Beyond The Reels: How RPG Mechanics Are Changing What an Online Slot Can Be

Tabletop RPG players aren't the only ones with a mental model of how games work. XP is awarded, skills are learned, and loot is found. Instead of ignoring the marks left by previous play sessions, designers embrace them and build on them. In recent years, slot machine designers have taken notice and incorporated these principles into their games.

Like many real-money gambling games, you still spin a reel to determine your reward; however, slot games are beginning to integrate RPG-inspired designs centered on leveling, choice, and progression. These games incorporate XP systems, unlockable modes and content, boss fights, and items of varying rarity. Options are plentiful, and players can expect even more RPG integration in slot games.

Designs reflect the layers of advancement present in each game, including experience points, alternate modes, and item drops. Swiper Casino is one such venue. In Ontario, Canada, the site offers a diverse catalog of games through its mobile-first interface.

Ontario's iGaming framework permits licensed private operators to offer online games in the province. The site offers classic and more sophisticated gaming titles. The catalog offers 5,000+ gaming titles. Because the gaming industry is diverse, the site organizes games by release date and other categories. Players can also find games by the studios that produced them.

Analysis of the Classic Slot

Simplicity is the name of the game in classic slot designs. Players place a bet, spins are resolved, and outcomes are determined. By design, each slot spin is isolated. No connection exists between the thousands of spins made over a machine's lifetime, let alone between spins made before or after a specific one.

Slot machines have a distinct design elegance. Each spin can be digested quickly, and a new spin can begin as soon as the player desires. However, a slot machine offers the player little to no sense of goal or mission. There is no state carried over from spin to spin. Ultimately, each spin of a slot machine is identical. They vary only in outcome.

One of the most powerful tools in a game designer's toolkit is including something that persists over time. Classic video slot designers have begun adopting mechanisms that give players a sense of goal, structure, and progress over a gaming session. Often, these structures and mechanisms center on a core resolution mechanic: the spin.

When Your Slot Has a Skill Tree

The Evoplay team raised the bar for slot games when they released Dungeon: Immortal Evil in February 2020. As they rightfully claim, the game is the first of its kind to incorporate role-playing game elements into a traditional slot game. Dungeon uses a third-person action camera to guide players through the dungeon.

Each turn can spawn multiple enemies. Encounter loot comes in varying rarities. Like other action role-playing games, Dungeon classifies rarities as Common, Magic, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. Each tier contains a specific monetary value.

In Dungeon, players earn experience points to level up and access an ever-expanding skill tree. Elemental's Dungeon design features deep, engaging skill trees that branch off one another to create different reel modifiers, bonus multipliers, and cosmetic upgrades for the game's main character. Skill tree upgrades persist between game sessions. The skill trees and associated upgrades create a unique, dynamic experience.

Traditional free spins have been replaced with boss encounters. In boss encounters, instead of rewarding players with a predetermined number of free spins, the game presents a series of dungeon rooms to access a boss. The outcome of the boss battle depends on the player's decisions and the game's random number generator (RNG).

RPG Mechanics

The game uses combat to gate content and rewards, controlling when players can access bonus rounds and rewards. Dungeon: Immortal Evil requires players to gather and synthesize various items to earn rewards, much like a player in a Diablo game must gather and synthesize loot. Dungeon: Immortal Evil also incorporates RPG-style quests, reinforcing the game's role-playing structure.

Quest-based reward structures are popular in modern-day online slots. Many online slots use faction systems that reward players for continuous engagement, similar to many modern-day RPGs.

This adds a collection layer on top of the core spins. Players collect items between spins. It could be experience points, materials, quest progress, or other miscellaneous collectibles. Each session has multiple subgoals. Players can feel a sense of progression even if a particular spin doesn't reward them. They have a goal for the session's overall length. This gives a sense of direction.

Persistence and Character Development

The newest and most interesting development in slot design has been the implementation of cloud technology. Cloud servers store player experience, quests, items, and other miscellaneous collectibles. The player's character state is truly persistent across different hardware and operating systems.

We've added more avatar customization features. When players engage with the game systems, they start to understand the real modifiers. Different playable characters come with unique, branching passive abilities.

The ways players integrate these abilities into their gameplay style create build diversity reminiscent of other Action Role-Playing Games (ARPGs). Because the consequences of players' choices are permanent, they must think long-term about how their decisions will affect their next play session.

The nature of decision-making, combined with the persistence of players' progress, introduces a different way to think about gameplay's emotional aspects. In other slot machine games, leaving a session is a clean break because there is no persistent state to return to.

However, in this game, players leave behind their XP bar, items they have collected but not synthesized, dungeons they have explored but not defeated the boss of, and so on. In this game, players leave behind a state and return to the same state they left, which is something Role-Playing Game (RPG) players are used to. The game uses RPG players' knowledge of game systems to deliver a new, unique experience.

Finding Your Dungeon: Searching Through an Overwhelming Catalog

There are numerous formats for online gambling. It can be very difficult to identify games that fit your preferences, especially if the online casino has thousands of titles. Players often have to search extensively to find specific games. Someone who wants to play a game with a dungeon-crawl feature would likely want to avoid games with a classic reel format. Each format has distinct features and mechanics that may not appeal to a wider audience.

A similar situation occurs with online casinos in Ontario, Canada. Since Ontario opened online gaming to licensed private operators, hundreds of gaming titles have become available to thousands of players. Given the variety of titles, an effective search function would reduce frustration for players looking for specific game features.

Players can filter games by provider. If a player wants games with systems and structures that require a high degree of progression and completion, it's best to filter by that provider. These titles can help players quickly locate games with the features they want. Pragmatic Play, Play'n GO, and Playtech each contribute hundreds of titles to large Ontario catalogs. This volume helps players find the games they want by letting them identify the studio.

Prioritize mobile channels because users discover and engage with content on the go. Thousands of game titles require effective methods of organization on small mobile displays. This means including effective search functions, relevant and distinct categories, and filters.

Mobile apps provide a better browsing experience than mobile site versions. Mobile RPG players should be able to use other titles' interfaces effectively and efficiently because they have experience with similar, often complex, mobile interfaces.

Understanding RPG Design Elements

Advancements in slot design have incorporated RPG progression elements such as experience, equipment, consumables and other items, crafting, and skill systems. These elements have been implemented faithfully, warranting serious analysis in game design.

Most importantly, RPGs allow expression of a wide range of experiences across different time scales. The shortest time scale is the turn-based or real-time combat system. The next time scale is the quest or adventure system. The longest time scale is character leveling and progression. These systems interlock to create sustained, lasting motivation.

Modern slots incorporate layers of progression that introduce complex systems found in other genres. In slot machines, the XP bar and skill tree manifest in the form of long-term progression. A boss encounter is a session-based goal. The spin remains the core, moment-to-moment gameplay loop. When a player actively shapes the game's state across multiple sessions, they are experiencing an RPG-inspired structure.

The beauty of RPGs has long interested game designers. Implementing RPG mechanics in slot machine design is relatively new. Introducing boss encounters, a hallmark of traditional RPG design, along with cloud technology to store player data, lays the foundation for an RPG within slot machine design.

The primary flaw in this design is the lack of a robust, flexible branching system. The implementation direction for these mechanics is clear. For designers and players interested in game mechanics and design, this is the most interesting concept at the intersection of casino games and video game design.