Toronto Star

Alto’s Odyssey ready to get gamers back

Locally developed sequel to beloved app is now available

- RAJU MUDHAR ENTERTAINM­ENT REPORTER

Grab your gear and get ready to jump over some llamas: Alto’s Odyssey has hit Apple’s App Store.

The llamas are just one of the memorable bits returning in the sequel to Alto’s Adventure, the locally developed app that launched in 2015 and is still considered one of the best mobile games ever.

Created by Snowman Games, the Alto’s games belong to the endlessrun­ner category that is hugely popular on mobile, in part due to its tendency toward simple, one-touch control schemes. Players just run or, in this case, snowboard for as long as possible. Alto’s Adventure added jumping to avoid obstacles, or to get air and do tricks, accumulati­ng points.

Even though Alto’s Adventure arrived after a glut of endless runners, what set it apart was its polish, smooth game play and distinct art style, making it a critical success and eventually a worldwide hit. Snowman co-founder Ryan Cash hopes the new game can have some of the same success. He promised “quite a few new things in the game but, at the same time, it feels so much like the first game, but in what we feel is a good way,” says Cash. “People have a love/ hate relationsh­ip with sequels and we put a lot of care and attention to detail on the first game — it took us 21⁄ years to make — so we wanted to

2 do the same with the second game.”

Cash and his Snowman partner, Jordan Rosenberg — working with programmer/designer Harry Nesbitt — were first motivated to make Alto’s Adventure because they were big snowboarde­rs and wanted a game that captured what they loved about that sport, while bringing back some of the feel of classic games that served as influences, such as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. That same attention to detail meant that Alto’s Odyssey was delayed: it was supposed to launch last summer.

Now that it’s here, players can see that in the sequel, snow hills have been traded for sand dunes, as boarding on that is now Alto’s and his friends’ jam, though none of the game’s creators has tried it himself. (Cash says “I was actually in desert in Africa not too long ago where you can do it, but we ran out of time.”)

Like other sequels before it, Alto’s Odyssey had to strike a balance between making it welcoming for firsttime players but adding enough new gameplay elements for returning players.

“There was a time when we definitely did explore how many new things we can do in this game, what can we add to it but still have that same Alto feeling,” Cash explains, adding that he thinks the completed Odyssey “is really approachab­le for new players, but for more advanced players, there’s also a higher difficulty ceiling.”

In the past decade, the App Store’s offerings have evolved greatly from the initial gold rush of indie developers cashing in on rudimentar­y games in early 2008 to being dom- inated by large companies offering free-to-play or freemium games. Alto’s Odyssey is a premium game, meaning players will have to pay the $6.99 price upfront, although Cash thinks increased consumer knowledge about games means his type of game still has a chance to do well.

“Don’t get me wrong, freemium is still growing massively, and still by far the biggest part of the App Store economy and is bigger than it ever has been, but I think people understand now that if they see a game that says ‘free’ on it, they know that they’ll have to put a lot of time into it, or they have spend other money in it to succeed. People actually understand that free doesn’t mean free,” he says.

He adds that he expects premium games to make a comeback: “With iOS11and Apple’s introducti­on of the new App Store redesign, I think it’s done a really good job of doing something really important for indie developers and telling the ‘why’ about a game, not just the ‘what.’ ”

Apple’s App Store ( Alto’s Odyssey isn’t coming to Android for a while yet) does help push quality games and definitely got behind the initial Alto game, which helped it find the audience that loved it, Cash says. “The really kind of special moments are things like the fan art that people submit to us, which just makes our day.”

Cash brings up stories like how a non-verbal child connected with his mother through playing the first game, or the German fan who knit llamas as a tribute. Since so many fans found Alto’s Adventure’s game play relaxing, Snowman eventually added a “Zen mode” with no points or collectibl­es, so fans could just enjoy stress-free runs down the mountain. That mode is available on Alto’s Odyssey on Day 1. Snowman Games has been working on several other games, including Skate City, a trick-oriented skateboard­ing game; Where Cards Fall, a collaborat­ion with The Game Band in Los Angeles; and Distant, a game about exploring. It’s unknown when they might arrive, but Snowman has a track record now of taking the time to get them right.

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 ??  ?? Like other sequels before it, Alto’s Odyssey had to strike a balance between being welcoming for first-time players and adding enough new gameplay elements to please returning players.
Like other sequels before it, Alto’s Odyssey had to strike a balance between being welcoming for first-time players and adding enough new gameplay elements to please returning players.

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