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If you’ve never heard of Shady Lady, you’re not alone: they’re one the newest and weird names in slot development and haven’t yet made a move into the US market. But their games could be coming to at least one sweepstakes casino, based on the business deals they have in place.
The world of slots can be, let’s face it, kind of repetitive. Browse any casino’s slot lobby and you’ll probably find a sea of Asian, Egyptian, and Irish themes, mixed in with a smattering of gemstones and cute animals, probably some piggy banks, and the occasional pirate. And let’s not forget the ultra-traditional fruits, Sevens and Bars.
Big slots studios hate taking risks, which is pretty ironic given that they’re in the gambling business. But occasionally the little guys—or girls—will roll the dice on something unique, edgy, or downright bizarre.
Shady Lady is all of those things, maybe following in the footsteps of Nolimit City, another upstart that got a lot of attention in the industry media a few years ago for its themes that included prison gangs, Soviet gulags, and filthy punk-bar bathrooms.
Shady Lady’s early efforts seem to be a little more in the dark-cute or horror-comedy part of the spectrum. But they’re still probably too chancy for the leading real-money US casinos. That’s why if you’re going to see them appear over here, it’s likely to be at the sweepstakes casinos first.
I’m telling you this because Shady Lady signed a deal with the slots aggregator Hub88 this week. And they recently struck their first North American partnership with Legendz Social Casino. So if you’re looking for something truly different, keep an eye out there for Devil’s Finger or Brainwashed. They’re not there yet, but that’s where you’re most likely to find them soon.
Devil’s Finger: an unlikely heroine vs. Satan himself
Shady Lady didn’t shy away from controversy with their debut, diving straight into a demonic theme whose high-pay symbols include a possessed nun and priest, and a Winged Black Cat as the wild. But despite the inverted crosses and other arcane symbols, this isn’t giving The Exorcist vibes. More than anything, it reminds me of What We Do in the Shadows, the vampire mockumentary.
The game stars Cosmo, whose concept seems to be “What if Tina from Bob’s Burgers grew up to be a vampire slayer like Buffy?” She’s kinda chubby, definitely dorky, wears a T-shirt with a cat on it, and gets her magic powers by guzzling soft drinks.
It’s a 6×4 reel all-ways-pay slot with the central gimmick being, you guessed it, Devil’s Fingers. These push up from the bottom of screen during bonus features with expanded reels, covering some symbols in the grid so that they can’t score, but providing a multiplier to the remaining symbols in the column. The longer the finger gets, the more symbols are out of commission, but the bigger than multiplier gets.
The Devil can appear on the final reel and triggers a single respin with the Fingers when he appears alone. Although you only get one shot at that bonus, it can pay very well if you can manage six-of-a-kind with some good Finger multipliers.
But if you get Cosmo on the first reel and the Devil on the sixth, then they’ll square off in the Evil Unleashed free spins round. Here you’ll get at least seven shots at those Finger multipliers, but you can also land Cosmo’s soft drinks on the first and sixth reels, triggering a variety of extra benefits. Some of these lop pieces off the fingers, uncovering more symbols on the reels while retaining the multiplier.
One of the slot’s coolest features isn’t part of the game itself, but the options it provides in lieu of a Buy Feature button. This is something I hope Shady Lady will apply across its games, as it gives you a lot of choice in of customizing your experience.
Highlight Reels: a unique alternative to Buying a Feature
Devil’s Finger has a dollar sign button that looks like it’ll buy the Free Spins feature, but which actually opens a submenu with a range of options along those lines.
The option to just buy the Free Spins is there, or you can pay for one of two levels of “Boosted” spins where the feature is more likely to hit, but not guaranteed.
Then there’s a Loot Box option, which is like the feature-buy option but with an added randomization element. You’ll draw a card that could be a blank, but usually gives you a souped-up version of Free Spins, with even more favorable reel sets.
But the most interesting is Highlight Reels. Here, you’re effectively buying 100, 300, or 500 spins, but discarding all but the three best. You don’t get to see the discarded spins, but the game will randomly generate the specified number of outcomes—taking a couple of seconds to do so—and give you the three best, in order.
The fact that they’re in ascending order is especially interesting because if you win, say, $50 on the first, you know ahead of time that the second and third are going to be even better. If you choose the 500-spin option, it’s a fairly good bet that you’ll get Free Spins on at least one of the three, because you’d be unlucky to go that long without triggering the feature in regular play.
