Our Ten Favorite Pixel Art Slots

If you are a child of the 1980s or one from the early-1990s, you probably grew up with pixel art. Before PlayStations became popular items in homes across the Western World where children lived, arcades dominated, and consoles like the NES and Sega Genesis ruled, displaying 2D pixel graphics. Though 3D visuals were a thing pre the mid-90s, appearing on home computers in the late-1970s, they had not yet taken over the gaming world.

Concisely put, pixel art is a digital graphical style where images get built using pixels as their only building block. Naturally, this art form gets most associated with 8-bit and 16-bit era video games. Older instances of this visual genre implement a limited color palette, in line with the 256-gamut available in older computer software.

While pixel art has experienced a resurgence in popularity, especially in the gaming world, thanks to the rise of retro-style titles, it has not seeped into other mainstream forms of entertainment. Even in the slotverse, the number of pixel-look-themed spinners is not dramatic, which to us is surprising. Still, we estimate that around sixty slots implement this kind of presentation, and below, we bring you what we believe to be the ten best ones from this batch.

Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior

In our eyes, one of the best reel-spinning games we have ever played is Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior. As fans of Street Fighter 2, we could not dream of a more faithful slot adaptation than this one. NetEnt pulled all the stops concerning this baby, as they essentially transported the arcade classic that millions across the globe love onto digital reels. It is a cluster-pay game, where character selection affects the gameplay of this spinner sizably, as each fighter brings a different variance level. The max exposure of this NetEnt masterpiece is x7,142, on a maximum wager of $700. How about that? High-rollers can relive their childhoods on this slot en route to chasing higher levels of wealth.

Hellcatraz

Relax Gaming has a few pixel-art slots. Perhaps, their design team is in their late 30s and wants to rely on some of the magic of this style for newer generations who never got to soak it in in all its glory. Hellcatraz came out in May 2020 and is an 8-bit take on the world’s most famous prize, San Francisco’s Alcatraz. The symbols here are a mix of card suits, stars, badges, and a cast of characters, including a shark, which is likely a nod to the three prisoners that allegedly escaped the renowned prison in the 1960s and whose survival gets debated till today, with many speculating that they could not survive swimming through the cold shark-infested waters to reach the shore on San Francisco. Hellcatraz generates pulse-pounding excitement and has a hit frequency of almost 20, which is terrific for a high-variance game.

Banana Town

We reviewed Banana Town in August 2022, giving it a favorable review. And in the time that has passed, we have not changed our mind regarding the enjoyability it supplies. It has only two bonus features but boasts loads of charm and a pay-anywhere system coupled with a top prize of x10,000 on a max bet of $50. Winning symbols here get collected into a right-side meter, and these can double the in-game multiplier up to x64. Banana Town came out almost two years after Hellcatraz, but we, and Relax Gaming, see this as a companion piece to that slot. It got the Dream Drop treatment this month, and many of our readers seem to love it.

Pixel Samurai

Playtech rarely gets mentioned in our best-of-game articles. And while the contribution of this company to the interactive gaming industry cannot get understated. Most of the time, they do make pretty vanilla slots. Pixel Samurai is not one such case. That said, know that you may struggle to find this game at many of our analyzed crypto casinos, as it was not widely available last time we checked. It is a cascading spinner aimed at low rollers who like high-variance titles. Pixel Samurai has a lower-than-average RTP of 93.98% and a max bet of only $10. Like Banana Town, it is also a cluster pay release, but it is one that features a progressive jackpot.

Diamond Geeza

Inspired Gaming is a gambling brand that is super popular in the UK, where it is responsible for supplying tens of thousands of slot machines to betting shops across Britain. Their online presence is decent but not as impressive. Diamond Geeza is an Inspired creation that debuted on the Web in August 2018 as a medium-to-high-variance game with 243 betways and an RTP of 96%. We have never been quite sure of the theme here, and we assume that it falls into the spy category. Motif aside, Diamond Geeza has a free-spin round, substitution symbols, and multipliers but has gotten hardly any press. It is not a game worth seeking out, but if you see it at your chosen casino, you should give it a try. The low-end wagers here start at $0.2.

Pixel Quest

Pixel Quest is another difficult-to-track-down title. It is an RPG-inspired Legend of Zelda-like game. The visuals here are quite charming, and this Capecod Gaming product features mystery symbols, wilds, multiple free-spin rounds, and bonus games that can yield rewards up to x1,000 your stake. It may not be one of Capecod Gaming’s more famous titles, but it is one of the Italian company’s most endearing ones.

NFT Megaways

We have talked about Red Tiger’s NFT Megaways several times on BTCGOSU. How could we not? We are a crypto gambling portal, and here is an NFT-inspired slot from one of the sphere’s top providers. If you have read our evaluation of this game, you know that we consider it a quality blend of tried-and-tested mechanics with a trendy theme. It has a heavy meme and pop culture influence and is a fun time killer for casual players.

Snakes & Ladders Megadice

Moksha Patam is the original Indian name for the game upon which the popular board one Snakes & Ladders got based on. Here is Reel Kingdom’s, the famed Pragmatic Play partner, take on this classic. It features a Board Bonus mode that plays out on a 12×12 layout where the gameplay gets infused with dice action and multiple modifiers. The most you can hope to snag on this interactive gaming product is a win of x5,300, which is in line with the max exposure of most Pragmatic Play distributed releases. Though, the maximum bet here is $50. The RTP of Snakes & Ladders is 95.5%, and the variance level in play here is high.

Flame Busters

The full title of this Thunderkick slot is – Roasty McFry and the Flame Busters. It is a gaming product that rarely ever gets discussed. That is so, despite it being a spinner that boasts a medium variance paired with a hit frequency of 30 and a max win of x5,280 on a maximum wager of $100. The theme here is fire-fighting, and the setting is reminiscent of Donkey Kong. Undoubtedly this Thunderkick release nails the 8-bit arcade feel, but maybe it does it a bit overly so, as it has the early 1980s-era vibe instead of the late 1980s one that most prefer.

Napoleon vs. Rabbits

Who are Blue Guru Games? They are a Swedish developer founded in 2021 with support from LeoVentures. Since 2022, this company has participated in Relax Gaming’s Silver Bullet Platform and Oryx BlueHorn, distributing its creations to various markets through these channels. Napoleon vs. Rabbits is a Blue Guru release that landed in the interactive gaming landscape at the tail end of 2022, featuring a high variance math model, a max win of x3,894, and an RTP of 94%. It is a decent slot that uses the cascading mechanic and can be clunky at times. It is not one of the best games on this list, but we are sure some will like it, as some of its features are nifty, but sadly, this title’s overall novelty wears off pretty quickly.

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