Celebrating 5 Years of Alto
Alto’s Adventure is officially 5 years old! It’s hard to believe that so much time has passed. When we look back at all that has happened between then and now, we are so grateful for the journey we’ve been on with all of our players, collaborators and team members.
To celebrate the fifth anniversary, we have a few announcements that we are very excited to share with you...
Alto’s Odyssey is now available for Mac!
Now you can journey through the desert on your Mac.
Alto’s Odyssey for Mac supports iCloud sync, so you can sync your progress between iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and now Mac.
Download Alto’s Odyssey on the Mac App Store here.
For a limited time only, Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey will be available for 80% off. This even includes Alto’s Adventure on the Mac App Store.
For players with multiple devices, both Alto games are universal apps. Purchase once, and download the game on your iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. Your progress will sync through iCloud each time you start.
New Alto Anniversary Collection
We just launched The Alto Five Year Anniversary Collection on the Snowman Store with some brand new items! For the past five years, millions of fellow adventurers have discovered the ivory snows of Alto's Adventure and the endless deserts of Alto's Odyssey. To everyone who has been along for the ride, this collection is for you. We hope you find something you'll love.
Finally, we want to reflect on some of our most cherished memories of making and releasing Alto’s Adventure. We asked Snowman Founder, Ryan Cash, to share a bit of his own take on some of the experiences that stand out among the many highlights from this journey.
What was your favourite moment working on Alto?
Funnily enough, I think this might be after the launch. When we were working on the first game originally, things were a little more closed-off from a social perspective. Jordan and I were here in Toronto, working remotely with Harry over in the UK. I don’t believe we’d even spoken on the phone until just before the launch, and we didn’t meet in person until we all went to GDC a few weeks after the game shipped.
I’d say the best memories I have are from working on the game with such a great team and getting to all hang out and meet in person. After meeting at GDC back in 2015, we’ve all managed to meet up several times each year–sometimes at conferences, other times in our home cities. One of my fondest memories was spending a week in Harry’s hometown of Totnes in England, in the fall of 2015. It was really cool to see where he lived (and how different it was from Toronto), offering me a better idea of where his perspective as an artist might have come from.
What’s an Alto secret that no one knows about?
Some interesting things happen if you pay attention to the night’s sky long enough...
How has Alto grown in ways you didn’t expect?
For me, I think the fan art was something I truly never expected. People don’t make fan art for productivity apps–which is the world I was used to–so it was incredibly flattering to see fans reimagining and interpreting the Alto universe in their own ways. My absolute all-time favourite fan art has to be one by a young player named Tanner: https://www.instagram.com/p/BGqCDk-F4gu/
What was a monumental moment that made you realize Alto was gaining traction?
I think this actually came during the morning of our launch. We had announced that the game was coming out on February 19th about a week prior, and when I woke up that morning (around 4am) things were already pretty crazy! We had launched 5 apps prior to Alto’s Adventure, and usually on the day of our launch things took a few hours to pick up after we made the formal announcement. With Alto, people were already talking about the game around the world before we had even announced it that day! We got so busy following along that we almost forgot to announce the game ourselves.
How did the release of Alto’s Adventure cement Snowman’s goal to “create meaningful experiences that you may sit with for a short time, but that sit with you for a long while.”?
I actually feel like this became more realized after the game had launched. After some time had passed and we really got to soak in everything that had happened, we started feeling like Alto had become a bit more than just a mobile game; it was a place people visited to escape their reality, for many different reasons. One of these reasons was to seek out a moment of calm–a bit of relaxation after the end of a busy day. The more we thought about it, the more it felt like what we wanted to focus on moving forward.
What is an unexpected opportunity that came up thanks to Alto?
There have been many unexpected opportunities that have come up thanks to Alto, so it’d be next to impossible to pick just one favourite…I think seeing each game installed on Apple’s demo devices in their retail stores has been very surreal.
I managed to see the game installed on iPhones and iPads in England, Italy, Germany, Hong Kong, USA, Canada, and Australia. It was wild to think that something we’d spent so much time working on, that was at one point just an idea and a few scribbles on a white piece of paper, was now on display in such a meaningful way.
If you want to keep reminiscing with us, we’ll be sharing more throughout the coming days! You can follow along on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
