5 Years of Skate City and Where Cards Fall
Take a journey into the past five years in this special celebratory blog post!
Today is a special day for all of us at Snowman as it marks 5 years since the initial release of Skate City and Where Cards Fall! A lot has happened in the last few years so we’ve put together this blog post to commemorate some of the highlights we’ve held near and dear to our hearts.
We can’t believe how much time has passed and we’re deeply appreciative for the amount of love and support we’ve received for both titles. Whether you’ve just happened to come across this post or you’ve been here since the start, we’re happy to have you along for the ride and hope you enjoy taking a deep dive into the last few years.
This adventure began when CEO & Founder of Snowman, Ryan Cash, and CEO of The Game Band, Sam Rosenthal crossed paths in 2013. Around this time, we had been deep in the development of Alto’s Adventure while the team at The Game Band were working on a passion project called (at the time) House of Cards.
Previously a USC school project, House of Cards was the beginning of a decade-long journey which started out as paper prototypes and grew into the decks of animated cards that we know and love today. It wasn’t until 2015 that we made it official and the teams joined forces to bring you Where Cards Fall!
Ryan Cash, CEO & Founder of Snowman, talks about working with The Game Band:
“Over the years, we’ve enjoyed working with the incredible team at The Game Band and couldn’t have picked a better partner to head into launch day with. Seeing Where Cards Fall out as an Apple Arcade launch title was really special and winning an Apple Design Award was the icing on the cake.
We learned so much from Sam and his team and five years later, I couldn’t be more grateful for the relationship we’ve built–both inside of our two companies and out. Sam’s become a lifelong friend.”
Receiving an Apple Design Award was a dream come true for many of us and marked a huge milestone in our journey as a team while validating years of hard work together.
Just a short while after, Agens’ developer and avid skater, Daniel Zeller, approached our team to discuss the concept for a new skate game he had been working on. Another passion project, but this time one that captured Zeller’s love and appreciation for skateboarding. As fellow skaters, our team jumped at the opportunity and couldn’t wait to get started on this second project.
In the 2019 Apple Keynote, it was officially announced that Where Cards Fall would be joined by a second title and Skate City was introduced as an exciting addition to the inaugural release of Apple Arcade.
Announcing the launch of Skate City showed us that our players shared the same love and passion we had for skating and made us all the more excited to bring the game into the world.
Snowman’s Senior Producer, Andrew Schimmel, reflects working on Skate City for the last few years:
“It’s always special to look back on a milestone like this and reflect. Five years ago today, we launched two incredible titles simultaneously for the debut of Apple Arcade. These games were released alongside an amazing lineup of imaginative, unique titles from a special class of developers that helped shape Apple Arcade into the thriving subscription gaming platform it is today.
Since then, we’ve more than doubled the content in Skate City, adding three new cities, game modes and hundreds of new challenges. This growth is a true testament to the hard work and dedication of the entire team behind the game. Every person involved has left their mark and none of this would have been possible without the collective efforts of the talented folks at Agens.
We’re proud to raise the standard of premium mobile games on a platform like Apple Arcade, where success isn’t driven by ads or micro transactions. It’s incredibly rewarding to be able to support our fans with new content they love over time and to see how deeply they resonate with these games. We still read every review and we’re working hard on what’s coming next.”
Skate City went on to be nominated for Best Mobile Game at the 2019 Unity Awards and 16th International Mobile Gaming Awards and received the Digital Design: Games and Installations Gold Awards at Visueltprisen 2020 and won in the Best of Fun for Everyone category at Kavalkaden 2020.
Collaborating with both Agens and The Game Band was an amazing opportunity and has taught us a lot about how partnerships should look in the industry. When both sides are equally enthusiastic about sharing a project with the world and aim to do so with the utmost care for their team, it really shines through in the end product and continues to grow through its players.
Now, we find ourselves in a special place where our professional relationships with both studios have grown into lasting friendships that we treasure and continue to carry with us into our future projects.
Since then, the original version of Skate City was then released on PC and console in 2020 while Where Cards Fall made its way to PC and Switch in 2021. More recently, Where Cards Fall became available on Apple Vision Pro, breaking the barrier between player and screen to bring more depth to the original game than ever before!
With these releases, we were able to expand our reach to a more diverse audience while also giving them the opportunity to experience them in new and exciting ways. Most importantly, it gave us the chance to share the games with players that we knew would love them just as much as we do.
Releasing both titles on Apple Arcade was a huge milestone in our journey as a studio and looking back at the last five years has us feeling so grateful for those who have joined us on this ride.
Time and time again, we’re truly enamoured by the support we’ve received from our fans and community members. All of whom we would not be here without! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for joining us on this journey.
We’re looking forward to seeing what the future holds for both Skate City and Where Cards Fall and can’t wait to share more news with you soon!
Yours truly,
The Snowman Team
For all upcoming news and updates, follow @builtbysnowman on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Join the conversation on the Snowman Discord server!
If you’re a member of the press who’s interested in chatting about our games, please contact Ryan Cash at ryan@builtbysnowman.com.
