It is probably true that every casino game developer attempts to do something to distinguish itself from the competition. One company backs up its claims by producing the goods. That company is Yggdrasil Gaming.
Yggdrasil Gaming was born out of a desire to do something different. If you know anything about this company, you know they have gone places no other game developer has. Yggdrasil Gaming titles are quickly becoming the most sought after in the gambling community - and with good reason. They are exceptional games built on the idea of interactivity.
Yggdrasil engineers and game designers have created a series of games that interact with players throughout the gaming experience. Not only do the games tell a story, but they also get players involved with that story. Through stunning 3D graphics, game scenes that just might change during play, and an extensive list of special features that are not found anywhere else, Yggdrasil titles truly invite players to lose themselves in the experience.
Yggdrasil Gaming's profile
Yggdrasil Gaming is fairly young by comparison. It was founded in 2013 by former Net Entertainment CEO Fredrik Elmqvist with the mission of taking casino gambling to heights it had never seen before. The Swedish company is headquartered in Stockholm, though most of its game design operations are handled in Malta.
Yggdrasil's name comes from a mythical ash tree with roots tracing back to old Norse mythology. The Yggdrasil tree not only houses eagles and dragons, it also connects the nine worlds of Norse cosmology. Those nine worlds collectively represent creation, humans, the forces of nature, and the gods that rule over all.
On the business side of things, Yggdrasil Gaming possesses multiple licenses from a variety of jurisdictions including Great Britain, Gibraltar, Malta, and Romania. They are an award-winning company as well. Among their many awards are the 2017 EGR B2B Slot Provider of the Year and 2018 IGA Innovator of the Year awards.
In their five short years in business, Yggdrasil Gaming has introduced a number of innovations. They were the first game developer to set aside Flash in favor of HTML5 coding. The company introduced its BOOST in-game promotional tool in 2015. Their white label studio launched the following year.
Yggdrasil Gaming's products
It takes a lot to keep Yggdrasil Gaming at the forefront of the casino industry. Company ownership and management make product and service decisions with the intent of disrupting the market. To say that Yggdrasil Gaming is about more than just video games is to state the obvious.
Here is a list of the products Yggdrasil Gaming offers:
The obvious place to start are Yggdrasil's casino games. After all, that is what the company is built on. Their game titles cover just three categories: video slots, table games, and bingo. Each category offers a number of titles that can be either branded or white labelled.
Their games are designed to be interactive. Thus, you will often see Yggdrasil Gaming slots marketed as iSlots. The concept behind interactive gambling is to design a game to tell a story during play. This is not the same as having a video slot that includes a story line.
In other words, slots with story lines require you to work your way through the story in order to accomplish certain goals and win their associated prizes. An interactive game tells the story while you are playing. You're not necessarily trying to work your way through any particular levels as you play, though some Yggdrasil sots do work that way.
Yggdrasil Gaming maintains a fan site where they publish demo versions of new titles. They promote the fan site on their own as well as encouraging their licensed operators to do the same. Why? Because the fan site enhances the interactive nature of Yggdrasil games.
Fans can go to the site to check out new titles as soon as they come out. They can play for free, testing the games before actually gambling on them. This keeps fans engaged more effectively than simply releasing new titles and expecting operators to market them.
The operator version of Yggdrasil's fan site is the Yggdrasil Client Zone. This is a centralized hub of information covering everything Yggdrasil. The idea behind the site is to keep operators fully informed of the goings on at the company. It includes a lot of helpful information about existing titles, coming titles, and more.
Like many of the game developers, Yggdrasil Gaming has produced a full gaming platform that enables operators to get up and running quickly without having to build an entire online casino website from scratch. Yggdrasil's gaming platform is known as iSense 2.0. It offers a clean and intuitive interface, an advanced particle engine, cross-platform functionality, and more.
Also note that Yggdrasil Gaming was the first game developer to go all-in on HTML5. Combining HTML5 with iSense 2.0 creates an online gambling experience that runs on just about any modern device - be it PC, laptop, or mobile device.
Yggdrasil Gaming honestly wants operators to get the most out of their titles, so they offer a suite of promotional tools that they called Boost. The suite includes things like in-game tournaments, crash races, game missions, and a social media tool known as Brag. This tool makes it easy to share big wins with friends and family via social media.
It is clear from the results of their hard work that Yggdrasil Gaming is not satisfied with being just another game developer. They want to bring the casino gambling environment to the millennial era by designing the gambling experience to be more in line with what modern consumers expect.
Examples of Yggdrasil Gaming titles
To close out this review, let us take a look at some of Yggdrasil Gaming's most intriguing titles. You should notice that each of the games we have chosen to review has a title that lends itself very well to the stories within.
Jungle Books is a modern video slot game based on the 1894 Rudyard Kipling novel The Jungle Book. It is not possible to offer a reel configuration in this review because it is constantly changing within the game. The interwoven story features Mogli and four of the other primary characters from the novel as they make their way through the jungle to various scenes. Each scene offers a different reel configuration and three of several different bonus features.
For example, one of the bonus features is a sticky wins feature. On any spin that produces at least one win, all the winning symbols remain in place for an extra spin. Total wins are calculated, and winnings are paid. Additional bonus features include random stacked symbols, stacked wilds, and winning from either direction.
The most fascinating thing about Jungle Books is that the animation is ongoing. There is nothing flat or static about the user interface. Moreover, it is not just one object that continues its animation. The entire scene animates throughout. It's really an impressive game that has to be played to be fully understood.
We tend to think of Beauty and the Beast as part of the Walt Disney family of films. Disney has indeed made two films bearing that title, but both are based on a French fairy tale written in the 18th century by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Yggdrasil Gaming's to take on this classic is both beautiful and intriguing.
This game doesn't have as much continuous animation as Jungle Books, nor does it switch between scenes, but the animations triggered by winning combinations are very impressive. Moreover, the game offers four different randomly triggered bonus features. Three of those features are introduced with stunning animations that appear at the center of the reel set. They are Random Wilds, Synced Reels, and Nudge Reels. Each one is represented by a character from the fairy tale.
The fourth special feature is the Golden Bet. Once activated, the player has a chance to land additional free spins and, once in free spins mode, unlock a few extra special features.
We couldn't conclude our review with at least one table game. Sonya Blackjack combines the best of a video-based blackjack game with a pseudo-live experience. Your dealer, Sonya, is not a real human dealer. But she does act like one. She provides an authentic dealer experience in a 3D setting.
As a 3D, computer-generated dealer, Sonja does exactly what you would expect. She deals the cards. She removes cards from the table and places them in the opposite shoe. She takes chips off the table and awards them to either the house or the player. Look closely and you will see that Sonja even blinks.
Sonja blackjack is advertised by Yggdrasil Gaming as an evolving product. That's because they are currently working on roulette and baccarat versions. It will be interesting to see what they eventually come up with. In the meantime, though, Sonja Blackjack is an excellent option for operators looking to offer something completely unique.
Yggdrasil Gaming summary
There is little doubt that Yggdrasil Gaming intends to continue pushing the envelope of casino gambling. One look at their games is all you need to be truly impressed with this company. We expect that some of the things Yggdrasil develops in the coming years will become industry standards before too long.
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