There must be something in the water in Sweden, or maybe it’s the months of cold and darkness every year, but we find there to be an abnormal amount of software companies coming from that market. The good news for players is that there are also a disproportionate number of fantastic developers in that country, so the companies that are hitting the market are bringing with them some amazing content! Elk Studios is one of the newer firms to join the software licensing fray. Let’s take a look at some of the games from this excellent developer.
A Brief History of Elk Studios
Elk Studios launched in 2012, which makes the company one of the more recent development firms to enter the online gambling space. The first thing we noticed about this company is its size – there aren’t that many folks working at Elk as far as we can tell. This is a bit of a double-edged sword – having small numbers of employees keeps expenses down and allow the company to be more profitable, but it also limits the number of games that can be developed.
The latter part of that last statement fits the company mission at Elk Studios. This is a company that puts way more importance on the concept and the quality of the games than the sheer volume that they offer. Understanding that its product is going to be used as complementary content in an online casinos library, the team at Elk want its slots to stand out amongst the hundreds that a player will find when the log in.
Over the few short years that the company has been in business, they have created only 17 slots, but have plans to release additional titles in the coming months. This is by far the shortest list of games of any supplier that we have reviewed, but that does not mean the company isn’t producing popular games.
One area of differentiation that we found at Elk Studios is that they have created a set of Betting Strategies to complement their games. These strategies are modeled from the most standard player behavior when sitting at a slot machine, and rather than hitting Autoplay and playing the exact same number of coins every spin, you can set your game to play according to one of the strategies that best match your gameplay. This is a remarkable feature which we think really sets Elk Studios apart from the competition.
Recommended Elk Studios Casino Sites
Top Three Slots Games
Champions Goal
We don’t think there can be enough soccer-themed games for a hungry European market, and Elk Studios has their own take on one with this 5 reel machine. Featuring intro music that sounds vaguely like that of the actual Champions League, you are playing a game based in a large soccer stadium, complete with cheering fans and fireworks that are set off when you hit one of the bonus games. Overall, we love the look and feel of this 20 pay line game, and all the symbols are representative of being in a big soccer match.
Electric Sam
This popular 5 reel, 243 pay line game is all about Sam, a troll-like character who runs an electric casino in the forest with his wife and daughter. We love all the neon representations of the traditional fruit symbols, and with the Scatter and wild bonus symbols, you can win up to 200,000 coins in one spin of this machine! While you may not be into the whole troll storyline, it is easy to put that out of your mind as you select one of the Betting Strategies and the number of coins you want to play and then watch the excitement unfold!
Bloopers
The Bloopers slot game is all about Hollywood, and more importantly the people behind the scenes that make entertainment magic happen. The goal of the game is to set the final scene of a Hollywood production, which is accomplished by reaching the bonus level and collecting stars. This is another 5 reel game with multiple bonuses, wild and Scatter symbols which can fall on any of the 243 pay lines. With Oscar-style music in the background, you feel as though you are on the red carpet yourself as you search for your own gold treasure.
Mobile Compatibility
This is where we see the difference between software companies that launched recently versus those who have a long history in the business. With no baggage from the days of the downloadable casino client, Elk Studios builds its games with a mobile-first mentality. Even though these HTML5 games can be played from any PC, the company recognizes that the future (and the present to be honest) is all about playing on a mobile device. The games we tested were robust when being played from the browser of our Apple and Android phones.
Conclusion
The only disappointing part about reviewing Elk Studios is that they don’t have more of these incredible slots for us to play! Seriously though, the company has done an excellent job building top-quality games, and with clients like Mr. Green, Bet365, LeoVegas and 888 Casino on its client list, the industry seems to agree with us. We are looking forward to the new releases coming this year and hope the Betting Strategies functionality continues to expand as well.
