Join Alto and his friends as they embark on an endless snowboarding odyssey. Journey across the beautiful alpine hills of their native wilderness, through neighbouring villages, ancient woodlands, and long-abandoned ruins.
Along the way you’ll rescue runaway llamas, grind rooftops, leap over terrifying chasms and outwit the mountain elders – all while braving the ever changing elements and passage of time upon the mountain.
Altos adventure [$1.99] – available on iPhone and iPad, is a one button downhill endless skier/runner with an emphasis on visual glory and adventure. Full day / night cycles and weather patterns created through the use of atmospheric music and lighting manage to create strong emotional undertones.
We have seen many a downhill skier come through the app store in the past couple of years, some good, some great and many a clone. So where does Alto’s Adventure stand amoung heavy hitters like Ski Safari, and Tiny Wings?
Alto’s adventure carves out a new niche within this long standing ‘down hill runner’ genre. It is in fact an adventure runner as I like to call it. So the name is very fitting.
The attention to detail by the designers is very impressive. Little birds fluttering out of the way as you sky, responsive controls and clean well thought out UI. This is a premium game, so there is no BS ( no IAP, no ‘gem bags’ to buy and no ads).
The stereo atmospheric sounds are so convincing that the first time I played it whilst on the train from work (head phones in), a weather change took place within the game. Thunder rumbled and cracked as rain began to come down on Alto. I was completely convinced that it was about to rain IRL. It was a head trip, that’s how good the sound design in this game is.
It reportedly took 2 years to make this game due to the high visual polish. How accurate that number is I don’t know, but one thing is abundantly clear, they put their heart into this game.
I’m so sick of seeing many great developers sell themselves short by making a game that is ‘good for the market’ rather than good for them.
What Alto’s adventure does well is finding a harmonious combination casual game-play with themes associated with adventure games.
Highly recommended.
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