Special Q&A with Kalamba Games: new innovative and successful games

We met Kalamba Games, one of the most promising software houses in recent years. Since 2016 they have managed to produce a lot of innovative and successful games and have also developed their own BullsEye Remote Gaming Server platform. Today Kalamba agreed to tell us about their development plans and upcoming news.

In a few words, could you tell us about the history behind Kalamba and how you became one of the most famous software houses in the industry?

Kalamba was founded in 2016 by our two fearless leaders – CEO Steve Cutler and COO Alex Cohen. Both had a lot of experience in both Social and Real Money Gaming, and they really wanted to combine the best of both worlds, so here we are! I think the vision has always been strong – there’s always a need for quality games, but there’s also a need for the industry to escape old legacy architecture in the technology that serves them. This is embodied in our BullsEye Remote Gaming Server platform.

Which are your current top markets in terms of distribution and what are your target markets?

We are currently very focussed on Italy, Spain, Germany and Sweden. Our recent MGA license is a great step forward and is going to really help us progress. We’re always looking to expand of course and we certainly have other territories in our sights right now!

Fruit and Egyptian themed slot machines are considered evergreen among players. How do you choose the themes for your games and what is the theme you like the most?

Sure, some themes are always popular. We always start developing ours by looking at our player base, or look at a math model to see what kind of theme would fit best, but sometimes we will work with operators to see what their players are into at any given time, so it’s a mix. We do like to let our Art team loose as far as possible though – we definitely always like to get as creative as we can within the slot game format and within boundaries set by our data analysis of player personas, markets, etc…

In the last few years, new technologies have influenced the iGaming industry, pushing the level higher and higher. What is your idea of innovation when producing new slot games?

I think the areas that are ripe for major steps forward are probably within the development processes themselves, the technology and in UX. The metaverse, in its broadest sense, will likely present many opportunities here in the way that new things are implemented. As far as games themselves go in the very short term, innovation for me is largely incremental – tweaks to features and the constant refining of what pleases players as new knowledge presents itself. It’s always hard to predict the real game changers, and the industry now has enough history that certain ideas or features might be on their second go round!

We know that it is difficult to please every single players, but at the same time some features, like high volatility or the possibility to play with free spins bonus, are very popular and appreciated by everyone. What would you consider the most important aspect of a slot machine game? Do you think that it is more important to focus on a good and entertaining plot or maybe on bonuses and special mechanics?

Well, that’s clearly the secret sauce! Successful games are a complex mix of art, design, math, technology and location. But more important than all of those of course is the player themselves and it’s a perennial industry goal to treat and serve players as individually as possible. Currently the industry mainly uses special promotions and unique games to achieve this, but it’s not a perfect system – many back office systems, timely data and execution are all necessary to be successful. As we move to being part of the mainstream entertainment landscape in many regulated markets the answer is it could be any or all of these, depending on the game and data gained from our Stargazer analysis platform.

What can you tell our readers about Kalamba’s upcoming releases?

Speaking of classic themes we have 9 Blazing Cashpots coming up in April which is a variant of our hit Joker series and is fruit based, with instant Cashpot wins. Up next though, we have Super Size Atlas which has our K-Raise expanding reels feature – with a really cool animation where Atlas lifts the heavens to reveal the additional rows. Also it’s our first ever game to include a tumble feature, so we’re really excited for players to try this one.