Jamie: TRUE LABS makes everything from classic fruit slots to games with several interacting features. How do you decide how much complexity a game needs?
Alaksiej: For each game, we define a clear goal and the specific emotions we want players to feel. For some titles like Undead Farm, Dr. Rock & the Riff Reactor 2, or our upcoming Harry Potter inspired game School of Magic the primary focus is maximum visual presentation and immersion.
These games require enough features and mechanic depth to support that experience. For other titles, the main focus is high risk paired with massive win potential.
Those games don’t need to be overly complex, but it must be immediately clear to the player how those big wins can be achieved, as seen in Battle Rage or Royal Rage. Our general idea, however, is that we want our players to feel engaged – no matter what title they choose.
Jamie: What makes a mechanic fun enough that players want to keep exploring it after the first few spins?
Alaksiej: From our analytics, we can tell that it usually boils down to several key factors: short-term retention is driven by high visual quality and a compelling narrative, while long-term retention relies on mechanical clarity and solid game balance.
Jamie: Fruity Park has an expanding grid and several features working together. What was the original idea behind it, and which part of the gameplay took the most work to get right?
Alaksiej: The original concept was to give players a huge dopamine rush by showing how much they could gain with many different winning combinations.
The biggest challenge fell on the art team maintaining board readability when the grid expands and the symbols become significantly smaller.
Jamie: At FruitySlots, we can see and hear the moment a game grabs a streamer and the audience. Do you think about how a feature will feel to watch as well as to play?
Alaksiej: Definitely, and we rely heavily on prototyping for this. Experience has taught us that an initial design or combination of features doesn’t always feel as good in practice as it did on paper.
We ran into this with Royal Rage, we can barely count how many iterations it took us to get the mechanics and features feeling balanced, clear, and harmonious. But it is usually worth all these efforts, as we can tell, for example, with Royal Rage – we are getting exceptionally positive feedback from both operators and players.
Jamie: When we stream a slot, anticipation matters as much as the final win. How do you build those “what happens next?” moments into a game?
Alaksiej: It really comes down to game balance. One of the main challenges for a game designer and mathematician is finding a balance model that minimizes boring spins.
We can’t make every spin a winner, but when a player does win, it needs to be as exciting as possible. The features and combinations have to work together smoothly to give players that extra spark to keep playing.
Jamie: Has feedback from streamers or their communities ever changed how you approached a game or a future release?
Alaksiej: Reviewing community feedback is an ongoing process. It can be tricky, as isolated comments don’t always align with macro-level player analytics.
For example, when we were working with Vituss, it took both sides (us and him) many efforts to finally build a product that was market-ready. This is not “classic” feedback that you receive upon the release of a title but rather one that is given during the process.
In general we do listen to our players, of course, however, it is essential not to let their emotions take control over our analytics, insights and everything else that a game consists of.
Jamie: Are you particularly excited about any of the recent or upcoming releases at TRUE LABS? Perhaps, anything you’d definitely recommend our community to try?
Alaksiej: We release two games per month, each featuring an original set of mechanics or unexpected setting or both. Every game is made with real passion, so we’d love for you to try all of our new titles!
For example, Royal Rage is a volatile one with unique and interesting but easy-to-understand mechanics about a good old villain who’s about to rob the royal treasury. Sounds familiar, right? We have also recently released a thrilling promo video to support the launch and are already receiving tons of positive feedback.
Only Spins is a very visually attractive and engaging game with a great atmosphere and a strong sense of progression in the bonus rounds. We have really high expectations of it.
School of Magic hopefully will land very well with those who grew up with J.K. Rowling’s books or related movies. We have integrated some of the franchise’s key elements, for example, various houses unlock entirely new ways to play and enjoy the game.
We also have a rather ironic game El Santos about Santa Claus who brings grown-ups some non-traditional presents. Mechanics-wise it is built around features that become available to a player as he progresses through the game which helps the engagement.
About TRUE LABS
Founded in 2019, TRUE LABS is an iGaming provider that’s not afraid to push boundaries with its unconventional yet engaging slots, with each release bursting with features and creativity.
The Malta-based studio has over 40 games currently in its portfolio, spanning different themes, from Siren Song and Cat Waifu to Fruity Park and Phil Memecity. No two games are the same, which is part of what makes them so compelling and appealing to players.
If you’d like to learn more about the studio and read our reviews on their games, check out our dedicated TRUE LABS provider page.
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