Old But Gold #3 - Deadwood xNudge®

DEADWOOD IS 2 YEARS OLD!

In “Old But Gold”, we shine a light on some of our older gems that may have been long forgotten - In this case, it surely hasn’t been. Deadwood is still an NLC fan favourite to this day. We hope you’ve brought the sawed-off two-barrel shotgun to the gunfight, because this time, we’re looking at the modern classic - Deadwood xNudge®.

THE STORY BEHIND THE SLOT

Per Lindheimer :

"Tombstone was such an appreciated release, that we just had to do a follow-up. We had the game name for quite some time, probably popped up some time during the original Tombstone project. A sort of sequel to the Wild West-themed game, but instead of going low-key - we went with lush graphics and some seriously eyeball-popping Freespin features.

A big difference was of course that we added two choices for Freespins - this made waves in the industry at the time as Deadwood was one of the first to have this feature. The other main feature was a Super Freespin bonus buy - which wasn’t possible in Tombstone. These two probably contributed the most to Deadwood's success - and lead to define how we make games today.

Deadwood had so many fun humorous additions - It was a great project overall!

Waillon Le (Wai) :

"Deadwood was the first time we choose to venture back into the West and - what a return it was!

There were several back-and-forths of exactly what kind of city Deadwood was going to be. In the reel area, there's a vague reference to a train - a nudge to the the Western film "3.10 to Yuma". At the end of the day though, Deadwood is your everyday outlaw city in the wild west.

We had the inspiration to focus on the Bounty Hunters redeeming their loot - those being the three 'Wild' characters. If you read into the big win names, there's a story arc of bounty collecting - but in the end, the hunters are more interested in making the outlaws pay for their actions... Leading them to "Feed 'em to the pigs".

The initial thought was to have a slightly softer version of Tombstone with a super free spin which was a little less volatile - that ended up being the “shootout spins”. We soon realised that we felt that the game wasn't crazy enough and was not worthy of a fresh release, so we introduced the choice for the player to choose their volatility and made the harsher “Gunslinger Spins” THIS was where the real potential was. This turned out to be a great move!

The explosions on the anticipation spins were toned down a little bit from the original idea. It didn't really make sense and it felt more like a napalm attack almost. In the end, it turned out pretty well - and we ended up saving all that extra fiery goodness for Tombstone RIP.."

QUICK FACTS

• Deadwood xNudge®’s soundtrack was the first to feature on our Spotify page. It's now almost at 16,000 streams!

• With the big win animations, the team initially had different GFX ideas in the beginning - having brutal shootings but later settled on Bounty Hunters capturing outlaws. They’re still brutal in a way, death by pigs isn't the best way to go.

• The team debated making the pigs uglier and even considered adding body parts to the scene - It was a hot topic at the time.

FINAL WORDS

Deadwood was a gamechanger of an NLC release. It's success heaviliy influenced the directions of future Nolimit slots, championing higher volatility and brutal themes - Now synonymous with the Nolimit City brand. 'Till the next one!