The perspective-shifting puzzle game Monument Valley is all about creating your own path—even if, at first, that path is obscured.

Mike Anderson should know. As a producer at Ustwo Games, he’s spent a lot of time graciously accepting awards for the beautiful breakout hit, which has you spinning landscapes to help a princess named Ida reach ever higher summits. Each pastel-hued level is a playable optical illusion as you raise and lower platforms or twist the very ground Ida walks on. Monument Valley drew acclaim from players and critics alike—and garnered a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award.

Anderson will never forget the glitzy black-tie event for the BAFTA ceremony.

“That evening, I noticed I was the only Black person in the room. There were more Black waitstaff than Black developers,” he says.

“When I was at the entry level, I remember having loads of different types of people around me. But as I kept going up, they seemed to thin out.”

For Anderson, fostering a diverse community isn’t just healthy for the industry—it’s a way to design better and more varied games.

“One of the things people loved about Monument Valley is how we took influences from all around the world. It’s similar to how people were were blown away by the traditional African influences in Marvel’s Black Panther. The costumes, the visuals—they were so new and fresh. If more developers were in that mindset, we could have some amazing new experiences.“

You can see that approach in Monument Valley 2, the sequel that explores themes of separation, reunification, and growth. Influences came from pretty much everywhere, says Anderson. The electric color palette of Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass” video inspired the floating castles of the game’s Sunken City chapter. The pinks and teals of Chapter V: The Archipelago echoes RuPaul’s Drag Race star Kim Chi’s signature look.

Global touch points are also woven into the studio’s first release for Apple Arcade, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, about a young journeyer who sets out to explore and ultimately nurture a Mediterranean island. Its distinct Spanish influence comes from Valencia-born game director David Fernández-Huerta, who included faithful re-creations of summers he spent at his grandparents’ home.

Anderson’s commitment to diversity touches the entire game industry. In 2019, he signed on as a founding member of POC in Play, a London-based nonprofit designed to support and connect people of color in gaming across console, PC, and mobile.

“Things started blowing up as soon as we launched,” he says. “We saw a lot of Black creatives saying they thought they were alone, that they didn’t realize there were others like them.”

Today POC in Play continues to make waves. Its Black History Month Games 100 list is a Who’s Who of developers, designers, writers, journalists, and creators of color across the tech industry, including Dean Jackson, head of design for the children’s app Hopster; former Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aimé; and Xalavier Nelson Jr., a narrative director and writer who worked on the popular Reigns: Beyond and other games.

Anderson knows diversity in the game industry won’t come easily or quickly, but he’s determined to continue pushing. In Monument Valley 2, you can always find a path to the summit if you keep looking—and that path is easier to find when there’s someone at the top waiting for you.

“You can’t be what you can’t see,” says Anderson. “It would be amazing if a young girl said, ‘Oh, that could be me one day.’”