How many Canadian casino game producers do you know? Well here’s one, and they are popular enough to be found in a wide variety of online casinos in Canada and the rest of the world. PearFiction Studios has cemented its place as an online slot producer, and despite being a somewhat small fish in a sea of hundreds of producers, their games are available via hundreds of online casinos.
Although the company has trekked various routes throughout its existence, today they are an exclusive producer for Games Global. The company has origins in social gaming, and this includes video games and other products outside of casinos. Ultimately, this has influenced their games, giving the whole experience a unique flare. Check out further details on the company and the games they produce.
History
The company was originally established in 2014. Back then they were producing simple mobile games, reaching audiences of millions of people. The following year they followed this up with a social casino slot. This is to say, a slot that you can download from Apple store or Google Play, and play for free. This allowed the company to experiment with its ideas before entering the real money scene.
A year later, and PearFiction started producing the games they now excel at: online slots for casinos. In 2017 this led to an exclusive production and distribution deal with Microgaming. This wasn’t the only deal, as the company also produced a set of bespoke games for Leander Games. This has been followed by a succession of releases. The largest piece of news since then has been Microgaming selling their Quickfire platform to Games Global. This has had no impact on PearFiction, as they continue to produce games on the same platform.
For further information about the company, please read our exclusive interview.
Online Slots
Online slots are the current area of interest for the company. Whilst they have been in business long, the list of released games is just about equal to the years they’ve been active. That pace of one or two slots a year doesn’t seem to be accelerating any time soon. Luckily, it seems like their old releases stay popular through the years, so at least you have several games to check out.
Following are popular slots from PearFiction Studios:
- Blazing Mammoth
- Gustavo El Luchador
- Pugs Life
- Fish and Chips
- Chicago Gold
- Granny vs Zombies
- Treasures of Kilauea
- Blazing Piranhas
- The Smashing Biscuits
- 15 Tridents
- Goblins go Wild
The first impression is of course that these tend to be quite playful games. Both with the naming conventions, and themes used, as well as the graphics that make up the background pictures and symbols. The company certainly doesn’t take things too seriously, which makes for a nice bit of additional entertainment. And nice music smooths over any wrinkles that might otherwise emerge.
Now if we look at the basics, we can conclude that these games mostly use paylines for calculating win. Sometimes you can run into ways to win too. Those wins tend to come via high variance, and often top out at 5000 times the bet, with the occasional slot going over or under this. In most cases, you can reach these wins either through the normal paytable, or the special features. Naturally, both cases require a lot of luck.
What Makes it Special?
Well, it’s Canadian obviously. Why wouldn’t that be special?
If we are talking about special features, then the first thing to say is that they are heavily relied on. You will notice that each game comes not with one or two bonus features, but usually with three or four different ones. Sometimes these are all built similarly, and at other times they’re all taking advantage of different mechanics.
Sometimes you will run across specific bonuses like LocknWin. This special activates via specific symbols, in which cases the player will get access to respins. All normal symbols are removed during these spins, and replaced by bonus symbols and modifiers.
Other times you can run into bonus wheels, which can result in cash prizes, jackpots, and bonus spins. The latter also come naturally from the traditional source of scatters found on the reels. Some games might give you a chance to gamble for more bonus spins, or to simply buy your way into the feature via a one-time payment.
Apart from these occasional special cases, the features are so numerous that you are bound to run into familiar bonus modes. That can mean the basic wilds, just as much as it can mean expanding, multiplying, moving, or sticky wilds. Pick a win, collect symbols, and relax as the reels spin.
Overall, it’s a very rich set of slots, even if it’s not numerous. You can find the occasional low-variance game, or go for the highest riches and best RTP slots. The different specials come in droves, and are sure to have something for each and every player group. All in all, an excellent choice for Canadian players.
The Legal Side of Things
Compared to the many other studios that rose to fame as an exclusive Microgaming-centred studio, such as Slingshot, Fortune Factory, or Stormcraft Studios, PearFiction started as an entirely independent gaming company. Their first area of interest wasn’t even in casino gaming. Once they did enter that arena, they quickly realised that making the games was just half the battle. Licensing and distribution were entirely different matters to handle.
Luckily for the company, they found perhaps the best partner for all this. For a time, that was Microgaming, and today it is Games Global. Their distribution empire spans the globe, and covers all the important licences and jurisdictions. Including those from Canada. Have a look at the list of casinos, and pick your new favourites!