This company are based out of Minsk, Belorussia – and are active in many areas of gambling including social poker, casino gaming and of course slots. When they started is kind of skirted around on their website, though this was before 2007, as that is when they joined one of the biggest technology groups in their native country.
Many Viaden video slots are excellent, with up to date features which often include multiple break out bonus games. These range from very simple 3-reel slots like Coffee Time, though to innovative titles with animated sequences (Football Cup is an excellent example of this). One of their slots is a confusing theme about a little known Russian spy in New York. After you find out that the creators are from ‘White Russia’ the creation of ‘Catch Anna Chapman’ begins to make more sense.
Having played more than 20 of their titles, I cannot think of anything found in Viaden slots which is not already covered by Igrosoft slots, or Skill Games slots, or those from many other sources. There are some decent bonus games (the Football Cup penalty shootout is excellent), and some unique themes (Jour l’Amour with the cats in Paris comes to mind). Some of the graphics are excellent too, with transparent reels. You can see this in action in the Viking Conquest slot.
Being a modern software house, Viaden has focused on browser and mobile compatible slot games – skipping the legacy download games altogether.
Empire’s Glory – the gladiator slot – contains an innovative wild symbol. This is called ‘Wild Around’ and will turn every adjacent symbol wild (up to 3 reels if it lands in the middle row of reels 2, 3 or 4). This can create a lot of winning combinations seemingly from nowhere, always a good thing while you are enjoying a slot.
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Free spins are ubiquitous in the Viaden range. What is different is not the fact that these can be retriggered (this is actually common); it is the frequency of those retriggers. I played several slots where sequences of 30+ spins happened. There are not many games with multipliers or different behaviour during the free spins – though the large number of spins makes up for this nicely.
Many games have at least one generous win from regular play. This can be as high as 10,000 coins (for example on the magical themed online slot, Dragon’s Tale). On the whole, Viaden focus on the more simple game setups, this is a shame in some cases, as there are slots which are just one or two features short of being very good indeed.
Here are 3 Viaden Slots which I enjoyed the most; these also give you a flavour of the wide range of themes available from this software house.
Catch Anna Chapman is a spy based slot, which follows a real life agent in the US as she tries to escape. Maybe this was big news in Russia, though a straw poll in my office drew a complete blank on the name. That aside, this is an entertaining slot with multiple bonus games, and shows that Viaden are capable of creating video slots which are up there with the best of other software houses.
Football Cup is the stand-out slot in the Viaden range for me. It is so hard to do football (soccer, not the US game of the same name where people in body armour run around chasing an egg) slots well, that this one needs to be applauded. The gamble after win penalty shot is definitely worth seeing, and there are other bonus games involved too.
Enigma is a mystical slot with some slightly confused messages. The reason for including it in my recommendations is the quality of the graphics work. This game shows that Viaden are capable of putting together some visually attractive slots.
While the ‘about’ page on the official Viaden website contains a lot of nice words about innovation and teamwork – it does not actually say very much, facts-wise. I am not able to say when this software house got started, though they did join the Belarusian ‘High Technology Park’ in 2007, which they are obviously very pleased about.
There are plenty of other gambling software lines in addition to the slots. In addition to poker and casino games, Viaden does B2B solutions for mobile gaming, and you can join our approved mobile sites, collect the best casino bonuses, and play across their range..
A definite mixed message coming from this slot software house. On one side there are some very professional games, along with innovative features. On the other side, many of their titles are on the plain side, a feel a little retro and have decidedly odd themes (at least to Western eyes). Perhaps they are more tuned to Russian online casinos, or the local Belarusian market. There are some titles which are worth checking out, and I look forward to seeing what new titles are in the pipeline.