The new app of The Game Band and Snowman is one of the fascinating stories that can be found inside Apple Arcade, not only for what concerns what is told in the game but also considering the chain of events that led to its creation. In addition to this, it is also a very interesting puzzle game, as we try to explain in this review of Where Cards Fall. The simple yet strange idea behind the game came to the designer Sam Rosenthal listening to Radiohead's House of Cards, as the author told on several occasions, however it took a long time and then a favorable distribution channel like the new service on Apple subscription to finally reach fulfillment. As Rosenthal maintains, the concept is to take the metaphor of the house of cards sung by the Oxfordshire band and interpret it in a very practical way, building on it a puzzle in which the card structures are not only fragile but also indispensable points of passage to reach the goal, to build bridges to build and connect different people and places.
The rarefied atmospheres recall metaphysical puzzles like Monument Valley but the setting here has fallen deeper into reality, staging a story of growth and maturation through various events characteristic of the life of an ordinary boy. The narration is barely mentioned, but in the intermezzo scenes that come to life at the end of each level it is possible to reconstruct the years of youth through apparently simple and light moments, but able to bring with them distinctive traits that affect the character of the protagonist and bring it to grow. It is a mixture of melancholy and desire to go on with that which emerges from history, which does not use words or understandable dialogues to leave everything a little approximate and open to different interpretations. On the other hand, to be honest, it is also a marginal element in the Where Cards Fall gameplay, which could very well be supported on its own but which certainly gets a greater thickness and above all a tone and a more pronounced sense of progression with the support of the scenes animate between one level and another.
Card houses and bridges to pass.
Where Cards Fall is the classic game complicated to explain in words, but that can be understood almost immediately as soon as you come into contact, also because the tactile control system is the most intuitive thing there can be. Essentially, it is a matter of going from one point of departure to one of arrival within the various levels, but the path is interrupted at various points, with the goal that is often placed even at a different height and with the protagonist not can climb on vertical walls. Scattered around the settings you can find decks of cards, which can be dragged on different levels (as long as there is at least one free box to let them pass) and then deployed to build different structures: houses with flat roofs, which provide flat platforms to move from one point to another at the same level of height or structures with a sloping roof, which also allow you to go up one level by using the inclination of the roof as a ramp. The card structures can be more or less wide (and high, depending on the type) based on how much space we have: the mechanics are very simple, just enlarge or tighten the fingers on the screen to vary the size of the base of the structure about the available free boxes.
The advice is to watch a video to get a more precise idea of how everything works, since the explanation may be difficult to understand. In any case, it is an excellent basic idea, supported also with discreet care in the design of the levels, so it is possible to be faced with very stimulating challenges. It must be said that the very level design presents ups and downs, with some situations that become rather predictable and a certain inconstancy in the level of challenge, however the introduction of variations such as the differentiated structures and the construction of the puzzles based on the differences in height of height (with the possibility of dragging the decks of cards for the ramps, or the use of the clouds within the dream levels that introduce the possibility to modify their height based on the weight of the structures built above) work well to enrich gaming solutions and providing new elements to think about. One thinks that the gameplay would have benefited from greater variations of this type, increasing the amount of possible constructions or elements of scenery capable of providing new alternatives, because, in the long run, the mechanics are a bit repetitive. Very beautiful and inspired graphics that filter realistic elements in a dreamy and stylized perspective, although the game is a bit thought to be managed even on devices that are not too archaic like an iPad of 2017. Also, note the occurrence of some crashes in the course of the trial which caused the app to close automatically.
