Strictly Slots July 2022

“ We’re really excited about just how feature-rich the game [Kung Fu Empress] is. It offers a ton of entertainment, a ton of graphics, a ton of animations and a ton of intros and outros that are really entertaining. The bonuses are very graphically intense—it packs a real

punch as far as the visuals. And then it’s a great game on top of that.

”

—Jean Venneman, chief operating officer of Gaming Arts

graphically intense—it packs a real punch as far as the visuals.And then it’s a great game on top of that.” Kung Fu Empress delivers that punch from the first press of the “Play” button, when the main character, Chipao,does her Kung Fu move that throws one or more wild symbols to the reel array.When the Chipao wild sym bol stops on the fifth reel,all picture symbols on that reel become Chipao symbols, greatly increasing the payouts for players. There are random “battles” that occur throughout game play.When a“PicA”symbol lands on the reels, it trig gers the “Punch Bonus,” in which the Kung Fu Empress attacks the cute “Log Man” to award bonus prizes.The bonus prizes keep coming until the enemy collapses. A wild symbol in the base game also can randomly trigger the“Tile Break Feature,” in which the player wins the prize or jackpot displayed when the Kung Fu Empress breaks the pile of tile. In the free-game feature, the reels expand from four rows to eight rows, bumping the ways to win from 50 to 100, for an exciting hold-and-re-spin feature. During free games, a battle appears every three spins. If you win the battle, the enemy symbol is converted to the Chipao wild symbol, and the free spins return to three. Filling the screen with Chipao symbols returns the Grand progres sive jackpot,resetting at $5,000.The array of enemies may start small but progress to ever-increasing battle intensity along with more intense payouts to the player. “We find this to be very different from what we’ve seen in the market,”Venneman says.“Kung Fu Empress has got great game play and is visually stunning,with endless unique game features. It’s just an incredibly fun game to play.”

BRIAN CHRISTOPHER’S POP’N PAYS MORE

Gaming Arts, like a lot of slot manufacturers these days, has been aided in building popu larity for new games by the new crop of“slot influencers”—YouTube stars who live-stream slot play on new games, hosting their own play with enthusiastic narration of wins, losses,bonuses and game features,with some having far-reaching groups of fans and fol lowers. The topYouTube slot influencer is Brian Christopher,whoseYouTube channel BCSlots has some 479,000 subscribers and has logged a remarkable 318 million views since its 2016 launch. Christopher himself, who has some 41,500 Instagram followers,has become a slot guru of sorts across America. Millions of fans have watched his videos—the average view time is an incredible 18 minutes—and have become familiar with his favorite slots and The Plaza, located in Downtown Las Vegas,even has a special zone devoted solely to Christopher’s favorite games—a space he often uses to gather crowds of his fans to live stream new games. On July 7, he is doing that with his very own signature game—Brian Christo pher’s Pop’N Pays More—which Gaming Arts designed with substan tial input from Christopher himself. any number of catch phrases he uses to get players excited about features of a given slot game.

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