Charismatic

About the Company

Charismatic Games is a small online casino slot game developer launched in 2018. The company is an arm of BetSolutions, a full-service gaming software solutions provider.

The development labs and studio would appear to be located in Tbilisi, Georgia, however, some components such as graphic arts may be produced in Italy.

Neither the "in-house" slots shop nor the parent company expends much energy on being discoverable or overly transparent, but that is usually the norm for a smaller business-to-business concern - especially when a marketing strategy doesn't include flashy booths at industry trade shows or another desire to be seen as a brand outside of their immediate realm.

With that said, we don't find either the parent or child company certified or licensed. However, when the games are deployed over a licensed aggregation platform such as Slotegrator's into a regulated market, at least the random number generator (RNG) and remote game server (RGS) are certified or licensed - whether we see the seal or not. 

That's not to say they aren't busy creating and moving their products to market, quite the opposite. While the larger offering - a stand-alone solution that includes a sportsbook (Betradar certified), a shared title with BetConstruct (Okey), game servers and aggregation API, an upcoming VR casino, poker, and board games may take some time to lift off the ground - the slot studio has already begun to make their titles available through other aggregators such as Slotegrator.

Since we don't have the history related to the launch of Charismatic, and the team isn't currently lauded on digital media, we can't say anything for sure about the artists, mathematicians, developers, or other team member's contributions.

That leaves us to look at the...

Software and Games

We find eight of the nine games created by Charismatic on their website. The ninth, WW2 is mysteriously missing. Perhaps it is yet to be launched.

All of the games are deployed in HTML5 for instant play on desktop web browsers, tablets, and smartphones. The coding language makes the games responsive to whatever device your browser is operating on.

Features present in all of their games include the following:

• RTP 97% (or better, but under 98%)
• Fully responsive
• HTML5 & Mobile friendly
• Gameplay restore
• Attractive design
• Multi-language support & multi-currency support

The individual games have their own maths and mechanics, these include:

• Sticky wild + respin
• Free Spins with expanding wild
• Unlimited retrigger
• Bonus game can be triggered by collecting gold
• Free spins can be triggered with sticky wilds
• 600X bet can be won in free spins by getting at least one wild on each reel
• 2 side wins
• Bonus game can be triggered
• Free spins can be triggered
• Expanding special symbols in free spins
• Wild expands during regular game
• You can open boxes with various wins in bonus game
• Two side fixed expanded wilds in free spins with expanding wilds

Collect crystals in 3 horizontal lines to trigger free spins with special wilds:

• Expanding wilds
• Mirror wilds
• Walking wilds

Four types of wilds in the Bonus game adding Sticky Wilds to the above.

Captain of Pirates

Their first release in 2018 or 2019 was under the title, Captain of Pirates. The name itself speaks to eastern European origins.

This is a 5x3 game with 20 fixed paylines. Bet 1-5 coins per line of values ranging from 0.01 to 1.00 each for a max bet of 100.

The game looks crisp and sharp on a small Android phone and scales up immediately to fill an oversized HD screen with very decent graphics.

The music as well as the color scheme is dark and foreboding - very appropriate for a game that pits you against a dangerous brigand. Don't be fooled by the rogue lady of the deck, she is just as dangerous!

But, perhaps you want to see all of her you can, as she is the top paying symbol awarding 3000x line bet for five of a kind on a line.

The wild skull symbol substitutes for any other icon except the Bonus symbol which is a locked treasure chest. Landing three of these anywhere on the reels will trigger the bonus game.

Unfortunately, the paytable doesn't tell us what that is!

Fortunately, at least for reviewers, the website does to some degree. It tells of free spins and multipliers and says that four kinds of wilds can be triggered during the bonus game: Expanding, sticky, mirror, and walking wilds.

Always the faithful servant of our readers,  this reviewer slaved over the hot slot machine for about 10 minutes and finally triggered the bonus.

We were presented with a treasure map with three islands illustrated and instructed to choose one: Wild Island, Free Spins Island, or Multiplier Island.

The music was pensive and marginally celebratory but definitely adventurous.

We chose Wilds Island. Next, 5 chests were presented and our pick triggered expanding wilds before being sent back to the main map. Multiplier Island also had chests, but only 3 rather than 5 choices. We got a 3x multiplier.  On free Spins Island, we were awarded 5 free games. The end result was 17x the total stake for the triggering spin. More expanding wilds would have been helpful.

The Mystery of Faberge

This game was configured the same (5x3x20 paylines) and had a similar pay table. That's where the similarity stopped.

The music was mysterious, the kind usually associated with time. The bonuses are triggered by landing and thus collecting any of three special crystals. The color of the crystal determines the number of free spins.

Collect 15 purple for 5 free spins' 30 green for 10, and 50 deep purple for 15 games.

Bonus features that come along with the free spins are as follows:

• 5 free - expanding wilds
• 10 free - mirror wilds
• 15 free - walking wilds

It was tempting to try to guess which trigger would be the most valuable but that is a fool's errand without more data on the slot. You are welcome to give it a shot! Reviewers don't have the luxury of being mistaken, so I'll pass on divining much about this one.

We will note that each "trail" seemed to collect progress equally. After several spins, the count was 14/15, 11/30, and 13/50. When the 5 free games were triggered, the count was 15/15, 16/30, and 19/50.

The win was moot as the wild never appeared in order to expand.

We'll leave Drunk Santa, Legend of Maasai, Betting Shop, Poker Room, Underground Tuning, and Sultan's Gift for some recreational play and invite you to check out the games yourself.

The Final Analysis

Our first impressions of the first game, Captain of Pirates, were not overwhelmingly positive - there was nothing inherently wrong with the game - the win announcements weren't annoying, it was quick enough on the draw to let us spin again after a win, but it seemed mundane at first.

After finally triggering the bonus it was a pleasant surprise to discover the depth of immersion and interactivity in bringing the bonus features to life. The music was spot on and the anticipation was real.

I walked away from the game satisfied with the thought I would probably play it again for real money the next time I ran across it.

The second game drew me in immediately. The VR ROOM game music that would fit as well in a haunted house as a time travel epic went nicely with the sparkling jewels and well-rendered but not overworked Faberge eggs.

Assuming the token collection to be 100% unweighted and random (as it appears to be) the "hope it does - but hope it doesn't" tug-of-war anticipation was slightly exhilarating. Not adrenaline-inducing, but real.

We'll list a few online casinos on this page that carry the Charismatic games - most should let you try them for free.

I'd personally like to see the games more widely distributed. Each one we have listed has a theoretical return to player percentage (RTP) of at least 97% and most a few ticks higher. Having gotten a crack at the API, we can confirm that this is the RTP the games are delivered with.

If you happen to run across the Provably Fair suite of games from the parent company, BetSolutions you should find an RTP setting of 97% on the following games - you can also arrive at that through the odds, but here they are:

• High low
• Zeppelin
• Dice
• Mines
• Plinko