HungryBear Gaming

About the Company

HungryBear Gaming is an online real money game developer that could be seen as a seething pot of creative gambling potential. The c-suite staff has already produced well over 250 top-tier games for other developers as a third-party provider and is just coming off a 2-year non-compete hiatus in the UK market and Europe.

The company was launched in June 2020, after the leadership sold its former gaming company to Sky Betting and Gaming in 2016. The core crew built CORE Gaming from the ground up starting in the summer of 2011. In a fairly rare situation, HungryBear is still situated at the same address that CORE gaming was located, in Knowle West Midlands, GB.

CEO Justin Chamberlain was a founder of CORE Gaming and then HungryBear.

COO Frank Hutchinson is a highly seasoned online content supplier having overseen the creation of hundreds of real-money online gambling games in recent years.

CTO Anthony Freeman is a technical architect with several years of experience in casino game development for online play. He manages the delivery of external content to operators and platform providers.

CPO Simon Rideout is a digital designer with a wealth of experience in the online space. He was the creative director at Core for a decade ending in 2018.

CCO Heather Faulkner joined the team after leaving Superbet where she was head of gaming, growing the company in Eastern Europe. Before that, she worked her way to the top at William Hill becoming a product owner responsible for profit and loss performance on all scratch cards and games.

Looking back at technological innovations at the company, we find proof-positive of a pioneering spirit that backs up some of the company’s self-reported history. The crew at Core pioneered HTML5 instant-play online casino gaming. Looking in the archives we find one of the first mentions of HTML5 game development, clear back in 2012.

Chamberlain’s work with HTML5 technology was instrumental in forcing an industry-wide move to HTML5 for all instant play web browser games - and that would be over 95% of all online real-money gaming today.

We find this in the internet archives, taken from a page recorded in 2012:
“Core Gaming is a leading developer of HTML 5 mobile and tablet games. The technical team have a background in the development of bingo, slot, scratch card, and fixed odds flash games for major operators worldwide.”

Oddly enough, some developers refused to let go of the old Flash plugin technology until they had no choice, and the software was finally put to sleep on December 31, 2020. Those who saw the future, like this crew, saw a future-proof technology and embraced it.

As for the bona fides of interest to operators, HungryBear can state it best: “Our client developers are known to be among the best and most experienced in the world. They have integrated content to every major platform and delivered to every major operator, worldwide. The quality of their coding is equaled only by their empathy with the end user. They ensure that every function and transition operates as they would expect, if they were the player.”

Hungry Bear Gaming Limited (59191) is licensed and regulated by the Gambling Commission in Great Britain and also works extensively with Crown corporations in Canada including the British Columbia Lottery Corporation and Lotto Quebec. HungryBear content has been available on PlayNow since late 2020.

Canadians may recognize some of the slots from PlayNow sites, but players all over the world might be familiar with their genre-busting multiplayer tournament game, Slot Masters. Players in the UK are almost certainly aware of the game thanks to a Ladbrokes television advertisement focused on the game that aired in December 2022. Other partners among many include Blueprint Gaming, Leander, and Reel Play.

Software and Games

Slot Masters is a three-person head-to-head multiplayer online slot game developed by HungryBear. Players see their own slot reels as well as two more reel sets. When a War Chest appears on the reels at the end of a spin, you have a chance to activate one of several weapons to damage your opponents’ progress and/or improve your own.

Available weapons include Archer, Freeze, Lock, Sword, Bomb, Thief, Raid, and Shield.

Archer - Holds Opponent’s Center Reel

Freeze - Freeze All Of Your Opponents Reels For X Time

Lock - Locks Opponent’s War Chest For X Time

Sword - Slashes 50% Of Opponent’s Balance

Bomb - Destroys All Of the Opponent’s Balance

Thief - Steals 50% Of Opponent’s Balance

Raid - Steals 100% Of Opponent’s Balance

Shield - Defends Against All Attacks For X Amount Of Time

Slot Masters was released to a few tier-1 operators in a free-to-play tournament version and then was incorporated into the affiliate marketing tools of First Look Slots.

In November 2022 HungryBear and Light and Wonder (formerly Scientific Games Interactive) announced the game would go out for distribution over the Open Gaming System (OGS). Plans for Q2 2023 include real money play on the genre-breaking game.

In the first 22 weeks it was available in free-to-play mode at Jackpot Joy, Virgin brands, Foxy Bingo, Ladbrokes, Gamesys/Bally brands, and others, the game logged the following statistics:

250k+ Unique players
2,000,000+ Games Played
91,000,000+ Spins Made
12,000,000+ Weapons Used

As of review time, the following stats have improved considerably 26,750,021 Weapons Used, 209,305,917 Spins, and 7,512,171 Games Played.

HungryBear slots

In addition to multiplayer blackjack and a roulette title, we find about half a dozen slots already released.

It’s unclear why the titles may appear differently in certain areas or jurisdictions. We’ll take our data right from the developer rather than casinos where the games are found such as Playnow.

• Big River Fishing
• Tablet of Amun Ra (Secrets of Amun Ra)
• King Kerching
• Cliff Hanger
• Moosey Money (Moose Vamoose)
• Blazing Trails
• Bar King Deluxe

Big River Fishing

While hailing from Great Britain, the company is also situated in British Columbia, Canada where it has inked a deal with the British Columbia Lottery Corporation to supply games for their PlayNow provincial online casino websites in BC and Quebec.

Fishing is not only a sport and an enjoyable pastime in the great north of British Columbia, but it's also simply a way of life for many denizens. You’ll need a good pair of sunglasses, some water shoes for wading into the stream, and a warm pair of gloves if you fish during the shoulder seasons when the salmon and trout spawn and to present the best targets. Those are a few of the icons found on this slot.

Look for up to 2500x your bet when you hook into a big one with this game. The reels are transparent so you can keep an eye on the scenery and your quarry and the game plates smoothly with inviting animations and punctuated accents to keep the fun coming.

The game is played on a 5 reel set with 3 positions each and the Bonus Fish is a warm water species, perhaps a bass but most likely a walleye, it's hard to tell, and seems a bit odd with the glacial mountainscape in the background.

Land two of the animated bonus symbols and the last reel will tease and tease again whether it holds the third icon or not. Bets run from 0.10 to 100.00 per spin on this 10-line game.

Look for Cash Fish and Collector Fish in the base game and free spins but the Cash Fish are only active as multipliers during the bonus game where one can pay out up to 100x stake.

It’s a medium volatility game for a nice compromise between lots of smallish wins and the rare big winning spin.

Land 3, 4, or 5 of the Bonus Fish will award 8, 15, or 20 free games. During the bonus, the Collector Fish symbols will scoop up all of the Cash Fish symbols seen on the reels. As many as 5 Collector symbols can appear on a single spin.

The Tablet (Secrets) of Amun Ra

This is another medium volatility slot with a rather lackluster RTP of 96.01% when playing the “secrets” version and less when playing the Tablets title.

It’s an egyptologist-themed game with 10 paylines with drifting symbols that walk across the reels. The Book of Secrets symbols is not only a wild symbol but also a scatter. The Tablet version may have 20 paylines.

King Kerching

This is a 5-reel game with 20 paylines, medium volatility, and 96.4% RTP. Bonus symbols can appear on reels 1, 3, and 5 and will trigger 10 free games. At the beginning of the bonus round, Wild symbols will appear and lock into the middle of reels 2 and 4 and they will remain in place for the duration of the bonus spins.

If another Wild lands anywhere in the third reel it will expand to fill the entire central reel.

New bonus symbols can fall into place during the bonus game awarding an additional 10 free games.

Portcullis Modifier

The Portcullis Modifier can be triggered at random during any spin in the base game. It will open a multiplier window on each side of the reels and cycle through multiplier values. When it stops cycling it will become the total multiplier value and that will multiply the original bet. The most that can be won in this feature is 2,500x total bet for the spin.

X-Pots Feature

The X-Pots feature can be triggered after any spin during the base game. A portcullis will drop down to cover the reels and reveal 3 shields. If you get three shields of the same color it will award the corresponding X-Pot. The X-Pot will multiply the value of your bet up to 10,000x times.

The math of this game is highly refined as evidenced by the fact that it sits near the middle of the spectrum on the volatility index yet has the ability to award 2500x and 10,000x total stake wins.

The Final Analysis

Different players will enjoy different slots. I personally find King Kerching to be one of my favorites - it presents more as a highly volatile game but the maths don’t lie, so it's really sort of a work of magic. If only we knew the frequency of triggers and the average return in the bonus games compared to the base game it wouldn’t be such a mystery - but even a jaded old-school player can enjoy mystery now and then.

The success of Slot Masters so far speaks for itself. I found the game to be exciting and I only played against bots. The bots were “better than I” but it was still fun imagining a real money tournament competition and figuring out the best weapons to use at the proper times. When it goes live for straight real money play I’ll be sure to try my hand at it.

HungryBear is already on a course to rise to prominence, especially with a unique tab for Slot Masters coming to so many top-tier operators. Players will come to know the name whether they ever play or not. You can’t “buy” that kind of exposure, you have to earn it with a game-changing invention and by leveraging over a decade of experience in game provenance.

We’re not quite sure why the same titles have not appeared since the games went into the pipeline but there can be many reasons for branding and naming. The important thing to note is that the production values are top-notch, the maths and mechanics are cutting-edge, and the game RTP is acceptable if not ideal. One always has to balance volatility with the return to player to get the whole picture and there’s no substitute for actually playing a few thousand spins on each title to get a real feel for the game in order to determine personal preferences.