Daniel Kalinowski talks to us about Blueprint Gaming Xmas games!
It’s that time again… the season of Christmas slots! Many game developers take the easy route, and stick a bow and tinsel on their best known slots, but Blueprint Gaming have always gone the extra mile when it comes to celebrating the season with some top-quality games.
Christmas classics and upcoming Xmas games from Blueprint Gaming
We caught up with Daniel Kalinowski over a mince pie, wearing our Crabbin’ for Christmas and Big Bass Catch Fishing Xmas jumpers, to talk about their top festive slots and what’s dropping through the chimney this Christmas.
First thing’s first…if Santa’s real, what Blueprint slot is he leaving under the tree this year?
King Kong Cash Even Bigger Bananas Christmas. Honestly, 2024 has been a huge year for our primate hero, you wouldn’t believe some of the numbers he has hit with our operators this year. Our Even Bigger Bananas series has spearheaded a new model of Cash Collect Blueprint games that are all proving to be a big success in their own rights. So, if you were good this year, Santa will be leaving King Kong Cash Even Bigger Bananas Christmas under your tree because it really is a good igaming experience.
If you were good this year, Santa will be leaving King Kong Cash Even Bigger Bananas Christmas under your tree.
Blueprint Gaming has some absolute Christmas crackers in your portfolio. Can you say which are the most popular, and what it is that players love about them?
I believe that the King Kong game I talked about earlier will most likely be the most popular one of the bunch due to its theme that is now well known to our players. However, we also released Big Catch Bass Fishing Christmas and our sibling studio LucksomeTM recently dropped their follow-up to Saint NickedTM from last year, called Saint NickedTM 2 Ho Ho Ho.
As for the two Blueprint games mentioned, people love seeing our games with a Christmassy coat of paint, but they also like seeing those games bring out our most successful gameplay mechanics that year.
Saint NickedTM 2 Ho Ho Ho is a follow-up to one of the most prominent LucksomeTM games from last year. If you were a fan of the humour, voice acting and naughtiness of the original you will find yourself at home with this one.
Blueprint is known for its innovation—what clever twists or surprises do you add to your Christmas slots to keep players coming back?
This year we have found that the players are enjoying our Cash Collect games that also include modifiers. For example, landing a Cash Collect symbol that will also trigger the Spin & Collect feature. I think this is successful because it adds variety to the gameplay sessions that are easy to understand.
We have decided to build our Christmas games around those mechanics this year hoping to continue on building the awareness around those titles.
So, spill the cocoa—what’s the wildest, most out-there idea you’ve ever had for a Christmas slot? Did it make the cut or end up on the naughty list?
To be honest, I think Bryan Upton who is the founder of LucksomeTM, which as you may know is our sibling studio, takes the cake when it comes to wild Christmas slots. The Saint NickedTM is wild, but that is only a fraction of what Bryan had in mind for it. I think that in the end the theme had to get toned down a bit so that certain markets could take it!
An often overlooked part of slot design is the soundtrack. Christmas slots are very mood-orientated, so how do you go about choosing the perfect tracks?
You are right, there is a certain mood related to the sounds of Christmas and once you hear anything referring to that season you can instantly tell what it is. This is obviously a tone that must be reflected in slots as well. However, our Christmas slots this year, such as King Kong Cash Even Bigger Bananas Christmas already have their own established settings. So, the question for us is how we incorporate Christmassy mood into our established series of games.
Luckily, the Christmas theme is easy to detect for people with the right sounds, so it only takes some alteration to an existing soundtrack to be able to represent that season faithfully in games, even if the game has the same melodies as the non-Christmassy releases.
Let’s talk about big bonus features. Can you tell us how you give your Christmas slots that extra festive sparkle when it comes to special features?
It all comes down to our random feature modifiers and providing good value for time. For example, in King Kong Cash Even Bigger Bananas Christmas, the players can expect a few things to happen in each spin.
On top of the Cash Collect mechanic in base game where landing a special Kong symbol on reel 6 will collect all Cash symbols from reel 1 to 5, there are a bunch of additional random unlocks that can happen.
There is the Lock & Spin Collect, where if this symbol lands in view it will trigger a spinning streak that will continue until no Cash symbols will land.
The Cash Boost Collect symbol increases the value of all Cash symbols before collecting, and finally the Golden Monkey, which accumulates all Cash values before they get collected by a Collect symbol.
So, as you can see there are a lot of nice twists that can happen in that slot which can surprise the player.
Lastly, imagine it’s Christmas Eve, you’re spinning a Blueprint slot with a mince pie in hand—what feature are you crossing your fingers to hit before Santa arrives?
I think this is where I will give a shout out to Big Catch Bass Fishing Christmas Rapid Fire Jackpots. The new Rapid Fire Jackpots system has been a colossal success for Blueprint this year.
This system was designed to deliver smaller, but frequent pot prizes than its older brother Jackpot King and it delivered just that! In its first few months more players than ever have experienced jackpot wins. If there is a feature you want to hit big on this Christmas, it is the Rapid Fire Jackpots in our Big Catch Bass Fishing Christmas slot.
Emily is our seasoned content writer. She writes easy to read and helpful game guides, so you can quickly understand the rules of each game and get some useful tips that can help boost your chances of winning.
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