Behind The Slotlist: Bringing Olympus Storm to Life

It might be early morning in Reno but John Duffy, the CEO of Gold Coin Studios – the folk behind this month’s The Slotlist release, Olympus Storm Connectify Pays Power Combo™ – is already fizzing with energy and ready to unpack the creative journey in bringing this much-anticipated Ancient Greece-themed game to PokerStars Casino players’ screens.

Gold Coin are a small enough entity in the iGaming industry, but have a big reach, thanks in part to their relationship with Games Global. And Duffy, with his 25-person team, are looking to shake things up further with the release of the online slot Olympus Storm Connectify Pays Power Combo™.

Player First

Speaking with gusto and genuine fondness for the project, Duffy has clearly been involved in every aspect of the game’s production. From animation and theme choice, to sound design and promotion.

But he also has a keen understanding of what players want to play now and, perhaps more importantly, what they want to play tomorrow.

“If we think there’s something we’ve got to do to the game that’ll make the player experience better, regardless of how hard it is, then we will do it,” he offers over a video call a couple of weeks out from the launch of Olympus Storm Connectify Pays Power Combo™ on The Slotlist.

“Because you don’t want to put something out that players just don’t enjoy [and] that they don’t understand quickly.”

The Gold Coin CEO continues: “You know, our tagline is that we make player-favourite go-to games.”

He expands on this idea a little further: “I’ve done lots of presentations over the years and I always get asked the question, what’s your typical slot player? And what I’ve always said is that, you know, they’ll try the shiny new toy, new games will come out, they’ll try that, but then they’ll consistently go back to their favourite game.

“We want to build a portfolio of those favourite games. So, we don’t just have the play when it’s a shiny new toy, but we have that play over years and years for our games.”

Genesis of Olympus Storm Connectify Pays Power Combo™

So, what was the genesis of Olympus Storm Connectify Pays Power Combo™? Ancient Greek themes are legendarily popular with slots players, but there’s a lot more going on under the hood with Olympus Storm, according to Duffy.

“Slots games are interesting ones in terms of how they do come together,” states the studio CEO. “We do sessions, what we call ‘Blue Sky’, where we have the creative group come in and we just talk about different ideas. But I extended that to the broader group for our Connectify Pays feature.

“This is something I dreamt up a little while ago, like the nice simple feature for the players where it’s just the three straight lines. You got to connect across on a specific symbol and then all the different prize reels there. And then there’s lots of permutations to that.”

Gaming Trends

Duffy feels Gold Coin Studios are good at spotting trends and gauging what is working well – there’s years of experience at work here, he says.

“We’re only very, very early in the progression of that feature itself, but just looking at that and all the different ideas out there with the broader group, it was really exciting because everyone got involved, and we come up with a whole list of ideas. And one of the things coming out of it was, obviously we watch the market all the time, and power combos are absolutely huge at the moment.

“They’re everywhere and even in the land-based casinos here. I’m based in Reno, and we go out to the land-based market all the time here to have a look and keep our finger on the pulse there. And every time you go back to the casino, there’s just more Power Combo games there.”

He continues: “So it was like, well, why don’t we take the Power Combo feature, which obviously players are really loving and Connectify Pays, which our first few games the players really loved as well, and put the two together. Then it was about dreaming up three different features for Connectify Pays that could all combine together into one nice feature.”

The Mechanic

This process of idea refinement continued, according to Duffy, leading to a more concrete – and exciting – mechanic for Olympus Storm Connectify Pays Power Combo™.

“What we landed on there was the first one which was the extra spins. So, as you’re playing, you’re landing a special symbol on the prize reel that gives you more spins throughout the feature. Then the next one was the X-Large feature, which is where you have your normal grid for the link & win and then you have rows that you can open up from there. And so that could combine together, and those two could work nicely together.”

He adds: “And then the last one was like a dual array, but then we wanted to have a different take on that. So rather than have two separate grids, it was like, why don’t we have both of them coming in from either side onto the one prize reel, right? And then again, you could put the plus spins on there, you could put the extra rows on there and it would combine into one beautiful set of three features.

“You know, we go through lots of different discussions to get there, but I think we landed in a really good spot there because they play so well together.”

Characters

The Greek theme then became an important part of the underlying mechanic of the game, as well being an obvious crowd favourite.

“Obviously Zeus is big, but then the key thing with the theme is, how does it tie into the game design?” explains Duffy. “So with this one, with the power combo, we had to have three characters. We went with Zeus (who can trigger the X-Large feature), Artemis (can trigger the X-Array features) and Hades (can trigger the X-Spins feature).

“We have the three characters there that could do the power combo and do that symbol there quite nicely. Then it was about what is the other iconic imagery from that theme that we could build the rest of the game around as well.”

The Gold Coin Studios CEO adds: “Choosing a Greek theme and choosing Zeus was straightforward. And then it was about how do we build the rest of it around that to fit in with that game design? Because it’s got to go hand in hand. If it doesn’t, then you know the key thing for the players, is for them to understand the game very, very quickly.”

Behind the scenes work

Empowering his team to be creative and opening up the floor to all thoughts and ideas has borne fruit for Gold Coin. There’s a strong team of important people working hard behind the scenes, says Duffy.

“I’m the key producer of the games, but I’ve got a guy helping me out, Matthew Parker, who’s just amazing. You know, his knowledge is growing rapidly. He’s always got great ideas and he’s just a phenomenal support to me.

“Then we have two mathematicians who I want them to feel like they can contribute ideas as well, not just be a math person doing what we ask. And they come up with great ideas as well. The mathematician who did Olympus Storm had a lot of input into the game there.”

The studio CEO is keen to applaud the work of the team and support functions in getting Olympus Storm Connectify Pays Power Combo™ to market.

“It’s not just me. This is really a great team effort there. We do a lot of that initial design work and then the math behind it. Then you move into the art process. We’ve got a small team of artists there who do a phenomenal job. The artists that did this one is just beautiful, beautiful artwork. I just love it. The reaction to it from everybody’s been pretty amazing.”

Duffy continues: “And then in there, there’s sort of like technical art across that. There’s animation that comes into that as well. And then when you’ve got the game in reasonable shape.

“We actually throw it out to external groups as well for review to get that fresh eyes on it because you know, we can make assumptions because we know the game and then you know, somebody else plays it and their eyes glaze over and go, ‘what on earth did you just do there?’ It’s like, OK, we’ve got to do something a little bit better there.

“Then the last part of that puzzle through that development process is our sound engineer. I’ve worked with him for a long time because I worked with IGT for 25 years before coming over into this space. This sound engineer is just fantastic and does some great music and sounds for our games.”

Quality Assurance

Gold Coin Studios approach to quality assurance is equally robust and intense, according to Duffy.

“Once it’s all put together we’ve got a quality assurance department that obviously go through all the technical regulations, but do their best to break the game – like hammer it, slam away and try to go between orientations, do everything, some really crazy user cases there, again to make sure that that quality is there and then once we go through our process and we say everything’s fine.

“Then there’s an external process with Games Global that we go through their testing department for the full approval and then to manage all of that because there’s lots of moving parts in that. We’ve got a couple of technical project managers that that keep us on board there.”

Getting the game noticed in an incredibly busy and creative industry is were having a ‘cheerleader’, or someone willing to go to bat for you to get the game noticed, becomes a vital component.

Duffy nods in agreement: “The last piece of our puzzle is Elio (Zirilli, Business Development Manager at Games Global) and getting him trained up on the game and understanding the game, so then he can go out there and promote it and sell it.

“Anyone through that process can feed back ideas into the game”, he adds. “So, if we’ve done mock-ups for art to say it should look like this and the engineer’s building and says, you know what, it probably looks a bit better like that. I’ve empowered them to do that all the way through.”

For Duffy, getting the support from Games Global was massive: “their distribution is great. They’ve got that whole testing process, the approval process… to have the support of a big company like Games Global has been phenomenal”, he offers.

Speaking separately to Elio Zirilli, he backed up Duffy’s insistence on giving players what they want as being key to this project, saying: “The players are our main focus, so our aim is to deliver the best, most engaging experience possible for them.”

One last question for Duffy – what are his thoughts on being included in The Slotlist?

“We’re actually honoured to be on The Slotlist”, the Gold Coin Studios CEO says. “You know, it’s fantastic, getting a game to the most players we possibly can. This is just fantastic. You know this will get that player exposure out there you can only dream of, so hopefully this is the first of many.”