Five years ago, two childhood friends took the leap into making their very first mobile game. Inspired by their passion for snowboarding, founders Jordan and Ryan teamed up with Artist and Developer, Harry Nesbitt to create the scenic endless runner game, Alto’s Adventure.
We talked to Snowman Producer, Eli Cymet, and Artist and Team Alto Artist and Developer, Harry Nesbitt about the company’s beginnings, why they used Autodesk Maya for their 2D game and what they love most about winter.
How did Snowman get started?
ELI: The original founders, Jordan and Ryan, were best friends since they were four. In a way, Snowman started when they were kids growing up in Toronto. In December of 2011, they got together and decided they were going to take the leap and form their own company, Snowman. They release an app called Checkmark.
For much of the early years, Snowman was a productivity studio, but they had also always been fans of snowboarding. They would spend weekends snowboarding together, playing Tony Hawk until the wee hours of the morning. They wanted to build an app that could embody the serene feeling of snowboarding. They got to work and started conceptualizing. From there, they connected with Harry.
HARRY: In early 2013, Jordan and Ryan reached out to me about the idea to make a simple, approachable 2D snowboarding game. I think they’d become frustrated with the lack of games in the market that appealed to them as snowboarders. They cited Tiny Wings as being an inspiration for getting them started. I was on a similar page myself. I’d been getting into some mobile gaming a lot more when they approached me. I had been playing around with the idea of working in games so, I didn’t really have to think about it. It was just, “Yeah, when can we start?”
I was really keen to take a slightly different approach with the art style and the kind of genre that we were aiming for, which was an endless runner style game. I was interested to see if we could push it in a different direction that maybe wasn’t typically seen in that genre- do something that’s a bit more pared down, atmospheric, and immersive. It’s not something you often think about when you think of casual games.
ELI: I think we like to explore those ideas and think about ways we can make gaming accessible to people that might be more interested in art, analog puzzles, photography, nature scenery, or anything that isn’t the traditional interface-heavy game.
Alto’s Adventure © Image courtesy of Snowman
What were the biggest challenges in creating the game?
HARRY: Figuring out how to make it.
When they first approached me, it was just for the art. That’s my background: illustration and design. I’ve dabbled with coding and I’ve built websites, I’ve also played around with Unity just out of curiosity. But I wouldn’t have claimed to be a developer.
I played around for a couple of days in Unity and actually found that things were coming together quite easily that had proved difficult with the previous approach. Fast forward a few months and I had -- I graduated to full-time programmer and artist.
At that point, we got to be playable and this was maybe a third of the way into production and the remaining two-thirds was really just about enhancing the small details, and making sure that it was polished, smooth and there was a consistency across the board. I think that was really the exciting part about seeing it come together.
Why use a 3D tool like Maya for a 2D game?
HARRY: A lot of the assets, even though they’re 2D in appearance, are actually constructed from the geometry that was made in Maya. That was a result of trying to play to the strengths of a mobile platform. In mobile, you’ve got limited memory for things like textures and sprites and as I was designing the background and the environment in the back of my mind, I was asking myself whether these could be built out of geometry instead of sprites because we could then save on texture, memory, and it will scale to any resolution etc., So there was some back and forth between the technical aspects influencing the art style, and the art style determining how we go about constructing things in the engine and making sure that it was crisp.
It is a 2D game in the sense of gameplay, but the world is a 3D environment. As the buildings go by you, you get a sense that they have depth to them even though the lighting is very flat. It’s 2D when it’s static, but you get the sense of 3D as it in motion. I like playing with that boundary between 2D and 3D.
Alto’s Adventure © Image courtesy of Snowman
When did you start using Maya?
HARRY: I was pretty young. I think someone had told me they used it in the production of Lord of the Rings and I wanted to wrap my head around how that worked. My brother lent me a big stack of tutorial DVDs for Maya and each one was focusing on something different from modeling, animation, and physics. I just devoured those. Throughout university, I set myself little mini projects. I would animate a spaceship and try to play around with lighting and rendering. It was a way to satisfy that curiosity of how films and how games are made. When it came to Alto, it was obviously a great skillset to have.
What is your favorite part about winter?
ELI: My wife and I have a regular debate about whether winter or summer is better. I used to be such a summer person because British Columbian summers are breezy and lovely. I couldn’t imagine how winter could ever be anyone’s favorite. But lately, they’re so hot and awful! I think my favorite thing about winter is that you can never use enough blankets. I just love that you can always add more warmth if you’re too cold by piling on more cozy blankets and, you know, snuggling up and really just burying yourself under a pile of cotton.
But you can’t do the same in summer.
HARRY: I really agree with that. I think, Eli, I think we’ve talked about this as well. There’s a Danish word, which I think is pronounced “hue-gah.” It’s spelled h-y-g-g-e. And it’s basically this concept of coziness and warmth, friends and family coming together and good food on a dark winter’s night. It’s the candle in the window or that little glimmer of warmth that keeps you going.
Alto’s Adventure © Image courtesy of Snowman
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