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

Enlarge / Alto’s Odyssey on an iPhone 7. (credit: Samuel Axon)

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.

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Post Author: martin

Martin is an enthusiastic programmer, a webdeveloper and a young entrepreneur. He is intereted into computers for a long time. In the age of 10 he has programmed his first website and since then he has been working on web technologies until now. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of BriefNews.eu and PCHealthBoost.info Online Magazines. His colleagues appreciate him as a passionate workhorse, a fan of new technologies, an eternal optimist and a dreamer, but especially the soul of the team for whom he can do anything in the world.

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