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Hands-on with coming-of-age puzzle game 'Where Cards Fall'
Where Cards Fall looks like a dream. Literally, I've had dreams that feel like this game -- the world is segmented into blocky platforms covered in grass, asphalt and clouds, as if a rudimentary algorithm was asked to create cities and forests, and it spat out gorgeous geometric interpretations of the real world. The game's art style highlights this dreamlike quality, covering all those cubes and slopes in soft, hand-drawn colors and dramatic shadows while ambient music hums in the background. Playing Where Cards Fall feels exactly like it looks -- ethereal yet grounded in reality, shockingly complicated and soothing at the same time.
The hidden depth of mobile puzzle game 'Where Cards Fall'
We're sitting in a circle on the floor of a decadent San Francisco hotel lobby, crowds of people milling around the couches and stairways. The young men of Snowman, the studio behind Alto's Adventure, watch as Sam Rosenthal sets up a small iPad, preparing to show off his latest game, Where Cards Fall. Rosenthal is the co-founder of the Game Band, a small Los Angeles studio working with Snowman to bring its new project to iOS, Apple TV and Steam this autumn. Rosenthal flips through a slideshow of character designs, explaining the premise as he goes. Where Cards Fall is a top-down, 3D puzzle game that has players build houses of cards to navigate tricky environments. It follows a handful of teenagers over the course of 10 years, from adolescence to college and finally adulthood. The art is cartoonish yet polished, as if the designs of Oxenfree had been transformed into 3D.
