Wheel of Wishes slot featuring a 'WowPot' progressive jackpot coming in 2020

Over the last few years, Microgaming has altered its approach to developing games. Instead of producing all their titles in house, the company has instead developed a number of different partnerships with gaming studios all over the world, who partner with the Isle of Man-based giant to produce exclusive content under the Microgaming banner.

This week, the company announced that Alchemy Gaming would be the tenth such company to agree a partnership deal with Microgaming.

Who are Alchemy Gaming?

Alchemy Gaming are a relatively newly formed company who were founded in 2019 and who, according to the details on their website have been "founded by a select team of gaming alchemists."

With a strong leaning towards the mathematical aspects of slot gaming, the company says that it possesses "just the right mix of passion, experience and expertise" and that they "truly understand online slot games - and their players."

The first of the company's three bywords for their creations is 'inventive', with a commitment to being more experimental about what slot games can offer the players, whilst still retaining high levels of playability and a decent win potential for the player.

The company also reckons their slots are 'quirky' recognising that as a diverse group themselves, they will strive to mix up the usual aspects of slot games and put together what they term 'novel mechanics' to make their games fresh, exciting and new, as well as different to other slot games on the market today.

Finally, their third byword is 'calculated" with a clear commitment to taking a scientific approach to the mathematical aspects of slot gaming to ensure that games are both fun to play and individual, but with a solid grounding in key slots mechanicals and maths to ensure that they offer the right level of challenge.

Speaking about the agreement, Microgaming CEO John Coleman stated:

"Marking the tenth addition to our growing network of independent game studios, Alchemy Gaming is set to add a quirky edge to our portfolio. The new studio adopts a scientific approach to game development, and the team are busy creating some brilliant features and visually impactful artwork. We welcome their unique personality and relentless drive to engineer thrilling gameplay experiences."

In response to this, the Head of the team at Alchemy Gaming, Rory Harpur commented:

"With a wealth of collective experience in the industry, we understand slots and players, and what drives excitement and anticipation in games. We love how great games balance mechanics and art to perfection. Our mission is to focus on creating a polished audiovisual experience that fully supports our game features."

New progressive jackpot slot as a first release

There is no doubt that Alchemy Gaming have made an ambitious project their first release as part of the deal with Microgaming. Set for release in the first quarter of 2020, that game will be the Wheel of Wishes slot and, in something of a a surprise to many, the game will feature a brand new progressive jackpot prize, known simply as WowPot.

The new progressive prize does not appear to be linked to the original Microgaming progressive jackpot slot of the same name, although there are questions as to whether this game may replace the original WowPot slot, or whether it will simply sit alongside all the other Microgaming progressive jackpots currently available.

It is worth remembering that this hugely popular progressive network has paid out over €1 billion in prizes since the first game in the group was released and only a couple of weeks ago, another player was made a millionaire when they triggered a big jackpot payout on the Mega Moolah slot.

Given that there is now another game you can play to land the Mega Moolah jackpot prize, Mega Vault Millionaire slot, although the game is only available exclusively at casinos that are part of the Casino Rewards network, it does seem as though Microgaming are looking at improving their output when it comes to progressive jackpot slots as in truth, it has been a good few years since a brand new progressive was released by the company or any of its affiliates.

As yet, there is no word on the size of this new WowPot jackpot prize, or indeed how the Wheel of Wishes slot will play, although the title and the artwork that is being used to promote it on the Alchemy Gaming site, does tend to suggest that a bonus wheel, not unlike that used in the Mega Moolah slot, could be central to the game and I would guess that this wheel will be key to how the progressive jackpot will be won.

We do know that the game will include other items such as genies and magic lamps, which suggests an Arabian Knights or Aladdin-styled theme. Further details about the game will be available over the next couple of days at the Malta-based SiGMA 2019 expo, with Microgaming displaying their forthcoming game at stand G12 at the event.

Microgaming's Growing List of Partners

Alchemy Gaming join an expanding list of companies that now count themselves as official partners for Microgaming, producing exclusive software for the company. The full list of companies now affiliated with Microgaming is as follows:

• Triple Edge Studios
• Stormcraft Studios
• Slingshot Studios
• Fortune-Factory Studios
• Switch Studios
• All41 Studios
• Pulse8 Studios
• Gameburger Studios
• Neon Valley Studios
• Alchemy Gaming

It is also worth noting that Microgaming also release slots from Just For The Win Studios although their agreement with the company seems to be different to that which the other ten studios have agreed. You can read all of our Microgaming articles here.

What does this new partnership mean?

It is clear that Microgaming's desire to expand their horizons with new developers working in tandem with them continues unabated. However, it is a somewhat tricky task to produce your first game as part of a new partnership as a progressive jackpot game, especially one that will go on to be the first progressive released under the Microgaming banner for some time. Alchemy Studios will need to hit the ground running with this first slot but if it proves to be a big hit, as many Microgaming progressives have done, then it is likely both companies and players will benefit.