Cave of Fortune is the first title in a new genre of games developed by BF Games, taking players on a journey through a goblin-inhabited cave to find hidden gems.
Following its release, BF Games’ CEO Piotr Szpoton (pictured) spoke with SlotBeats to discuss the thought process behind Cave of Fortune’s development, why the title will help engage with a new demographic of players and how BF Games is expanding its portfolio with more innovative, engaging and better-quality games.
SlotBeats: What is the story of this game? When did the team first come up with it and how does it fit with the rest of your portfolio?
Piotr Szpoton: Cave of Fortune is a true adventure featuring a creature searching for the most precious gem in the heart of a treasure cave. The main character is a crossbreed between a goblin and a dwarf and his nature was inspired by Terry Pratchett novels and ‘The Hobbit’ by Tolkien. He has inherited features from both races which help him to be successful in his search for treasure.
He is patient and hardworking like dwarfs and endlessly enthusiastic and sly like goblins. He got his skills in mining and jewelry craft from dwarfs and his inexhaustible energy, cunningness, and ingenuity from the goblins. He is led by his greed for gems along with an eagerness to find something unique.
A designer in our team came up with the idea for the title about a year ago and it has evolved along the way. We knew that this was going to be special and it matched our aim to create games with new bold designs and more complex features.
Unlike other classic games that we have created so far for more traditional casino players such as Book of Gods, Stunning Hot and Royal Crown, this one targets a younger and more sophisticated player segment looking for the fun in playing a slot and we believe we have achieved this in first creating the story of Cave of Fortune and then developing the game based on it.
One thing is certain, once players see the gameplay design they will inevitably feel attracted to the story and want to engage. Even before the release, we showed the graphics and a short video of the gameplay to our clients and they were very positive and interested in adding it to their casinos which given that the market is oversaturated with game releases every month, we take it as a big achievement.
SlotBeats: What would you say are the unique features of the game?
Piotr Szpoton: The game has multiple special features and combined with the unique design of the cave and the characters, it becomes an extremely engaging game with a nice story. Once you start playing, you notice the top bonus row which is a counter of nitrogen above all five reels which can hold three collected Nitro symbols. Once a counter is full, the Persistent Wild Feature is triggered, replacing all positions with Wild symbols for the next three spins.
If the Persistent Wild Feature is triggered on all five reels concurrently, a prize of 200 times the stake is awarded. The very visual element of showing the counter filling up gives a sense that it is a skill game while it is entirely a game of chance based on a Random Number Generator.
Another surprise of this game is the in-game jackpot which is a first for BF Games but it is extremely well done. The Jackpot offers players 500 times their stake and it is awarded during Free Spins feature if the meter fills up with 15 Nitro symbols during the Free Games.
When the Free Games are triggered by three or more Scatter symbols it makes the Total Nitro Collector appear on the screen which again feels like a milestone achievement for the player being closer to winning the Jackpot.
SlotBeats: Has the focus for the content, both in terms of themes or features, changed since you started releasing your games to the open market in 2018?
Piotr Szpoton: Certainly. BF Games is an in-house studio that has been part of the LVbet group ever since the beginning of Bee-Fee, the software solution for our own online and land-based operations. The games created before 2018 were first released on our slot machines and then on our brands LVbet.com. Since these operations were targeting mostly Central Europe, the games were very much localised and appealed to more traditional players.
After releasing them to the wider industry and getting feedback from different operators, we quickly realised that if we want to expand to other markets, we need to create games with new features. Part of these more modern and innovative releases are Bonnie & Clyde, Aztec Adventure, Stunning Cube, Star Settler, Book of Gates, Cosmic Dream etc.
SlotBeats: How is it to be an in-house studio part of a gaming group compared to being an independent studio?
Piotr Szpoton: Being part of the LVbet group gives us a lot of advantages. One major benefit was that we got to first try the product internally and improve it before we released the BF Games portfolio to the market.
Having data on what players like and being able to compare the performance of our games to other third-party providers also gave us much valued feedback on how our games are doing, what we need to improve, implement and test again.
SlotBeats: How much further is the reach of your content since you made this move? And where are you looking to next in terms of new markets?
Piotr Szpoton: Within two years of releasing the games to the wider market, BF Games’ content is now available in more than 100 online casinos and with over 10 aggregator platforms. We have signed deals with multiple Tier 1 operators which is a real testimony to the popularity and the performance of our games. We now hold licenses or certifications in the UK, Malta, Sweden, Romania, Latvia and Lithuania, and we are in the process of certifying our content in Croatia, Slovakia and Portugal.
SlotBeats: Something that stood out to me is that you accept all currencies including crypto; what impact has this had? Is it popular with players of your games?
Piotr Szpoton: Indeed, our settings allow us to configure any currency denomination. In terms of crypto, we received several requests from operators which indicated that there is an increasing number of players asking to use crypto currency.
However, in terms of transactions, crypto currently represents less than 0.5% of our operation. With crypto currencies still being a hot topic in the gaming space and beyond, we are pleased we have the option for players though.
SlotBeats: And just finally, what are your plans for the rest of 2021?
Piotr Szpoton: The roadmap of game releases for this year is set and out of the eight games we plan to launch, six have a new concept and math model so strategy has changed from developing reskins of previous titles to creating new concepts altogether.
Even though the workload increases and the development work and processes takes longer, the satisfaction is higher as we are expanding our portfolio with more innovative, engaging and better-quality games.
