Where Cards Fall is a really clever interpretation of the phrase. It’s a puzzle about life and where it leads us, literally told with cards… and how they happen to fall. For The Game Band’s Sam Rosenthal, there’s a personal basis. “There have been multiple points in my life where I felt I was in a rut and needed a change,” begins Rosenthal. “I’ve kept a journal for years, and usually when I’m stuck I go through it to better understand how I got to where I am and what I feel is missing.
“The memories in my journal are scattered and messy. There are vivid descriptions of people and events I thought would change my life forever but ended up playing a small role. At the same time, there are small margin notes about ideas, people, and places I was curious about that ended up significantly shaping who I am today.”
That’s summing up Where Cards Fall too, with small events, small moments impact these characters. “Every puzzle asks you to arrange a mess into something whole. Every euphoric realization leads to another mess, and another opportunity to discover something new,” explains Rosenthal.
Based in Los Angeles, The Game Band needed to contend with the high cost of living, with the benefit of being localized to plenty of talent. Up to 20 people were working on Where Cards Fall at once, impressive considering some of the difficulties. It’s wrong to say Where Cards Fall was developed in one particular place.
World traversal - with cards
“We started off in co-working spaces, then found a cheap office in Santa Monica,” Rosenthal writes, beginning a saga that took this studio all over the city. “We ended up hiring mostly people that lived on the east side of LA, so we moved to an under construction building in the Arts District (again: cheap). It had a lot of character but also a lot of sawdust that drizzled onto our computers every day. Not ideal. We eventually grew out of it and then moved to the Fashion District. The building we were in was bought just a few months before our ship date and we were forced out. So we quickly scrambled and found an office in Pershing Square that we absolutely love.”
Those struggles led the team into the arms of Snowman founder Ryan Cash. His aim as a publisher was Apple Arcade. That worked. For Cash, Apple Arcade changes the market. “I’ve literally had conversations with people who run free-to-play game studios (I won’t name names) who have said to me, ‘Oh, we don’t care if the game is fun. It just has to perform. That can’t be a good thing for games… Apple Arcade is going to allow game developers to create better games, and ultimately players are going to benefit from this.”
Even the city depends on cards
Rosenthal speaks with equal optimism about this platform. “We’re not going to broaden the audience for games on dedicated game platforms. If you have to buy a special system to play games, you have to know that you already love games. There are so many more people that aren’t sure games are for them, but we’ll only reach them by making great titles for the devices they already have.”
While most people have a phone or tablet in hand, that didn’t translate to success for indies so much as for those who knew how to lure people into dropping cash on… stuff.
“Free to play games that preyed on compulsive behavior rose to the top. Premium games, those sold at a fixed cost, couldn’t break free of the race to the bottom economics. It became nearly impossible to charge more than $4.99 for them, which drove many developers away,” explains Rosenthal. “In the console world, the prices are high enough that lots of players end up buying the latest version of a game they know they already like year after year. Apple Arcade is encouraging the developers and the audience to take a chance on something new,” which in Rosenthal’s case, means Where Cards Fall has a chance.
