New York is a mobile game that toes the line between casual and deep gameplay

Skate City He was Apple Arcade launch title Back in 2019, it was developed by Ages and published by Snowman, a company known for its mobile-first games like alto adventure, “The sequel” Alto Odyssey, When the cards fall And a bunch of other interesting titles. It’s been more than five years since then Skate City He arrived first, but the Snowman/Agens team came back with him Ski City: New Yorkwhich is outside On Apple Arcade today.

There have been a number of content updates to the original game over the years, but this is a whole new title that feels quite familiar but also contains a number of improvements and updates. I had the opportunity to try Ski City: New York A few days before launch, I also spoke with Snowman’s Ryan Cash and Andrew Schimmel about the new game, which they said has been in the works for a good three years now.

As with the first ski city, You’re rolling from left to right in the classic side-scrolling format here. To make things easier to access, you can perform tricks by swiping in one of eight directions in the bottom half of the screen; The left side is for ollie based tricks while the right side takes you to nollie. You don’t have to do anything specific to land, just trigger the trick and the game will make sure you land (unless you land on stairs or an obstacle, of course). This is the basic starting point, but you can also do rotations, guides, grinding, and more. It’s simpler than a game like the classic Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series or the newer ones First world firstbut there is still a lot of timing and finesse involved in achieving success in your rounds.

As you would expect, the visuals are much more dynamic and the backgrounds are much improved compared to the original game (which was still a great game). But what sets this mode apart the most, according to Schimmel, is the fact that the “Pro Skate” mode, which is the most involved part of the game, uses procedurally generated levels.

“We didn’t want to limit ourselves to the original (game’s) loops through the city, but instead make something more adaptive and dynamic,” Shimel said. “Procedural generation was both the solution and the biggest technical challenge.” I couldn’t pick this up right away, as I’ve only played the game for two hours, but Schimmel is confident it will work Ski City: New York It has greater replayability than the original.

Pro Skate reminds me a lot of Snowman alto adventure, But that translates to skating — the goal is to go as far as you can and collect as many points as possible while completing three objectives to level up your progress. Goals are things like “reach three 180-degree turns” or “grind 100 meters.” But with levels more unpredictable than in the previous game, you’ll need to be better at quickly responding to new obstacles, which can end your career but also give you a chance to pull off a good trick or treat.

As with all Snowman games, there are no in-app purchases here; Instead, you’ll get points for completing challenges and leveling up in Pro Skate. You can then use these items to customize your character through the more flexible and expansive Skate Shop. You can modify your character’s body, hair, facial features, clothes, skateboard, etc. I haven’t played with it much yet but it’s immediately clear that there’s a lot of customization here.

As is the case with Skate CitySnowman promises that there will be a steady stream of new challenges and more parts of the city to explore over the next year and beyond. Schimmel referred to it as a “live services” game although there is no monetization aspect to it. I also asked how the team decided to release them Ski City: New York Through Apple Arcade versus making it a one-time payment or even including paid updates in the game – Cash described it as an “easy option”.

“We haven’t had a pay-per-view match since then Alto Odyssey “Apple Arcade and Netflix Games are where we are now,” Cash said in 2018. And it was an easy choice when talking about it Ski City: New York, Because the first game was a launch title and had a lot of success there. It made sense to bring it back to Apple Arcade.” The first Skate City It eventually made it to consoles and PC as well, and Cash said this was definitely under consideration for the future, but the goal is to make the mobile-first title as good as possible.

Although the game doesn’t look very different from its predecessor, Ski City: New York It still feels like a premium mobile game at a time when it’s hard to find. Snowman and Agnes have done a great job of balancing the pick-up-and-play aspects of a good mobile game with a deeper experience, at least from what I’ve seen so far. “We want a seven-year-old who is passionate about skateboarding to have fun, as well as people like us who grew up loving skateboarding and really want a challenge,” Cash said.

Ski City: New York Released today exclusively on Apple Arcade.