"As much as there's been a focus on creating the right game, it's also about having the right workflow and the right process, and working with the right people," Nesbitt said. "So as the team has expanded to accommodate the new ambitions that we've got, then also there's a lot to learn for how to work in that way and essentially just find a stable rhythm so that it's not just a one-off situation. We want to keep on making games that people love and that excite us."

From the first line of code to the last, Team Alto has been actively working on Alto's Odyssey for just one and a half years rather than the full three. The rest of that time has been spent building a stable business and keeping existing players happy.

"Alto's Adventure is our first foray into gaming," Cash, the series director, said. "We're kind of figuring a lot of this out on the way. Alto's Odyssey will sort of only be our second step into this world. We were kind of, I don't want to say blindly, hoping for the best. We're kind of just making it up as we go. I think we're feeling pretty good about it now, but we're also pretty young in the industry."

Snowman might be a young studio, but developers are taking a measured approach to their post-Alto's Adventure projects. There's hustle but no rush. No one on the team wants to push out a soulless game just because players expect it or, even worse, just to make a quick buck.

"We would get a lot of letters and sometimes physical mail telling us that Alto helped people relax at night and cope with illness or loss of a loved one," Cymet said. "What that really taught us is that Alto as a series is strongest when it is about capturing these meaningful feelings and connecting with players on an emotional level."

Alto's Odyssey means a lot to Team Alto, and developers have poured their personal demons and triumphs into this deceptively emotional endless-running experience. Cymet, for instance, moved his family 2,000 miles from Vancouver to Toronto to join the Snowman team, and the feeling of displacement helped him develop a deeper relationship with the idea of "home" -- one of the major themes in the Alto series.

"I think what I've learned, and what Harry and I have talked a lot about personally as we've reminisced during development and late nights and things, is that home isn't necessarily a place," Cymet said. "It's the people you're with and the people that make you feel supported and loved."

The sequel also holds up a mirror to Snowman's growth as a studio. While Alto's Adventure encapsulated the comfort of home, Alto's Odyssey is about letting go of familiar things and exploring new worlds. Rather than being confined to the slopes of snow-capped mountains, Alto's Odyssey puts players in an array of desert biomes with dangerous new obstacles to conquer in gorgeous, sand-drenched settings.

"Odyssey, as the name suggests, is about going outside of that [comfort zone] and challenging yourself," Nesbitt said. "And I think that's sort of a parallel with a lot of our personal experiences, having made the game and then suddenly finding ourselves in this whole new world that we have to either grab it by the horns or let it steamroll over you. I think we can all relate to that."

Speaking of change, Alto's Odyssey is hitting a vastly different App Store than Alto's Adventure. Nowadays, there are options to pre-order iOS games, and Apple highlights developer stories in the Today tab -- two features that didn't exist in 2015. In three years, the mobile market has shifted from offering premium $10 games to having an influx of $0.99 titles to finally being overrun with free games packed with in-app purchases. Not that the industry is frozen in place today: There's been a recent newfound appreciation for premium titles as many players realize the actual cost of freemium games.

Cash says the premium mobile market is alive and well -- and it could have a major impact on the video game industry overall.

"If you make a game for PS4, you're making a game for people who play video games," he said. "And I think, with mobile, it's a sort of unique opportunity where you can reach almost everyone on the planet, so to speak, who has a phone. If you're able to make a game for that platform, you have the potential opportunity to reach someone who may not consider themselves a gamer. You have a chance to be someone's first foray into gaming."

With Alto's Odyssey, Snowman has this opportunity once again.