Switch And PC Releases Confirmed For Apple Arcade Exclusive Where Cards Fall

Developer The Game Band and publisher Snowman have announced that the narrative puzzle adventure game Where Cards Fall hits Nintendo Switch and PC in early 2021. An exact release date has not been confirmed.

Where Cards Fall tells the story of a nameless protagonist as they navigate the coming-of-age cycle: graduating high school, growing up, attending college, and so on. The crux of the game's puzzle mechanics revolves around cards, where you're tasked with building card-based structures to assist the protagonist in getting through the various levels' obstacles.

The game hit the Apple Arcade as an exclusive in September 2019. It was met with a fairly middling reception, sitting at an aggregate score of 69 on GameSpot sister site Metacritic.

According to Game Informer, Where Cards Fall was planned to launch on iOS and PC. However, The Game Band and Snowman reached a deal with Apple to bring the adventure game to the Arcade subscription service as an exclusive. Though neither company will talk about the specifics of the deal, it helped Where Cards Fall find its footing.

"Apple Arcade, it's what gave our game its start," said The Game Band founder and creative director Sam Rosenthal. "Like, Where Cards Fall would not have existed in its current form without Apple Arcade because of the way that they work, and they've made it public that they do fund the game. So, it allowed us to make the game that we really wanted to make."

And while Where Cards Fall was previously exclusive to Apple Arcade, The Game Band wanted to ensure that it doesn't feel like a mobile port where it launches on Nintendo Switch and PC.

"It shouldn't feel at all when you're playing it on Switch or PC like this is, you know, a port of a small mobile title," said Rosenthal. "It is just a big, substantial, premium title that will be right at home on all these platforms. So, yes, it happened to start on Apple Arcade, but I think anybody that's playing it for the very first time will be shocked to know that this ever was on mobile in the first place."