How to develop your own slot game?
The process of slot game development is a fascinating blend of creativity and technical expertise. Let’s dive into the creative side first—what makes a good slot game?
Choosing the theme
The first step in slot game development is picking a theme. This sets the tone for the entire game. Some popular themes to consider include:
- Fruits.
- Mining.
- Egypt.
- Incas/Aztecs.
- Olympus.
- Crime Story.
- Bank.
A well-chosen theme makes your game more appealing to players.
Designing features
Next, in slot development, you’ll define the game’s features. These can tie into your theme—for instance, a bining theme might have bombs or dynamite, while a bank theme could include a jackpot.
In general, certain features fit certain themes better but we cannot forget about some universal ones like: free spins, expanding wilds, scatters to name a few.
Building the math model
It is good practice to discuss the ideas with the mathematician throughout the planning process to make sure that the game’s scope is intact and is not overloaded with the features (although sometimes the abundance of features might be a purposeful move).
At this stage it is good to have decided on the following elements:
- Number of reels.
- Symbols and their count.
- RTP (Return to Player).
- Volatility.
- Number of win lines.
Creating the design
In this phase of slot machine software development, the design team brings the game to life with visuals like:
- Background.
- Frame.
- Logo.
- Symbols.
- Win lines.
- Fonts.
- Features.
- UI.
Best to be served as static files, animation previews & animation exports. It is also worth mentioning the dominance of mobile devices in the iGaming market – successful games need to run on multitude of mobile devices from smartphones to tablets.
The creative process
Usually, the creation of assets starts with the description backed up by some examples to set the artistic direction. We can say that the development of the game’s assets is an open dialogue between the designer and the game director. There are usually many iterations based on the feedback before the assets are accepted and delivered in the following formats:
- static – PNG & PSD,
- animations – Spine.
Music & FX
Music plays an important role in slot games. It can either enhance the theme or discourage the players from playing the game. Perfect music adds positive value to the experience without being dominant when launching the game.
Moreover, single game can have multiple musical themes, for example – it changes depending on the win or the features
Similar rules go for the sounds in general – reels, symbols, wins, combinations – they all can be enhanced with the sounds to make the experience more unique and coherent for each game.
Technical implementation of casino games
Technical implementation of slots development breaks down into three aspects:
- backend – implementation of the game’s behavior based on the math model and making sure that the desired RTP is met based on tests & reports,
- frontend – takes care of the visual aspect and implements the assets provided by the design team
- QA – making sure that the game and its features run as intended and there are not issues when it comes to functional or visual aspects.
Technologies
Technical stack can vary depending on the service and the client, but we can distinguish the following:
- front end –WebGL, Pixi, React,
- back end – AWS, Kubernetes, Dockers.
Slot games – Testing with AI support
Thanks to AI-based solutions like USTA, created by the createIT team, slot game testing has reached a new level. The tool is designed to improve the testing process, including the use of visual tests.
createIT already uses artificial intelligence in game testing to classify and compare results, identifying potential issues and bugs. By combining AI-based analysis, visual testing, and result classification, the createIT team accurately detects problems such as visual regressions and functional errors.
