FREE-SPIN FAVORITES
Ainsworth expands its San Fa series with enhanced free games in San Fa Tigers and San Fa Rabbits
By Frank Legato
The recent history of slot machines has been dominated by a parade of new game features, or “game mechanics,” as they say in the trade. A few game mechanics have caught on big-time, to the point that one can find them in perhaps a majority of new slot games from every manufacturer.
That started, of course, with the bonus wheel. Ever since Bally’s Wheel of Gold and IGT’s Wheel of Fortune were launched in the mid-1990s, every slot-maker has had its version of spinning-wheel games, and bonus wheels are still commonplace today. Multiplying wild symbols are another feature that has survived since that era.
More recently, the parade has sped up with free games, hold-and-spin features and the latest popular common slot feature, the pot collection bonus.
This now widely popular feature, first seen in games like 88 Fortunes and Duo Fu Duo Cai, places a “pot” of some type—in the earliest games, it was bowl of gold coins; others use anything from a piggy bank to a piñata to a panda—above the reel array. A special symbol on the reels, usually a gold coin, flies up to the pot whenever it lands. The pot, or the bowl or the pig or the panda, grows each time coins fly in from the reels. Pigs, pandas or whatever grow fat above the reels until they burst, triggering a free-spin bonus.
The technology behind this is known as “perceived persistence.” Players watch the animated animal grow fatter or the coin bowl overflowing and cheer for the next coin to land, bursting the character to reach the bonus. The feature actually can be triggered with any random coin landing, but the burst becomes more likely after a certain time threshold.
Whatever the technology, players love this feature. It fits in nicely alongside other popular features, from wheels to free games to hold-and-spin. The best new games offer some combination of these popular game features. A prime example is the latest from Ainsworth Game Technology, the San Fa game series.
The San Fa series is the successor to the first games featured on the sleek A-STAR Raptor cabinet—San Bao Dragons and San Bao Pandas. The common feature is a collection bonus involving three “pots.” In San Bao Dragons, they are different-colored dragon eggs that grow larger as they are fed coins from the reels, until the eggs “hatch.” In the Pandas version, they are pandas in different colored sweaters, that grow fatter and fatter.
The newest games in the series play on the fun display of that animated character fattening up on coins, with San Fa Rabbits and San Fa Tigers. Here, the three cartoon rabbits or pandas in different-colored clothes represent the collection pots.
The distinguishing factor in all these games is that the characters above the reels represent three different enhancements to free games. Where the earliest games of this style triggered a straight free-game round when the pot burst, each pot here represents a special feature added to the free games.
The characters above the reels represent “Sticky Free Games,” “Jackpot Free Games” and “Extra Free Games.” Each is triggered by like-colored coins landing on the reels, and applied to an initial eight free games. In Sticky Free Games, the reels are loaded with wild symbols, and when they land, they remain in place for the remainder of the free-spin feature.
Jackpot Free Games offer the chance to win one or more of five jackpots—three static prizes and two progressives, the top Grand resetting at $10,000. The color-coded jackpot meters display a number of like-colored coins in the free games needed to trigger the jackpot: two orange symbols to win the Mini; three blue coins for the Minor; four purple coins for the Maxi; five green coins to win the Major progressive, resetting at $500; and six red coins to win the top $10,000-plus Grand.
The fixed bonus amounts scale with the bet.
As the free games unfold, each coin flies from the reels to the top jackpot meters, filling circles below the jackpots. Each jackpot is triggered when the coin spots are full, which means multiple jackpots can be won in one free-spin round.
The possibility of that happening is helped by the third collection pot—Extra Free Games. A special symbol is added to the fifth reel that triggers an extra free game, extending the feature and increasing the total bonus.
The fattening rabbits and tigers trigger the free-game round frequently, and can trigger more than one enhancement, or even all three. Obviously, the goal is to bust all three pots at once, for a bonanza free-spin round with sticky wilds, possible multiple jackpots and an extended number of spins.
‘Uber Free Games’
Keith Kruczynski, vice president of studios, North America, for Ainsworth, says the idea behind the San Fa series was to combine what have been the most popular free game styles into one game.
“Taking the tried and true free game models that players love, and giving them the opportunity to combine those into an uber free game session where every game is just getting better, is what makes this game series stand out,” Kruczynski says.
“This really dives back into the history of which free game features have worked. Players love sticky wilds. Players love constantly re-triggering free games with more wild symbols. The jackpot collection [feature] has more recently been successful.
“But this takes three of those and puts them into one game. And what’s great is each one of those happens about every 60 to 70 plays, so what you’re really playing for is combining those features.”
He says the various enhancements actually help each other grow during a free-spin round. “If you get the sticky wilds with the extra free games, you’re getting even more wilds for more free games. Each one of those features as a standalone can be really rewarding, but the giant honeypot is when you get all three features at the same time. That’s where you’re really knocking it out of the park and having a great time.”
San Fa’s launch in Las Vegas and other commercial markets benefited from Ainsworth seeing reactions to the game in the Class II (electronic bingo) and historical horse racing markets. “The game was designed for Class II and HHR,” Kruczynski says, “which I think is a huge benefit we have as a company, having a ton of games in the HHR market and being able to test games there first and then decide if we want to bring them over to Class III [commercial casinos].”
He notes that these other formats use different data points—bingo numbers, historical race results—to create games that are virtually indistinguishable from their Class III counterparts. “They have the same features, the same mechanics,” says Kruczynski, who adds that after release of the first two games, they noticed the panda theme performed a little better, which guided the team in designing the new San Fa games.
“Instead of dragons hatching from eggs, we saw the three cute pandas on screen at all times, getting fatter,” he says. “We decided to go with little rabbits and tigers getting fatter and fatter. It’s cute and it’s fun. We didn’t want to get the game in the field and just blend in—and the pot mechanic is so awesome you can do anything with it. So, we decided, let’s be a little creative.”
At press time, the new San Fa games were live in Nevada and California, and rapidly spreading to other markets in the U.S. “It’s been Ainsworth’s best low-denomination game since Quick Spin,” says Kruczynski, who notes that when he joined Ainsworth in October 2022, one of the directives of company CEO Harald Neumann was to make Ainsworth’s low-denomination games as successful as its higher-denomination games had been for years.
San Fa has been the poster child for that effort, and Kruczynski says there’s much more to come. “We’ve got more perceived persistence, we’ve got some novel things that haven’t been seen before, and we’re doing more of what works in the field,” he says.
“We see these new mechanics come out, and what’s really interesting, a lot of the ‘new’ mechanics aren’t new—they’re dipping back into the past, and finding a new way to present this cool thing to players.”
SAN FA RABBITS, SAN FA TIGERS
Slot Type:
Five-reel, 50-line video slot; pot-collection feature; sticky wilds, multiple jackpot and extra free game enhancements; .01, .02, .05 and .10 denominations
Payback % Range:
88%-96%
AVERAGE HIT FREQUENCY
Approximately 30%
TOP JACKPOT
Progressive; $10,000 reset
