A Look Into Thunderkick – Their History and Titles
Thunderkick is another of the impressive number of online casino software design companies which have been founded in Sweden. This scenic Scandinavian country may not be the first country which comes to mind when naming the centres of the international gaming industry, but it has more than its fair share of influential and powerful players.
And of these, Thunderkick may well not be the biggest, but it is surely one of the most innovative. Based in Stockholm, it also has a base in one of the real centres of international gaming: the Mediterranean island of Malta. With a total of less than fifty employees, it may not be a giant, but it sure packs a mighty punch.
Founded just a few years ago in 2012, the company is responsible for the design of a small but perfectly formed range of excellent slots. And for such a small company, they certainly do have a wide reach. Their games are available to play on many of the biggest and best online casinos, including some of the biggest and most popular online casinos around. Their games are also exceedingly phone friendly, so they are also popular with the new wave of mobile focused sites, such as Magic Red, Rizk and Peters Casino.
At the time of writing, the company has already released around a couple of dozen great games – not bad for a little over five years’ work. And, to mimic the famed Marks and Sparks marketing campaign, these are no ordinary games. Thunderkick are responsible for the design of some of the most ground breaking titles around. They certainly are slots, but not as we know them.
Thunderkick see no need to stick rigidly to the standard five reel format. Many of their games are so innovative that there is little resemblance to the familiar slot format at all. Sunny Scoops, for example, consists of just three “reels” of ice cream cones. You have to match the different flavours of ice cream as they drop into place with a satisfying plop. The background scene and soundtrack transports you to a traditional nostalgic British seaside resort. This game may be distinctly unconventional, but you can still trigger the equivalent of a “free spins” round. Instead of the usual spinning reels, your ice cream tower can grow taller and taller: as you add ice cream scoops to your cones, your prize multiplier increases each time.
So successful has this game been that a sequel has been added. Sunset Delight is a little more conventional, with this game featuring new versions of all the more familiar slot delights, such as Wilds, Scatters, Free Spins and Bonus Games.
Every game from these software geniuses seems to have a unique design of some kind. Babooshkas features lots of the famed Russian dolls which add a real charm to the traditional slot format; The Rift is set in a medieval apothecary shop, full of spooky atmospherics and weird potions, while Arcader is a clever updating of the retro arcade games of the 1980s. This will appeal to nostalgic players relishing the old school console games of the pas, with blocky graphical depictions of traditional fruit machine symbols. It looks like a kind of mash up of the one armed bandit with Tetris, the early smash hit Nintendo Gameboy console game.
Esqueleto Explosivo is another very popular and quirky game, themed on the Mexican day of the dead festival, set in a charming Mexican village square with an excitable mariachi band to add to the atmosphere. But perhaps the most charming Thunderkick creation of all is Frog Grog. Set in a spooky wizard’s lair, this atmospheric game features beautifully realised graphics. The scene is full of potions and jars filled with mysterious fluids and strange objects. This time, there are five “reels”, but no spinning is involved. Instead, each round results in new jars, bottles and vials thudding down onto the three wooden shelves of a book case. Every time you get a winning combination, a further fall of glass objects results, which can earn you further wins and an increasing prize multiple. The Wild is the famed Frog. This creature can then explode in a burp, resulting in even more potential wins. This bonus
Thunderkick have earned themselves a well-deserved reputation amongst players and indeed within the entire industry as an unrivalled developer of creative and innovative games which are beautifully realised with top class graphics. Their ames are widely available and are most definitely worth looking out for by players wishing to experiment with something a bit different.
Thunderkick are licenced via the Malta Gaming Authority. This means that their operations are fully regulated by the UK Gambling Commission, the organisation tasked by the government of the United Kingdom with overseeing the industry.