We had plenty of Christmas surprises this year from the mainstream providers such as Microgaming and Netent. However, in all the festive frenzy we should not forget that smaller or upcoming game studios were just as active. This week we chose Storm Gaming Technology and Core Gaming to have a look at their creations. Plus, we have announcements from two major providers to round off our last newsletter before Christmas Day.
Storm Gaming is taking the famous British science-fiction television series Thunderbirds on to a set of slot reels after signing a licensing agreement with the rights owner ITC Entertainment Group. Core Gaming has created Frog of Fortune, centering on a lucky frog that, although he is napping most of the time, will help players score big wins.
Meanwhile, Play’n GO has released Banana Rock, a hilarious music slot with a bunch of cool monkeys. IGT has finally completed work on the sequel to its immensely popular slot Pixies of the Forest, with the release being slated for late December 2018 or early January 2019.
Thunderbirds | Storm Gaming Technology
The immensely popular sci-fi series Thunderbirds debuted in 1965 and has since been broadcast in more than 60 countries. Set in the mid-2060s, the storyline evolves around former astronaut Jeff Tracy and his five adult sons who form a secret organization called International Rescue dedicated to saving human life with the help of five futuristic vehicles, the Thunderbirds. Storm Gaming Technology has taken on the challenge to create a video slot that does justice to the epic TV series.
The five-reel slot with 20 fixed pay lines comes with no less than three bonus games, a Superspins round and six randomly triggered missions that include the five Thunderbirds and an expanding wild.
Thunderbird 1 will fly past the game window and drop common symbols onto the reels. They can repeat the mission if no win was created on the first drop. Thunderbird 2 will fly across and drop one multiplier onto a random position. Thunderbird 3 will take off from the bottom and transform one random reel into a stacked wild.
Thunderbird 4 will appear after a win and remove the winning symbols to drop new ones into place. This continues until no new winning combo occurs after a fresh drop. Thunderbird 5 will award five spins where on each spin it passes the reels to drop a number of random wilds.
Hitting a FAB4 Supermarionation Bonus symbol on reels one and three, as well as either the Vault of Cash, The Hood or Thunderwilds symbol on reel five, will trigger the respective bonus game.
The Hood will lead you to the Temple of Treasure game where players select first the level of difficulty that is directly linked to the win potential and then in a second phase they work their way through a field with 15 positions to collect coin wins. Unveiling The Hood will end the round.
Vault of Cash is a two-wheel feature where the inner wheel has coin wins and the outer either “spin” or “stop” segments. Players turn the wheel and collect coin wins until the outer wheel halts on “stop”.
Thunderwilds will add a random number of wilds onto the reels. The reels will respin and the wilds will move by one step to the left until disappearing from view. Wins are accumulated throughout the respins and paid once the feature ends.
Minimum three Superspins scatters on a spin will trigger the free spins round where all random features and the Vault of Cash bonus game will trigger more often. There are also expanding wilds that will cover an entire reel when they appear during a free spin. The feature cannot be retriggered.
Frog of Fortune | Core Gaming
Core Gaming will take you on a journey through the marshlands with the lucky frog taking a nap on the side of the game window. That changes only when one of the seven random reel modifiers and features are triggered, which will see him jumping from his seat to enhance the reels or award bonus symbols and coins wins. Play Frog of Fortune on five reels with 20 fixed pay lines to score mega wins.
Watch out, as with five random reel modifiers something could happen on any spin in the base game that will wake up the frog and see him throw his fishing rod into the murky waters. Any item he successfully pulls up will award a reel modifier.
Smokey Dokey Wilds will have him turning one to five reels into stacked wild symbols. A full screen will award the maximum win in a single spin of 500x your stake. The Mega Pickin’ Symbol will have the frog turning three consecutive reels into a mega symbol, while Cotton Shakin’ Wilds will see the frog turning a random number of reel positions into a wild symbol.
Rootin’ Tootin’ Multiplier will award a win multiplier for the spin of up to 20x after the frog lets out an enormous burp. The Bonus Diggin’ Chance will have the frog adding more bonus symbols to the reels with a 50% chance to trigger the bonus round.
The action on the reels continues with a random Bonus Rewind and a Cash Bugs coin win game. The first will see the frog rewind the reels to award the scatter on reel five when only two appeared on the spin. In Cash Bugs, Mr Frog will notice bugs arriving and buzzing around the screen. Each has a coin win attached and if Mr Frog manages to splat one, it will award a coin win from 2x to 50x the bet.
Hitting three scatters will trigger 14 free spins and one Super Spin. In the free spins, wild frogs can land on logs or lily pads to remain on the screen for the remainder of the round, moving to random positions on every free spin. If they move to the far left or right, they are collected for the Super Spin.
At the end of the round, the game plays one Super Spins with all collected wild frogs placed randomly on to the reels and applies a win multiplier from 2x to 50x based on the total number of collected wild frogs.
Banana Rock | Play’n GO
Join the band of monkeys on the new Play’n GO slot and start headbanging with six hilarious artists on five reels and 10 pay lines. Multiple bonus features and a new mechanic called Encore Spin can lead to wins of up to 2,500 times your bet. With minimum stakes of just 0.10 credits, it is bound to get everyone on stage to spin the reels to some rocky beats.
The Rock ‘N’ Rollin’ feature will be the first opportunity to score big wins. It triggers when minimum two Rock ‘N’ Rolling’ Wilds land on the reels, locking them in place and awarding a respin. While the reels respin, the rightmost wild will move first horizontally then vertically towards the leftmost wild, connecting with any other wilds on the reels and leaving a trail of wilds in the path they have taken as they move to their new position. Wins are evaluated once the reels stop.
Hit Banana Rock scatters on reels one and five to trigger 10 free spins. Any fully stacked band member symbol will add a 1x multiplier for each occurrence, up to 5x for each band member. The multipliers are applied separately to the winning combinations with member symbols for the remaining free spins.
The grand finale will come at the end of the round. The game awards one Encore Spin with only the band members on the reels. All multipliers collected during the free spins are added and the total is applied to any wins from the Encore Spin. The maximum win multiplier is 25x.
Pixies of the Forest II | IGT
IGT is finally ready to release a sequel to one of its most popular online slots. Pixies of the Forest II looks rather similar, but has enhanced graphics, plus additional bonus games and mystery features as well as three jackpots. Two are fixed at 9x and 27x the stake, while the third is a localized progressive jackpot starting at a value of 1,500 credits. All bets on the game from an entire casino group contribute 0.3% to the jackpot, which should regularly see low five-figures, some being won by lucky players.
The slot features Tumbling Reels, where winning combinations magically disappear to let new symbols drop into place for potentially more wins. The Spirit Meter will trigger the Feature Wild spins after three consecutive tumbles and award three different wild reel modifiers – Wild Reels, Random Wilds, or Countdown Sticky Wilds.
Three scatters on the front reels will award 5 – 11 free spins, with more wilds being added to the reels as well as win multipliers on reel one. The Pixie Queen might appear to award extra gifts such as Spirit Boost, Symbols Elimination or an Extra Free Spin.
Jackpot symbols on reels three, four and five will trigger the jackpot bonus game. Players pick from 16 pixies to unveil four matching orbs or the Bronze, Silver or Gold Jackpot.