Just Slots x Casino Trackpot Interview

We are delighted today here at CasinoTrackpot to be joined by Jon-Paul Calleja – Marketing & Commercial Specialist at Just Slots.

1. Thanks for joining us. Can you start by telling us who you are and what your role is at Just Slots?

Thanks for having us, it’s a pleasure. I’m Jon-Paul Calleja, and I handle commercial operations and marketing at Just Slots.

In practice that puts me on both sides of every release: telling the story of what our games actually do, and working directly with the operators who host them so each launch lands successfully. 

So I spend my days close to the games, close to the players and close to the casinos that host them.

2. When was the studio formed, what is its long-term mission, and which of your games should our readers be playing?

Just Slots is a Malta-based slot studio. Our first games went live at the end of 2024, and the mission hasn’t changed since then: create high-quality, friction-free slot games that deliver better experiences for players.

There are three games I’d start with. Firstly, Ice Vacation, it’s our latest release, and it’s the first game on our new UI and in-game shop, which is where the new Vortex feature lives. It’s the clearest look at where we’re heading.

Rain & Ruin is my personal favourite and one of our most successful games. It came directly out of Shogun Skylord, our second-ever release: same 5×6 grid, same 40 lines, and the same hook, where expanding wild multipliers lock onto a reel and stack with every new one that lands, so the bonus builds across the grid.

Shogun did well enough that we wanted to push the idea harder, so Rain & Ruin added Rival Reels, which puts two multipliers on the same reel to fight it out until one survives. It reaches a 50,000x max win.

My final suggestion would be Book of Arcane 100, our first go at the book mechanic, and the 100 in the name is the ceiling on its expanding symbol multiplier. Book of Abyss then took the same core and widened the ladder so the multiplier climbs in more steps and retriggers stack new ones on top of what you’ve already built. Arcane reaches 100,000x and Abyss 150,000x, the highest potential in our catalogue.

Beyond those three, it really comes down to personal preference. Shogun Skylord and Jade Empress are ideal for fans of Expanding Wild Multipliers. Dynamo’s Show offers an explosive Hold and Collect feature, whilst Shadow Pirates introduced our COIN collection mechanic. For something completely different, try our debut release Sugar Heaven or Unholy Mystery: Freaky Fiesta for a lower-volatility experience.

3. Ice Vacation has been very well received for its volatile gameplay and varied features. What elements stand out most for you?

Honestly, the rhythm of it. Ice Vacation is a high-volatility 5×4 game over 20 paylines, and it pays two ways at once: your normal line wins, plus instant COIN prizes running from 0.5x up to 1000x your total bet, dropping in on the same spin. That dual-prize feel keeps every spin alive.

Then the snowball. Mystery symbols land in groups and all reveal the same thing, and that can be a COIN just as easily as a paying symbol. 

In free spins they turn sticky, so once one lands, it stays put for the rest of the round, and their multipliers keep adding up, all the way to 100x. Watching that total climb across the feature is the good part, and the game tops out at 10,000x.

The theme is deliberately quirky too. Ice is a Polar Bear, and for the whole base game he’s exactly where you’d expect to find one: at home in the cold, winter hat on. It’s only when the free spins trigger that he actually gets his holiday. Land 3 or more scatters, and the hat comes off, the floral shirt goes on, because the free spins are his vacation. 

Ice Vacation is also the first game on our new UI, so every route into the features sits in one place now: the VIP Shop, one tap under the spin button. Bonus Buys, HOTSPIN and Vortex, side by side.

4. Did you have a specific audience in mind for Ice Vacation, or do you prefer broader appeal?

Both, and that’s by design. The core game is simple and clean: 20 lines, one clear sticky mystery mechanic, easy to pick up. 

That’s the broad-appeal layer. On top of it we layered features for different tastes. COIN and instant-prize fans get the collect overlay. Mystery and bonus-hunter players get the sticky, summing multipliers. 

If you’d rather not wait for the free spins, there are three routes in: a bonus buy at 150x, 250x or 500x; HOTSPIN, or Vortex. On volatility, we deliberately pitched Ice Vacation a step below the more pushed-out games in our range. 

It still swings, and it still serves up the big, streamable hits you’d expect from us, the moments people actually want to watch. But it lives at the more reachable end of our portfolio, and that was the point. We spent a long time on the balance so the game rewards you between the big moments rather than just grinding you down to them. 

Volatile, but not brutal!

5. We were intrigued by HOTSPIN. How important is it to let players move closer to a bonus through an extra bet in an age where speed and instant access are valued?

Very, and it comes back to one of our core beliefs: make it easy. Players want control over their own pace, so we design that control in. 

In Ice Vacation, HOTSPIN costs 3x your base bet and raises your chance of triggering the free spins. The exact cost varies from game to game across the portfolio.

Though honestly, I don’t think it is really about speed. It is about choosing your own way in, and each way is a genuinely different experience, not just a different price tag.

With HOTSPIN you tilt the odds of reaching the Free Spins while still getting to enjoy the Base Game. Vortex allows you to gamble a fraction of the buy price, and the gamble itself becomes the moment. 

And finally, our bonus buy options allow you to go straight into the main event, no waiting.

6. You’ve introduced the Vortex feature, which lets players access a buy bonus for less than the standard cost. Talk us through it, it’s a genuinely novel idea for bonus hunters.

Vortex is the one we’re proudest of. In a line: it lets you gamble a fraction of a bonus buy’s price for a shot at winning the whole bonus.

You pick the Bonus Buy you want, stake a fraction of its price, and choose how many Vortex Wheels to spin. Every single wheel has to land. If one misses, your stake is gone and you’re back in the base game; land them and you’ve made your way to Free Spins. That makes for genuinely suspenseful moments that players and streamers love, with a real pay-off when the wheels hit.

The novel part is the pricing, and it is the thing I would most want your readers to get. Your stake is your odds. Stake 40% of a Bonus Buy’s price and you have exactly a 40% shot at winning your way in. 

You can stake anywhere from 10% to 90%, in 10% steps, and your chance always matches what you paid. There’s no hidden edge, no small print. Choose more wheels, and the tension stretches across more spins, while the odds stay tied to what you paid.

You are not paying to skip the fun. You are paying into a different kind of fun. Which is very us, really: more ways into the fun, not fewer. If people love the bonus round, we would rather open more doors to it than gate it behind a single price.

7. To wrap up, what’s coming up in the not-so-distant future at Just Slots?

Plenty. The team is working hard in the background so we can deliver more frequent releases with a broader set of mechanics, tuned to what the market needs and to the way players actually play our games.

There are also some exclusive releases on the way that I can’t say much about just yet. Deliberately vague, I’m afraid. Keep an eye out.