The state of iOS game development, according to the creators of Alto’s Odyssey

2015’s Alto’s Adventure was a surprise hit. It launched on iOS as a premium game with no microtransactions, and it landed at the top of App Store charts all over the world. It was developed by Team Alto, a collaboration between a Canadian company called Snowman and artist Harry Nesbitt, which had not previously published a game. Its sequel, Alto’s Odyssey, launched this week to positive reception once again—the game has a 91 on Metacritic.

On iOS, Adventure has no in-app purchases (IAP) other than a physical gear store that is unrelated to gameplay. On a platform loaded with free-to-play games that aren’t actually so free-to-play thanks to complex microtransaction schemes, only a few games achieve the kind of success Adventure has without IAP. Odyssey doesn’t have any IAP either, though the Android version of Adventure does.

Ars spoke with three key members Team Alto—creative director Ryan Cash, producer Eli Cymet, and designer/developer Jason Medeiros—about what’s new in Odyssey, what iOS game development looks like right now, what implementing Metal support for the first time was like, how Android distribution differs, and more.

About the game

Alto’s Odyssey is an example of the endless runner genre at its most basic level—but also at its most sublime. You play as a snowboarder riding sandy hills of the desert (Alto’s Adventure was actually set in a snowy environment), grinding on ancient ruins, and leaping over chasms to rack up trick points and achieve various objectives to unlock more gear and characters to play with.

The new title screen looks similar to its predecessor, but it’s much more colorful.

Samuel Axon

The new title screen looks similar to its predecessor, but it’s much more colorful. Samuel Axon

In-game purchases are back—and there are more of them—but they are all made with in-game currency, at least in this iOS version.

Samuel Axon

In-game purchases are back—and there are more of them—but they are all made with in-game currency, at least in this iOS version. Samuel Axon

There’s still an unlockable cast of snowboarders. My favorite is still Maya, because triple flips are cool.

Samuel Axon

There’s still an unlockable cast of snowboarders. My favorite is still Maya, because triple flips are cool. Samuel Axon

In-game purchases are back—and there are more of them—but they are all made with in-game currency, at least in this iOS version. Samuel Axon

There’s still an unlockable cast of snowboarders. My favorite is still Maya, because triple flips are cool. Samuel Axon

You level up and unlock new characters by achieving goals—you’re given these goals in sets of three. Once the third one in a set is crossed off, you level up and receive a new set.

Samuel Axon

The challenge-free zen mode was added to Alto’s Adventure after launch, but it’s here from the beginning in Odyssey.

Samuel Axon

Beautiful art, simple but tight controls, and some of the best, most subtle audio design we’ve heard in a mobile game come together to make Odyssey a relaxing experience. That’s driven home by the presence of zen mode, which takes much of the pressure of crashes off and lets you ride without any set objectives.

Odyssey expands on what Adventure offered with a bunch of new features, beyond the change in setting. You can now wall ride, which opens up a new category of tricks. The game’s procedurally generated levels now transition between three different biomes, with more obstacles and background decorations.

In general, there are some themes behind the changes. “There’s a lot more kind of verticalness to the game,” Cash told us. He explained:

So riding up on the walls and reaching grinding rails that you weren’t previously able to reach, that I think is probably the biggest one to me. But there’s also quite a few other elements that kind of tie in, which is all sort of about this feeling of getting vertical and adding verticality to the game. So we have the hot air balloons that hold together bunting lines that actually move the grindable surface, where in the past, in Alto’s Adventure, they’re all static. And then the ability to actually balance on balloons makes them kind of fun and enjoyable to interact with.

Most of Odyssey‘s environments are sparse for long stretches.

Samuel Axon

Most of Odyssey‘s environments are sparse for long stretches. Samuel Axon

Team Alto told us that the company took inspiration from the sparse, abandoned, and mysteriously purposeless architecture in games like Ico and Journey.

Samuel Axon

Team Alto told us that the company took inspiration from the sparse, abandoned, and mysteriously purposeless architecture in games like Ico and Journey. Samuel Axon

New weather effects have been added, and they’re quite striking. Notice that you can surf on water now, too, despite this being set in the desert.

Samuel Aoxn

New weather effects have been added, and they’re quite striking. Notice that you can surf on water now, too, despite this being set in the desert. Samuel Aoxn

Team Alto told us that the company took inspiration from the sparse, abandoned, and mysteriously purposeless architecture in games like Ico and Journey. Samuel Axon

New weather effects have been added, and they’re quite striking. Notice that you can surf on water now, too, despite this being set in the desert. Samuel Aoxn

There are several new interactive obstacles and elements. In this image, you see two. On the right, there’s a tornado that can launch you into the air. On the left, notice that the rope you can grind is being hoisted by an air balloon—while these grinding ropes were present in the previous game, now they can drift ever upward thanks to the balloon.

Samuel Axon

In the first game, you would get chased by elders, who would knock you off your board. Now you’ll be riding away from lemurs, which are still dangerous—but they’re easier to deal with. Notice the vine on the right; you can grind this, but it might snap under your weight.

Samuel Axon

Odyssey now has distinct biomes (kind of like Minecraft) with different visuals and obstacles. In this case, we’re jumping from water onto an air balloon that can bounce us into the sky.

Samuel Axon

The biggest gameplay addition is wall riding; you can grind on these walls and leap off of them.

Samuel Axon

You can now pick up a power-up that gives you a purple aura that destroys rock obstacles before they can knock you down.

Samuel Axon

Of the addition of biomes, Cymet said:

In tying to the theme of exploring and going outside your comfort zone and discovering places anew around every bend, we really wanted to amplify the amount of spaces players could see and the vistas they could take in as they moved through the landscape. So Biomes are these natural faces that are not just visual in nature, they’re not simple sort of skins for the world you’re moving through, they’re not just nice things to see; they’re these distinct, mechanically segmented spaces that feel like you’re doing something different in each one.

Cash and Cymet told us that a sequel to Adventure was not a foregone conclusion because they wanted to make sure they could add something to the first game. With those two things, they’ve succeeded. But when making a follow-up to a game for which minimalism was an appeal, it was important to have a smart philosophy about why to add some features but keep others out.

On this, Cash named the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater franchise as inspiration.

I remember, growing up—I’m a skateboarder myself—the first game [came] out, and I was super excited about it. and it kind of felt like the perfect game. Then the next version came out, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, and aside from new levels and new characters and challenges and stuff like that, the only real addition was the addition of being able to go manual in the game. But that let you link together combos, and it kind of opened up the opportunity for way crazier tricks. But it was such a simple addition that it didn’t get in the way of what made Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 very fun.

That iterative philosophy is clear when you play Alto’s Odyssey—the simplicity is still there, but it has just enough more going on to be fresh.

How to make a premium mobile game that’s good

Gamers and mobile game players don’t always cross over. The core gaming audience can sometimes be dismissive of mobile games, partly because there are some terrible games that are essentially gambling schemes and not much else. Cash said dismissing mobile games as a category is a bit like dismissing Breaking Bad because it’s a TV show and Pawn Stars or Storage Wars are also on TV.

He added:

Maybe people primarily focus on playing PC games or console games. I’ve seen it in the industry where they may frown upon mobile, and I think also vice-versa; there’s stigma around free-to-play games. Even free-to-play can be done super, super well and super honestly, like something like Crossy Road or Two Dots, or Supercell’s games. for example. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do anything, and there’s good and bad in pretty much any industry. It’d be like calling all news on the Internet “fake news.” There’s good sites and there’s bad sites.

Cash himself didn’t consider himself a gamer when Adventure launched, though he played games when he was young and has resumed since Adventure. “I played video games when I was growing up, and then I took probably about a 10-year hiatus to focus on business and tech and start-ups and that kind of stuff with my previous job,” he said.

He has finally played Journey, for example, which was a major influence on Adventure artist Harry Nesbitt. He sees mobile as offering a unique opportunity:

What’s so exciting to us about mobile is that now, for the first time in human history, almost everybody on this planet owns a device that’s capable of playing games. So it’s kind of a time where you can reach people who wouldn’t otherwise play games. If someone buys a PS4, they’re clearly showing intent to get into gaming, but if you buy an iPhone it doesn’t mean you bought it to play games, and usually it’s probably quite the opposite.

Why Alto’s Adventure was F2P on Android

When we discussed the Android port of Alto’s Adventure, that idea of reaching more people was even clearer. First of all, Cash said that the first game reached 30 million downloads on Android. That’s not bad for a company with Apple baked deeply into its DNA.

Team Alto worked with an Android game publisher for the Android version, in addition to talking to Android developers about the best approach, and they informed the strategy:

For Alto’s Adventure, we did work with a publisher called Noodlecake, another really awesome community and company. They interface with the whole Google side of things a lot more than we do on a regular basis, but I’ve heard things, like you can do multi-region pricing, which is something we don’t do as a free-to-play game, but you could price your game at like $5.00 in the US and $8.00 in Canada, but like $1.00 in China and $3.00 in Germany, let’s just say.

Notice he mentioned that Alto’s Adventure was a free-to-play game. Don’t get too confused; it was F2P on Android, but not on iOS. Cash said:

The reason behind us trying free-to-play on Android was primarily because we had heard from so many indie game developers who had made premium content for iOS that, on Android, they were seeing anywhere from as low as two percent to at the very, very, very best, 30 percent. I think I heard one person say 50%. But for the most part, it seems to be between five and 15% revenue on Android compared to iOS, yet, for all intents and purposes, let’s say they have just as many pieces of hardware out in the market… So for us, we’ve kind of said, “OK, that doesn’t seem great. What are other people doing?” And I think Crossy Road launched several months before Alto’s Adventure came out, but it was just before we launched on iOS, and Crossy Road was the first time that my eyes opened up to, “Oh, you can actually do free-to-play in an ethical and nice way.”

This is the gear workshop in the Android version of Alto’s Adventure. Notice that you can buy things with real money.

Ron Amadeo

This is the gear workshop in the Android version of Alto’s Adventure. Notice that you can buy things with real money. Ron Amadeo

You can also watch an ad to earn more of the in-game currency.

Ron Amadeo

You can also watch an ad to earn more of the in-game currency. Ron Amadeo

This is the gear workshop in the Android version of Alto’s Adventure. Notice that you can buy things with real money. Ron Amadeo

You can also watch an ad to earn more of the in-game currency. Ron Amadeo

Last year, I attended a talk at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco about Android game development, and developers said that the piracy rate on Android games was dramatically higher than that on iOS, such that special strategies were required for the platform. When asked about this, Cash confirmed the concern, saying, “We had also heard a lot of people saying ‘If you make it paid, most people are just gonna crack it and download it with a jailbroken device or illegally or whatever.’”

But he had other reasons to add:

I think I was a little bit more closed-minded before, where I just sort of thought, “Android people don’t buy games.” And I think that certainly is one aspect of it, also. Android devices have a much lower price barrier, or barrier to entry, so people are getting free Android phones and stuff like that. But also, I think Apple’s created a much more premium ecosystem in general, and people understand that they’re paying more for a device but they’re getting quality with it. So they’re sort of already a little bit more used to spending money for premium content or creations.

But I think on Android, there’s also another massive reality, which is people in developing countries around the world that make the equivalent of… I don’t know, I don’t feel comfortable making out numbers, but they make as much money as some video games cost per month in their local currency, and just simply buying games is not an option. You know, people are making a few hundred US dollars a month in some countries, so going out and spending $5.00 on a game is kind of just irresponsible for them and their family. So I think there’s actually quite a different market around the world, and those people should still be able to enjoy games, and if advertising is the only way to reach those people…

So I think it’s more complicated than just, “Android people don’t buy things, and all they do is jailbreak things.” I think that’s certainly a part of it. There’s a lot of fragmentation in general, like most people aren’t on the latest version of Android software, whereas most people are on the latest version of iOS. It’s just a bit crazier of an ecosystem, so I can’t say I’ve fully wrapped my head around it, but I think I have a better understanding of it than when we launched originally.

As for an Android version of Alto’s Odyssey, it’s coming, but Cash wasn’t willing to share many details. “I don’t have any concrete plans on anything Android-related other than that we love our Android players and that we will be coming to the platform in the months ahead,” he said. “But I don’t have any concrete details on availability and things like that.”

Now let’s talk Apple.

On working with Apple

“Overall, our bread and butter is built on Apple ecosystems, and I kind of come from a background of just that whole space,” Cash told Ars. He said:

The company I worked for before this made business software for the Mac, and I started working there right before the very first iPhone was announced, and then they started building software for the iPhone, and then the same thing happened with the iPad. So I was around kind of an all-Apple ecosystem for five years before leaving and starting Snowman, so Apple’s sort of all I really know.

Both he and Cymet said that Apple’s platform is attractive to game developers for several reasons. The one that kept coming up again and again is the fact that Apple users are more likely to be on recent devices, and they’re much more likely to be on the latest version of the device’s operating system. That means Team Alto and other developers can make decisions about using certain features or API without as much fear of alienating potential users on the platform.

Cash said:

It’s certainly a lot easier to develop for the iPhone, which now—there’s five iPhones, let’s say, out in the market, from iPhone 5Ss, to 6s, to 6 pluses, to iPhone 10, so it’s a little trickier than it was back when the iPhone was only one size. But compared to Android, it’s a lot simpler. The fact that most of Apple’s customers are on the latest version of their software makes it a lot easier to make software for the platform.

iOS may have fewer devices to support than Android, but there are still more formats there have been in the past. Here, Alto’s Adventure on the iPhone 7…

Samuel Axon

iOS may have fewer devices to support than Android, but there are still more formats there have been in the past. Here, Alto’s Adventure on the iPhone 7… Samuel Axon

…and on the iPhone X, with a wider aspect ratio. Both formats (plus others) must be supported by any new iOS game as of this coming April.

Samuel Axon

…and on the iPhone X, with a wider aspect ratio. Both formats (plus others) must be supported by any new iOS game as of this coming April. Samuel Axon

iOS may have fewer devices to support than Android, but there are still more formats there have been in the past. Here, Alto’s Adventure on the iPhone 7… Samuel Axon

…and on the iPhone X, with a wider aspect ratio. Both formats (plus others) must be supported by any new iOS game as of this coming April. Samuel Axon

Cymet added that Apple has made recent changes to make it easier for developers to promote their games on the platform:

There’s a renewed—and in some cases increased—focus on letting people inside sort out the “why?” behind creation, as opposed to just the “what?”, if that makes sense. I think there’s been a conscious effort in the revisions that have been made to the App Store in iOS 11 that have put renewed focus on telling the stories of individual developers.

In part, he’s referring to the newly redesigned App Store in iOS 11, which adds a “Today” tab that features editorially curated profiles of developers and lists of games in addition to the older browsable section of the App Store app. This struck me because I used to work with game developers in marketing and advertising, and I have seen many of the small indies I used to work with express frustration about the very addition that Cymet is praising. They say it puts the focus on the upper echelon for curation; most people won’t leave the Today tab to browse and find smaller games anymore, they said.

Cash was sympathetic but doubled down on the value of the new App Store:

I definitely hear the concerns brought on an up-and-coming developer or something like that, for sure. I do think, though, that that App Store used to change every Thursday, which was once a week, and now the App Store changes on a daily basis. Both the Today page, but also the games and the apps tabs. They’ll be updated more frequently than just once a week, and I think there’s actually much more of an opportunity for new developers to be highlighted in the store.

They also actually have an official—they never had this before, but they now have an official way for developers to submit their stories for the Today page. So they’ve actually come out and said, “Hey, we need your stories. Give them to us.” I firmly believe that if you use that form and you submit a story that’s worth sharing, it doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to be there and it doesn’t mean you’re gonna get the best spot as often as you might want, but I think it’s definitely better than it was before. It gives everyone equal access to submitting those kind of stories.

Implementing Metal, and other iOS development considerations

Both Cash and Cymet said that the prevalence of recent devices and software among iOS users made it possible to make convicted decisions to support certain features or use certain tools. Cymet said:

That puts you in a position where you are smoothing out concerns for the exceptions to the rule, but you can count relatively confidently on the fact that the majority of your players are gonna have a great, smooth experience because you’ve chosen the latest graphics engine, and you know that they’re running devices whose OSs are optimized for that graphics engine. That runs the gamut from big decisions, like “Do we use Metal?” or “Do we do something that maybe is a half step or a compromise?” All the way down to, “Do we explore smaller parts of the API that might be more readily usable on these latest OSes, things like haptic feedback and 3D Touch?”

The scenes in Alto’s Odyssey can be much more complex than those found in Alto’s Adventure, creating concerns about compatibility for older devices. For that reason, optimizing performance was a priority this time around.

Credit: Samuel Axon

The team also switched to the latest version of Metal with Alto’s Odyssey, which was made in the game development tool Unity just like its predecessor.

Here’s what designer and developer Jason Medeiros had to say about this switch:

The switch to Metal happened when we started focusing more deeply on performance. We started profiling and noticed some strange OpenGL performance behavior which we wanted to remedy. We tried switching to Metal and those issues were resolved. That said, some of our custom shaders needed to be tweaked, but it wasn’t a significant amount of work, and we were happy to do it!

The team also moved to the latest version of Unity, Unity 2017. Medeiros said this helped with performance, too:

Unity 2017 brought in lots of small performance boosts—particularly for graphics and rendering. We switched from hand-drawn sprite animations over to Mecanim—not new to 2017, but new to the project—which, [when] used alongside all of the new 2D sprite tools, allowed us to create really smooth and easy-to-tweak characters. The Unity profiler itself was significantly upgraded, allowing us to dive deeper into exactly what was creating GC and eating up frame time.

As for other new Apple APIs and tools the team adopted, Medeiros said: