A spectacular sight

Andrew Goodale, CEO of Northern Lights Gaming, lifts the lid on the studio’s rapid rise and how it’s cracked the code when it comes to sequel slots 

Northern Lights Gaming has been around since 2017, but for those not familiar with the studio, can you give us a quick introduction? 

Northern Lights Gaming was founded at the start of 2017 by a small team of industry veterans with more than 50 years of experience. The team has grown a bit since then, and we now have offices in Manchester (England) and Stockholm (Sweden), but the core founding group is pretty much the same. Our team consists of creators, developers and designers, united by our mission to create the best high-end video slots in the market. We are fortunate enough to have some top people working with us, people who have been behind some of the most successful slot games in history. Our team is unrivalled in the breadth and depth of its experience, and this has played a huge part in the success we have achieved in recent years.

Who are the main movers and shakers behind Northern Lights Gaming?

I’m fortunate that we have a wonderful management team at Northern Lights – the old saying of surround yourself with people who make you look good certainly applies here. We have a great mix of experienced industry veterans combined with some newer heads, but we all have the same goal and that is to make great games.

What approach do you take to development and what makes your games stand out? 

Despite working in the industry for 30 years (blimey!), it has taken a lot of ‘lessons learnt’ to get to where we are, and we are still learning. However, what we have learnt is that when you have good people around you, take on board their opinions. It sounds obvious, but it can be difficult not to push your own agenda and sometimes you need to take a step back and listen. Yes, at the end of the day, there must be one person making the decisions, but I’ve learnt to take on board and value the team’s opinions even when mine differ –  if the majority disagree, then stop and think long and hard about it!

So nowadays, game dev is very much a joint effort in the team, mainly between our producer, our art manager, our head of games and me. We differ a little bit from other companies in that we create a simulator of the game with the correct ‘maths’ upfront, and then with our own internal toolsets, we tweak away until we have a profile that we are happy with. Whilst this is happening, we have already discussed the potential themes, so whilst we play the simulator, we have this in mind and again just tweak away until we are all happy.

We try and focus on the mechanics; we did go through a period of reinventing the wheel with every game which is exciting but very risky, so now we do a mixture of new engines, what we call +1s (where we expand on existing games) and game engines that have done well in the past. It’s never dull and things are constantly changing, which is what I love about this industry.

You’re one of a small number of studios that have successfully launched a slot series – tell us more about Unusual Suspects.

We wanted a brand (every studio wants a brand, right?) as it helps on so many levels with players/customers and differentiates your product in a PACKED marketplace. We wanted a theme that would resonate with a likeable character, but more importantly, with a mechanic that wasn’t widely used and had a twist so that the players could see the potential in the game. We were fortunate that the first release of the original Unusual Suspects game did very well for us, but then we were left with the “what’s next” question. And that’s the difficult part of making sure that the follow-up game works – if you get the answer to the question wrong the would-be brand dies before it gets going.

This is why we decided not to reinvent the wheel on the follow-up – More Unusual Suspects – but to do a ‘+1’ as we talked about earlier. When the game went live and the figures came back better than the original, we quickly realised that we could take this in multiple paths with the name and the character, whom we later called Max Spinwell.

You’ve taken a similar approach with your fishing themed games with Unusual Catch being followed by More Unusual Catch. Why do sequel slots work so well? 

When you look at the industry and what themes consistently work well, fishing games have got to be one of the top themes, along with Mythology-themed games, and we saw an opening there. The Unusual Catch brand works well because players are already familiar with the game, theme, characters and narrative from the original Unusual Suspects. This helps in terms of initial engagement when the slot lands in the casino lobby for the first time. But it also gives the customer a level of trust in the game mechanics. Both Unusual Catch and More Unusual Catch worked well for us, but we are focusing on the Unusual Suspects brand moving forward as that’s where we see the real potential.

What can we expect from Northern Lights Gaming in the months ahead? 

We are constantly working on new ideas all the time I’m super excited about our roadmap from the middle of this year. We have a brand-new mechanic that will hit the market around July and has the potential to be MASSIVE! The extension of the Unusual Suspects brand will continue throughout the year, so keep an eye out for more exciting games in the series. Also, our new website will go live in a few weeks, so pop by and take a look, as you might get a sneak peek at what is coming up.