GGB Magazine October 2024 | Page 92

“ What ’ s great about the pots is there ’ s a billion different things you can do with them . It ’ s fun , and it allows so much creativity and possibilities for us game developers from a business standpoint .”
— Keith Kruczynski , Vice President of Studios for North America , Ainsworth Game Technology
Free Games .” Each is triggered by like-colored coins landing on the reels , and applied to an initial eight free games . In Sticky Free Games , the reels are loaded with wild symbols , and when they land , they remain in place for the remainder of the free-spin feature .
Jackpot Free Games offer the chance to win one or more of five jackpots — three static prizes and two progressives , the top Grand resetting at $ 10,000 . The color-coded jackpot meters display a number of like-colored coins in the free games needed to trigger the jackpot : two orange symbols to win the Mini ; three blue coins for the Minor ; four purple coins for the Maxi ; five green coins to win the Major progressive , resetting at $ 500 ; and six red coins to win the top $ 10,000-plus Grand .
Extra Free Games tacks on a random number of games to extend the feature .
According to Evans , the two new San Fa games are performing at upwards of 2.4 times house average where they ’ re placed .
At G2E , the company will launch several new games utilizing the popular pot-collection feature . On the A-STAR and the sleek new A- STAR Raptor cabinets is Coin Kingdom , which features a three-pot persistent free-spin bonus and a four-level mystery progressive jackpot . There will be two themes displayed at G2E , Aztec and Egyptian , available for purchase .
One unique adaptation of the pot-collection bonus can be found in a reprise of Ainsworth ’ s popular QuickSpin theme . Quick- Spin Electric Pots , the first release from the new Austin studio , reprises the free-spin feature from the original QuickSpin games and adds an enhanced wheel bonus .
What ’ s unique about the game — featured on the Raptor cabinet — is that the three pots don ’ t lead to a free-game feature or a holdand-re-spin bonus , but to a wheel spin feature with up to three enhancements . “ Extra Spins ” grants up to four extra spins of the
wheel . “ Multipliers ” multiplies the values on the wheel up to 5X . “ Bonus Pointers ” increases the winning slices on the wheel , up to a maximum of five pointers .
Of course , the pots are “ electric ”— they zap with electricity in fun animation throughout the game .
“ You can trigger the pots one at a time or up to all three at once ,” Kruczynski says . “ This is the first big rollout from the Austin studio , and we ’ re really proud of it — it ’ s a fun game and it checks a lot of the boxes that we ’ re seeing for successes in the field .” He says it should be approved for sale by G2E .
Finally , one outrageous adaptation of the three-pot feature can be found in Neon ’ s Bonus Blast , a three-title game family on the Raptor to be released in Q1 2025 . The pots are fuel pods in an alien spacecraft , which burst to trigger an enhanced free-game feature .
The blue pot increases the value of all cash-on-reels symbols . The red pot blasts the reels with high-paying symbols that lock in place for the remainder of the feature . The gold pot is a drone called “ DB7 ” that expands the reels up to six rows high for one 60-line spin .
At the center of it all is “ Neon ,” a little green alien who curses like a sailor . If Neon lands in the center reel in the primary game , it awards all cash-on-reels credits on the screen . In the free games , Neon is parked in the center , so cash-on-reels symbols pay off on every spin .
OCTOBER 2024 www . ggbmagazine . com 45