Alto’s Adventure — which we wrote about earlier this week — is the latest viral game to hit the App Store. But unlike Flappy Bird, where the only strategy is to concentrate and stay resilient, Alto’s Adventure comes with many hidden gems, requirements to meet to level up, and annoying challenges that you can’t seem to shake off.
Here are some tips to get past the trickiest challenges, and tricks to getting the most out of this beautiful snowboarding game.
How To Escape Pesky Elders
Those elders are really annoying, and can really ruin your groove. Once you jump over them, they will begin chasing after you with their own llamas, trying to hit you with their stick, until you lose them at the next chasm.
The problem is that they run really fast, and each elder will be faster than the next.
So how do you shake them off? The trick to it is really just the tricks. The more grinding and backflips you do, the greater the likelihood of getting access to the speedboost right after to make your get away. Even if you’re dangerously close, just keep jumping to get as much airtime as possible. Do some rock-bounces, or just get on some bunting to grind your way to safety.
How To Unlock Alto’s Friends
The secret to the game that you probably wouldn’t know if you’re still stuck in the first 10 levels, is that you get to unlock other characters that will give you special abilities. These will make it easier to complete certain tasks, and one character gets unlocked every 10 levels.
My personal favourite is still Maya, who gets unlocked at level 11. She’s quick on her feet and awesome at flips.
| Strength | Weakness | Level Unlocked | ||
| Maya |  |
Flips much faster than others | Doesn’t build up speed as well | 11 |
| Paz |  |
Longer sonic boom that destroys anything in his path, faster once he gains momentum | Slow to flip, slow to pick up speed | 21 |
| Izel |  |
Faster backflips, extra speed boosts from rocket snowboard | 31 | |
| Felipe |  |
Double jump ability, super cute! | 41 | |
| Tupa |  |
Extra life once per run, but only if you fall into a chasm, double jump ability, quick flipping, extra speed boost time, and rocket snowboard | 51 |
How To Get Over A Chasm
This one was the first big problem I got, and the answer is to make full use of the run you get before that to get a speed boost. That means doing as many tricks as you can when you can, and it usually involves nailing a backflip on your way down. You can’t always wait to see the sign for a chasm before you prepare for it, so make it common practice to integrate tricks into your runs. It makes the game so much more fun, and makes sure that you nail every chasm, even backflipping over them.
How To Lengthen Your Scarf
Sometimes you’ll see your scarf begin to glow and lengthen, and that usually happens when you accumulate a combo. This means nailing trick after trick.
How To Master The Triple Backflip
I got a question on this from the last article I wrote about Alto’s Adventures, because I mentioned the triple backflip, and someone mentioned that it’s a pretty impossible trick to accomplish.
Here are the steps to mastering it:
- Get Mia. She flips much faster than Alto does, and can squeeze an extra flip into an airtime span that Alto can usually squeeze two in. It’s tough, but with Mia’s help it’s possible.
- It’ll also help if you get a speedboost right before you jump off a high slope, to maximise your airtime and ensure that you have ample time to perform your awesome flip.
How To Anticipate The Terrain
While the hills that you go through seem to be random, there is a way to anticipate patterns once you’ve been on a few rounds. For example, you will always have two minor hills at the beginning of each run, which you can use to estimate when to get a backflip in. And after each elder, there are bound to be more rocks and fires that get in your way, but there will also always be one or two chasms after that to help you escape from the elders (for some reason, they can’t jump the chasms).
There will also be tons of bunting whenever you go through a village, so make full use of all of them the moment you start seeing houses.
How To Survive The Night
While it is amazing to see the landscape change through the day and the seasons, it’s really annoying when night falls and it becomes so dark that you can’t see the rocks ahead of you. Sometimes, the game is nice enough to grant you some glowing coins above each rock so you can tell where they are, but it only takes one coinless rock to ruin your entire run.
My advice: play in a dark room with your phone’s brightness all the way up. If you last the night and make it to Sunrise, then you get a sweet bonus of 1000 points.
How To Buy Wisely
Unless you’ve been living under one of those annoying rocks that they have on the hills, you would have checked out Izel’s workshop, where you can use your coins to buy useful top-ups. The only thing that you really need to get is the wingsuit, which costs 7,500 coins, and it should be the end-game for the coins that you collect.
So don’t bother with the hover timer and buy magnet timers sparingly; they’ll help you collect more coins on each run.
How To Activate Your Wingsuit
After you’ve saved up for your wingsuit, there’s the problem of getting it to activate as you play. You’ll have to perform a string of tricks to grow your character’s scarf long enough to activate a Wingsuit button, which will show up on the left. Tap it, and the wingsuit will help you take to the skies, avoiding obstacles and flying over chasms.
How To Do A Proximity Backflip
At some point, you will be asked to do some crazy things to level up. One of these things is a proximity backflip, where you do a backflip with your head very close to the ground (below 8m). This would usually take a series of small hills to accomplish, making your jump at the first hill, and using at least Maya for a quick flip.
Here’s an example from App Unwrapper:
How To Kiss The Rail
This means that you have to hit the end of the bunting just as it ends. Simply ride the bunting and right before you reach the end, just make a little jump to touch (or ‘kiss’) the bunting.
Here’s a video to demonstrate.
How To Do Proximity Flying
This is one of the annoying things that you’ll be asked to do near the end of the game. It simply means to fly, or hover, close to the ground (below 8m), enough to kick up a cloud of snow as you go. This will require you to activate your wingsuit and just hover, and it may take some practice to accomplish.
Other Tips To Take Note Of
- Use your rock smash sparingly. Everytime you get a turbo boost, you are granted the ability to smash anything in your way. But unless you use Paz, it won’t last for long, and you may just crash into a rock when it ends. However it is very useful when you’re trying to gain momentum, so use it, but with great caution.
- Master your backflips with practice. It comes with intuition.
- Grinding is the key. If you see some bunting, or a roofed building, grind it.
- Don’t worry so much about the llamas. They can take care of themselves.
- Focus on completing goals while doing the runs. The faster you can get the better characters, the more amazing your runs will be.
- Don’t give up!
Download: iOS