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I had always wanted Alto’s Adventure to be the beginning of a story for our cast of characters that we could tell over many years. As part of this, I’ve had my own ideas about where we might take these characters next for a long time. Even before the launch of Alto’s Adventure!

With that said it was very important with this followup to capture a specific feeling. We spent a lot of time talking together and thinking about what emotions we might want to stir in players before really committing to development. We didn’t want to treat another Alto game like a foregone conclusion because of the success of the first title. At every level, we approached the idea of a second title like a new experience in the same universe, not a sequel. 

Things really clicked when we reflected as a group on how much our lives had changed since the release of Alto’s Adventure. The team had grown, some of us had moved away from the homes we knew to live in other places, and we had all experienced big personal upheaval in different ways. What we arrived at was a desire to capture the feeling of going outside your comfort zone, exploring the unfamiliar, and accepting that the concept of “home” is related to the people close to you, not any one place. In many ways, this is what led us to grandeur of Alto’s Odyssey’s setting. 

Originally, when we settled on the new setting and themes for Odyssey, we formed a picture of how this new adventure would feel and play. As we approached our initial Summer 2017 release date, though, we knew as a group that we had more to give to the game to make it the experience we envisioned — that players deserved. We’re firm believers that it takes longer to build things right, and so we made the tough decision to extend development. We’re so proud of the game we’re releasing this month, and think the extra time has given us the chance to bring players a world that feels even more alive and responsive.

Welcome to the endless desert. We can’t wait for you to discover it.

In a recent interview with Fast Company, Tim Cook said something that really resonated with us, especially as we look back on the last year and a half. 

“In each case, if you look at when we started, I would guess that we started much before other people did, but we took our time to get it right. Because we don’t believe in using our customers as a laboratory. What we have that I think is unique is patience. We have patience to wait until something is great before we ship it.”

We didn’t take lightly the decision to delay Alto’s Odyssey this past summer, but as a team, we couldn’t be prouder of the game we’re launching today. 

We’ve always thought the Alto series as a way to escape to a fantastical place far from home. Time is the most precious thing we have, and we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure this next journey for Alto and friends is worth yours. 

Welcome to the endless desert. 💜

It seems like we find ourselves saying it every December, but it really is true: this year was a spectacular one for games. 

From inventive new entries in blockbuster series to deeply resonant games crafted by independent creators, and everything in between, we were constantly inspired by this industry’s talented creators.

As we reflect on all the great titles we had a chance to experience, some in particular continue to linger in our hearts and minds. Whether they made us laugh with delight, cry out in frustration, or in some cases just cry, these games were our favourite of 2017 (in no particular order). 

What Remains of Edith Finch

In our Snowman Review of the game, we said, of Giant Sparrow’s masterpiece:

The deeper I dove, the more I was surprised by how resonant the whole experience was on a personal level. How despite getting lost inside it, the magical Finch house never lost its grip on me. How, underneath all of the Rube Golbergian mystery of it, What Remains of Edith Finch was ultimately a tale of loss, and of how we deal with it. Of finding perfection in our own fallibility, and the fallibility of the people we love. And maybe most of all, of forming the shape of our future out of more than the contours of our past.

Even as the year comes to a close, we constantly find ourselves bringing up Finch. Full of haunting, sometimes heart-wrenching vignettes, this is a game which is best experienced completely unspoiled. If you’ve yet to visit the Finch house, do yourself a favour and take a trip there as soon as possible. 

TumbleSeed

On the surface TumbleSeed is a game about rolling a small seed up a big mountain. But in reality, TumbleSeed is so much more than that. It’s a game about learning to delight in intrinsic rewards. A game where the high score isn’t a point value, but the realization that you’ve become a more patient person — a person who deals better with small setbacks, who breathes deeper for a little longer before becoming agitated. TumbleSeed is a shining example of a game created with singular conviction. It’s an experience some players will bounce off of. But for those who stay, it’s that wonderful type of game which gets under your skin, and into your bones — always calling you back for one more try. 

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The term “open-world” gets bandied around a lot for games with large maps, lots of quests, and long checklists of things to do. Breath of the Wild, however, is something altogether more brilliant. A game that presents the player with a massive playground full systemic interactions, and sets them loose to craft their own adventure. Climb to the top of a snow-capped mountain, use your shield to snowboard down, jump into the air above a camp full of enemies, and electrify them all by shooting a lightning-powered arrow into their tin cooking pot. Then go do a hundred other things you haven’t yet planned on your way to another mysterious peak in the distance. Breath of the Wild is a return to and revitalization of the sense of wonder that’s so central to the Zelda series. It’s a shining example of why Nintendo are such masters of their craft.

Gorogoa

There’s no other way to say it: Gorogoa is perfect in every conceivable way. It is a profound experience so clever that it’s actively hard to believe it exists as it’s happening. As a puzzle game, it’s a master class in how to teach people what to do as they do it, all while ensuring that nothing ever feels unfair or too far out of reach. But our advice when playing this - and you must immediately go play this if you have a couple hours to spare - is not to get too hung up on what type of game it is. Instead, enjoy getting lost in every resplendent, hand-drawn frame, as the game’s concept and story unfold before you one layer at a time. 

Stagehand: A Reverse Platformer

Sometimes you stumble on a game whose concept is so elegant and intuitive that you wonder how it hasn’t been done before. Stagehand is one such gem. Part platformer, part runner, the game has you moving the landscape to guide intrepid hero Frank to safety amid a gaggle of classic obstacles like spikes and lava. Moment to moment, Stagehand is a constant delight with clever design, pixel-perfect art and nostalgia-inducing sound design. Developer Big Bucket Software continues to impress as a creator of modern classics for phones and tablets. 

Cuphead

Much has been made of Studio MDHR’s seven-year journey to bring Cuphead to life, and playing it, you can instantly see why. The game is a Silly Symphony in your hands: a playable Fleischer-era cartoon that leaps off the screen and into your heart. It’s almost impossible not to root for the adorable Cuphead and Mugman as they run and gun their way through inventive boss battles to earn their soul back from the devil. We say almost, because the game’s brutal retro difficulty might just have you throwing your controller. Good luck!

Old Man’s Journey

In our review of the game earlier this year, Snowman founder Ryan Cash sums up why this game is such a treasure:

So much of the [game’s] emotional journey is wrapped up in the beautiful art style — the pastel colours flowing around the screen in wisps. Subtle animations pepper the painterly flashbacks of the main character, stirring up wistfulness and nostalgia. A children’s storybook with an adult heart, brought to life...Truly, the title of the game says it all. Life can pass us by so quickly, and this game was a beautiful reminder of that. A chance to pause, and do something we often forget to do — reflect.

Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

In the trailer for Getting Over It, the game’s creator Bennett Foddy says that he created it “for a certain type of person...to hurt them.” This game, about ascending a massive mountain as a man stuck inside a pot using an axe, more than lives up to Foddy’s aspirations. There are no checkpoints, the landscape is deliberately designed to rebuff attempts to find clear patterns in movement, and nearly any misstep can result in tumbling all the way to the very bottom. Why then, does it make our list? Because there’s something intoxicating about the oft-unexplored feeling of friction and frustration that Getting Over It captures. Of all the games on this list, it’s perhaps the most fun to play with a group of friends, delighting in one another’s misery, and - somewhat inexplicably - your own.

Monument Valley 2

We’d be remiss not to include ustwo Games’ followup to the gorgeous Monument Valley. This second kaleidoscopic journey into the world of sacred geometry continues the series trend of taking your breath away in every shot. This is the the type of game that makes the devices you play it on feel more beautiful — any isolated shot could be a painting hung on your wall. This time around, take particular note of the transcendent, transportive sound and music from artist Todd Baker.

Super Mario Odyssey

It may seem biased because we have our own Odyssey title on the horizon, but we promise: this game is spectacular. In a series known for its tight controls and balletic movement, Super Mario Odyssey is a crowning achievement. A game where every hop, skip, and jump is so responsive it will put a smile on your face, and where the rewards for mastering the controls feel nearly endless. Speaking of endless: this is the kind of game you hibernate with. Every nook and cranny of its bright, ebullient world is filled with secrets and treasures to find, so make sure to keep playing even after Bowser’s been defeated.

Perhaps the greatest shame of all is that for every game mentioned on this list, there are probably three that we’ve forgotten or which we didn’t even get a chance to play. Then again, that will just make discovering them later all the more joyful. 

Where Cards Fall began its life as a student project five years ago. Since then, it’s evolved and transformed, taking shape in ways that often surprise even us. Over the last year in particular, as we’ve worked with our partner studio The Game Band on the project, we’re proud to say that our dream version of the game has come into view. 

But with that sharper focus has come a clear understanding: to build the game we know you deserve, Where Cards Fall is going to need more time. Along with Alto’s Odyssey, we know this marks a second delay for Snowman this year. When it comes to our feelings about this, we think The Game Band’s creative director Sam Rosenthal puts it best:

When we first announced Where Cards Fall, I talked about how the game is meant to feel like a bittersweet memory. By revisiting the past, we want to explore how we build our futures over many years.

For several of us at The Game Band, that’s quite literally the case. A core group of us began building this game when we were in college, and over time, we’ve come to realize that making Where Cards Fall has felt a lot like playing it.

We chose our cards. We put them together. We built a house. The house wasn’t quite right. We knocked it down. We started again.

When we teamed up with Snowman, we caught a glimpse of our dream house. So we took everything down to the studs and built a much stronger foundation. With all that said, it’s looking like we’ll need some more time to finish decorating.

Rest assured, the wait will be worth it. In the coming months, we’ll pull back the curtain on the novel game mechanic that anchors our storytelling, and offer more glimpses into Where Cards Fall’s dreamlike world.

Thank you for your support, and for your patience. I know delays have become a bit of a cliché in video games, but new ideas are hard to build properly on the first try. Sometimes you need to let your creation fall to see what it can become.

Delays are never ideal, but like Sam, we’re firm believers in the fact that it’s worth building things properly, not quickly. 

In the near future, we’ll begin sharing more glimpses of the world of Where Cards Fall on Twitter & Facebook. Our promise to you is that as a firm release window comes into view, we’ll let you know. 

We’ve said that in DISTANT, you’ll be rescuing dreamscapes from destruction. That it will be an experience meant to capture the elegance of movement. A story set in a fantastical, colourful universe. Beyond that, though, we’ve kept the details about this mysterious new game close to our chest. Until now. 

Shown off privately at this year’s Game Developers Conference, and debuted publicly at the first ever Tribeca Games Festival, here is a first-ever glimpse of DISTANT gameplay. 

Sun-drenched and placid above the surface, with an ancient darkness lurking beneath, this world is just one of the many you’ll traverse as you unravel DISTANT’s secrets. What are the giant beasts lumbering in the distance? Who is the powerful cloaked traveler you’re guiding? And what exactly are those glowing, ethereal shards?

Some questions are better left unanswered, for the time being.

But so much more is on the horizon for DISTANT, and we’d love for you to follow along on the road to release.

Yesterday, Alto's Adventure turned two. Even typing that is surreal. Like so many developers, we had no idea how the game would be received when it came out. If nothing else, we hoped it would help people find just a little bit of serenity and solitude amid the daily hustle and bustle.

Every day since has surpassed anything we could've concocted in our dreams. And certainly, there have been highlights. Reaching the top of the App Store charts. Being called "a piece of interactive art" by a publication we truly admired like WIRED. Finding ourselves featured in collections and lists alongside games that have inspired us, and creators we look up to. But ultimately, in these last two years, nothing has been more humbling for us than to see fans connect with Alto and friends the way they have. From kind emails and social media messages telling us how the game has helped people discover play, or cope with anxiety, to gorgeous fan art beyond our wildest expectations, your reaction has been the greatest gift of all. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for joining us on this adventure. Yesterday, we said that we were celebrating by putting Alto on sale for a limited time. Today, that celebration continues. Rather than look back, though, we think it's time to look forward to the horizon. And to the odyssey that awaits.

The Snowman team will be back at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference this year (June 3rd - 7th).

While our hearts are still full from last year’s WWDC, we are excited to be reunited with old friends and make plenty of new ones while we’re there again!

As if being surrounded by thousands of bright and innovative minds isn’t enough of an honor, last year we were humbled to accept a 2018 Apple Design Award along with 9 other brilliant apps. It just goes to show that you never really know what to expect at WWDC and we can't wait for what's in store this time around.

For a lot of people, the release of iPhone X is exciting. Getting a new device is always fun, not to mention the new edge-to-edge display. This week's release has me thinking back, though.

iPhone X marks the ten-year anniversary of a device that changed my life. Simply put: without iPhone, there would be no Snowman. As a platform, it's enabled me to bring ideas to life, grow a company, and join a talented community of craftspeople and creators.

As a small gesture to mark the release, we've updated Alto's Adventure to take advantage of the new screen on day one. With more of the mountain in view than ever, we really feel like this is the premiere way to experience the game. The update is available on the iTunes store right now, and will be ready for players to experience as soon as they set up their iPhone X.

Alto is a Universal app, too, which means that one purchase allows you to download the game on your iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. Your progress will even sync through iCloud each time you start.

As much as we've been reflecting, though, we also find ourselves casting our sights ahead. In their hands-on, WIRED made a wonderful point about this latest device:

The real payoff of iPhone X might come when we figure out what it can do tomorrow.

Alto 1.6 might represent a subtler way to harness the iPhone X, but as a team, we can't wait to explore everything these new technologies have to offer. From Face ID, to AR, there are already plenty of ideas dancing in our heads.