Alto’s Adventure has a simple premise: Speed down a mountain on your snowboard, pull some tricks, collect some coins, capture a llama or two while you’re at it. Maybe you'll crash into a rock or miss a landing, but no problem; you’ll start over again at the top of the never-ending slope. In terms of gameplay, it’s fun but not groundbreaking. And yet, I find myself coming back again and again. This iOS game is stupidly addictive, and the best explanation I have is because it’s so damn pretty.
Developers Ryan Cash and Jordan Rosenberg of Snowman are the guys behind Alto’s Adventure, one of the most beautiful mobile games in recent memory. As Alto, your shepherd/avatar, shreds the mountain in hot pursuit of his escaping llamas, he navigates a surreal alpine landscape designed by artist Harry Nesbitt. “We wanted to try and create a living, breathing environment for Alto to inhabit,” Nesbitt says. “That the game and its characters could be just a small part of a much larger world, with its own history and culture.”
Alto inhabits a gauzy, sunset-colored world where geometric mountains give way to dense forests. As you pass through randomly generated levels, your surroundings change. One minute it is raining, the next you’re enveloped in a warm, orange haze. Rainbows will appear, lighting will strike and if you’re watching closely, you might spot a shooting star streaking across the night sky or fireflies glittering in the dark. This dynamic atmosphere was intentional, Cash says. “We really wanted to convey the feeling of being out there on the mountain; so that includes the passage of time, but also a change in weather,” he explains.
The game was born of the guys’ love of Tiny Wings, a funny mobile game that features a bird with wings too tiny to fly. In the game, the bird scoots along technicolored hills, floating occasionally into a soft puff of clouds. There’s not much to the game, but the world you inhabit is so vivid and silly you get an immediate sense of place. This harmony between visuals, sound and story was a revelation to Cash and Rosenberg. “We thought that Tiny Wings had done something really special, and we learned from its simplicity that by limiting the complexity of a game's controls, you can actually enhance the overall experience,” Cash says.
Alto's Adventure is a close aesthetic relative to Ustwo's Monument Valley, and though Cash says he's a huge fan, that is a coincidence. "I think what happened is that the super talented guys at Ustwo were probably thinking similar things to us," Cash says. "They were sick of all the typical looking and feeling mobile games." The emphasis on feeling is important. The details in Alto's Adventure---the plumes of snow after you hit the ground, the creaking of the windmills---are there to create an atmosphere. They make you want to ditch your board, strap on some snow shoes and wander around the magical land they've built. As Monument Valley has proven, the best games have a way of transporting you to another world. This is the case with Alto’s Adventure---it’s immersive because the simplicity of the game allows it to be. You’re encouraged to be a sightseer, to bask in the glow of your screen without guilt because you’re looking at a piece of interactive art.
