monument Valley universe, we can enjoy new ideas and influences. This includes cultural influences that inspire the architecture we feature, but also individual interests that may affect the wider pop culture references we draw from.

Monument Valley is all about the perfect combination of art and puzzling. The game designers and the game artists work really closely to maintain this balance on a level-by-level basis, passing the level back and forth many times until both departments are happy with the result.

During prototyping, everyone is welcome to contribute to our pool of experiments. We had some experiments that were led by game designers, some by artists, and some by programmers. Each discipline brings a unique perspective to the table and ensures that our final game has a good combination of mechanical, visual, and technical influences.

In Monument Valley games – especially Monument Valley 3, which is coming to Play very soon – we really enjoyed utilising our water shader where possible. I loved how the rolling waves contributed to a soothing environment, something I found very relaxing while designing levels. We combined this with balanced colour palettes on the architecture to create the atmosphere we wanted to pursue.

Monument Valley has so many amazing levels, but one of my favourite visual exercises was designing the wheat field level in Monument Valley 3. I worked alongside Senior Artist Holly Pickering to create this surprising puzzle landscape where much of the puzzling area is a solid yellow colour – a fun visual surprise for hardcore Monument Valley players who are more familiar with the clear constraints of a geometric grid.