Putting your future on the cards house may not seem like a good idea for a professional. However, Sam Rosental claimed victory in the studio game. Where cards fall – Working for over nine years. ”Where cards fall It was a love affair for the better part of my life. ” As a student project originated by Rosenthal USC, the game won the 2020 Apple Design Award during the Coffee Shop sessions.
“We did not allow it. [Where Cards Fall] Go. ” “We believed we were doing something special and unique and exciting.” Rosental and his collaborators cut the floor of the ship to make it the kind of game they would like to see in the world, even though it had previously been rejected by publishers.
Growing up, Rosenthal had an early love of games and game design. But he did not find anything to share with friends or family who were not interested in the media. “There are not many experiences that fit the reality,” he said. So Rosenthal set out to create some. He dreamed of college Where cards fall – About the story of growing up and the “chaos of life” – While listening to RadioHide’s “House of Cards”.
The mechanics of the game are deliberately simple, using common system symbols on each platform to explore the story and the card-based puzzles. It is an integral part of both. Where cards fall And the founding principle of Rosenthal Studios is to create beautiful games that fit the world.
“We’re creating these little boxes for people,” Rosenthal said. “Small places where they can find something that interests them or teaches them something about themselves.” In Where cards fall, People explore the memory of the main character, the desire architect. Those memories are expressed in words, sound, music, and stunning 3D spaces, along with the game’s famous cards – which give a hint of the past to structures, gates, rebuilt spaces and bridges.
The architecture of the game in many ways reflects Rosenthal’s general philosophy around game design, which describes the unseen art. “When you enter a beautifully constructed building, the way you walk is not an accident,” he said. Game design also provides the player with that structure – allowing him to practice emotions, thoughts and relationships throughout his life.
Often invisible wisdom touches us too, or it only changes our perception.
Sam Rosental, creative director of where cards fall
When working with mechanics and design Where cards fall, Rosenthal and the team are inspired by both the game and the art world. Games like Portal, The witnessAnd Zelda The series helped him navigate the studio, take a walk, and explore the game’s puzzle structure. In And road trip He came up with new ideas to create an “unforgettable atmosphere” for the group.
Art Director Joshua Harvey has created a playful and moving artwork, partly influenced by the Bauhaus movement – a celebration of mathematics in shapes and lines. The craft is designed to work with the game’s interface, integrating everything together to create a perfect environment while still providing guidance to the player.
“We often think of UI as a unique layer at the top of the game’s art style, but successful art style is beautiful and practical at the same time,” Rosenthal says. In Where cards fallGrasshoppers in the woods and terraces in the city are arranged to help the player see the grid to plan their structure, while the brickwork at certain platforms provides subtle signals to help players determine their height.
The hand-painted beauty of the game is related to the character’s interest in art and architecture. “It’s a picture [their] Guess how to run the world and what might happen, “Rosenthal says.
Although the team had a lot of influence on the craftsmanship * the cards fall, the game has its own unique style and tone, partly due to the work of adapting the game mechanics, sound, music and art design. “We found it important to set the rules so that we could stay together,” Rosenthal said.
The cards and their puzzles were a big part of creating these instructions. “At first I thought that big, big puzzles would be interesting, but I soon realized that the smaller ones created some very interesting challenges,” he says. Once I found a general pattern, I started to make small rules. And players do not have to repeat the puzzle because this is the hope of the experiment.
Card interactions themselves have undergone many reviews during the development of the game. The team used physical board to test the interaction of physics and card-based structures, exploring both single-card drawings and multi-card distribution – and the latter became the main mechanic of the game. (In fact, it was a prerequisite for iOS at that time.
“Players interact with the stage the way they are used to, especially if they don’t play a lot of games,” Rosenthal said. When they moved, they followed the same philosophy. Where cards fall To Mac and Apple TV, by identifying platform-based signals that are easy for a player to receive.
One of the negative aspects of stage-based adaptation is that the player has to re-learn how to interact with the game. Fortunately, Rosenthal and his team thought of an excellent training and play system. They created hand-drawn layouts to move tracks, controls, and future actions, and used them to communicate in ways that could damage the main character – for example, tremors when trying to break the card structure.
The music and the soundtrack provide their own signals as the player makes his way through the game. The cards have unique, shiny tones as they are built and dropped – Audio Director Christney Knopp buys a collection of cards to get the right sound – and in the background combines the natural and physical sounds of the forest and the city with the effects of Turin Boroughdale. Rosenthal: “It is very easy to use human emotions in music. But we want the experience to be the main thing that corrects the emotional weight.
rather than Where cards fall It tells the story of the player’s journey. Removes text on audio or screen for similar reasons. “There is a lot of space to meditate,” says Rosenthal – the main theme of the game.
Now, Rosenthal, Game Band and publisher partner Snowman have the opportunity to reflect on winning the Apple Design Award. “He [was] More than I expected. ” “There are so many different hands to touch and each one has its own seal on it.”
His advice to the creators? Find and keep up with your partners – even when it seems impossible.
We are all working hard to make beautiful things happen.
And it’s really hard; Believing something correctly, especially when it is not obvious. right? The more you work on something, the more you know it has to be there. You know what the price is. But you have to convince a lot of people, especially if they are still in their early teens and not yet pretty.
Sam Rosental, creative director of where cards fall
Where cards fall
Game Band
Snowman
Download where the cards fall on Apple Arcade
Read more about where cards fall on the App Store