TapSlots: Elevating Social Casino with the Heroic Game Stack

Building on success

TapSlots, the Las Vegas based studio behind the popular Vegas Slots Galaxy and 777 Classic Slots Galaxy titles, was founded in 2008 and have been developing successful social casino games for 15+ years. Focusing on their existing Vegas Cherry Slots title, the TapSlots team are now utilizing the complete Heroic Game Stack - Nakama, Satori, Hiro, and Heroic Cloud - to comprehensively redesign their game, adding a full suite of social and competitive features while also taking advantage of LiveOps strategies to drive the development, release, and curation of the player experience.

The foundation

Originally released in 2017, and with 1M+ downloads to its name, Vegas Cherry Slots has performed well for the studio, but not to the level they know it can and not yet to the level of the competitors it faces in the mobile casino genre. With most of the meta gameplay features being handled client-side - TapSlots previously relied on PlayFab for user accounts and Cloud Save only - the team were limited in their ability to add new features and content to the game, and were unable to take advantage of the full range of LiveOps strategies that are so important in the mobile casino genre.

With the Heroic Game Stack, TapSlots now have a complete solution to drive the next evolution of their game. Nakama provides the backend to handle all of the game’s meta features, including user accounts, player wallet and inventory, leaderboards and tournaments, and anything else they can imagine. Hiro, built on top of Nakama, enables TapSlots to rapidly prototype, develop, and integrate new features into their game, and Satori provides the LiveOps tools to manage and optimize the player experience, including A/B testing, Feature Flags and Remote Configuration, Live Events, and analytics to drive the development and release of new content and features.

And the TapSlots team are able to do all of this without having to worry about the infrastructure and operations of running their own backend, as Heroic Cloud handles all of that for them, allowing them to focus on delivering innovative features and engaging gameplay.

More notable still, they are able to do all of this without needing to increase their headcount, as the Heroic Game Stack is designed to maximize the productivity of any team, allowing them to do more with less - and to do so faster than ever before.

Hiro leads the way

The TapSlots team are already seeing the benefits of the Heroic Game Stack, with Hiro enabling them to rapidly prototype and develop new features and content for their game, such as the soon to be released Vegas Heat Tournaments and Free Coin Rewards, as well as a server-based player inventory and wallet system powered by Hiro’s Economy features.

By leveraging Hiro’s robust and flexible Event Leaderboards system, TapSlots were able to rapidly implement a multi-tiered recurring event leaderboard, known as Vegas Heat Tournaments, with tier-based player bucketing where 50 players compete head to head to earn prizes and climb the ranks. At the end of each Vegas Heat Tournament players climb or descend the tiers based on their performance, allowing the top players to ascend to higher ranks to compete for bigger prizes and prestige. All of this is powered by out-of-the-box functionality within Hiro, configured using a simple and easy to understand JSON configuration file.

Beyond this first set of features, there remains a host of additional functionality enabled by Hiro that the team already have plans to implement, including: a complete Shop and In-App Purchases system, and an Achievements system - including recurring Daily and Weekly events along with special one-off events - to reward players for their progress and engagement with the game.

Satori sets the course

Live operations has become a practical necessity for any successful mobile game, and the TapSlots team are already taking advantage of Satori’s LiveOps tools to manage and optimize the player experience.

As new features are developed and ready for release, the team are able to use Satori’s feature flag / remote configuration capabilities to roll out new features while simultaneously phasing out old features, allowing them to test and optimize the player experience in real-time.

With Satori’s powerful event capture and analytics tools, the team are able to track player behavior and engagement, and use this data to drive the development and release of new content and features, as well as personalize each player’s experience - such as a custom Lobby for each player pointing them to the slots best suited for them - to maximize their engagement with the game.

Heroic Cloud keeps it all running

With their sights set on the top of the mobile casino genre, the TapSlots team know that they need to be able to scale their game to millions of players, and they need to be able to do so quickly and easily.

With Heroic Cloud, they are able to do just that, with the ability to scale their game for any audience demands with the click of a button, as well as scale it back down to conserve resources when not running events, and all with the confidence that their game will always be available and performant.

The future is bright

The integration of the Heroic Game Stack has marked a significant turning point for TapSlots and their suite of mobile casino title. Heroic Labs’ advanced technology suite has streamlined their game development processes and empowered the team to focus on content and gameplay above all else.

These tools have enabled them to rapidly innovate and deploy new features, while also harnessing the power of server-based systems for player inventory and wallet management. The Heroic Game Stack’s capacity to maximize team productivity without the need for additional personnel underscores its efficiency and scalability, a crucial advantage in the competitive mobile casino genre. And best of all, this foundational work on Vegas Cherry Slots will be reusable for their other titles, allowing them to quickly and easily expand their entire suite of games with new features and content.

Empowered by the Heroic Game Stack, this combination of innovative technology and strategic content deployment positions TapSlots to not just compete but potentially lead in the evolving world of mobile casino gaming.