by Kristian Karlberg

The Birth of Jackpot
Version 0 - 2020
The earliest version of Jackpot: Set the Reel was born at KalCon, a small Swedish board game convention where Kristian was demoing and recruiting backers for Goetia: Nine Kings of Solomon. During the event, inspiration struck and this childhood memory of us playing slot machines on the ferry between Finland and Sweden made us tinker with the idea of making a deck builder slot machine.

Even back then, we were fascinated by slot machines as a physical and emotional experience. There’s something universally recognizable about the rhythm of spinning symbols lining up. Part of the original vision was simply recreating that feeling in tabletop form: revealing three cards at a time like the reels of a slot machine and letting players chase combinations.

Kristian likes to take picture of the very first versions of a game. This is the very first hotel-room-prototype of Jackpot.
Breaking the Bank
Early in the development, players were trying to hit three-of-a-kind as often as possible in order to gain coins - just the way the old slot machines worked. The coins in the bank eventually became the timer of the game thus making the working title “Jackpot: Break the Bank”.

Artwork
People say that you should not spend money on artwork for prototypes, but Kristian stumbled upon some beautiful cherries somewhere and decided to track down the artist, who was surprised that Kristian had found some of his old artworks.

He agreed to sell us the art pieces to use, since Kristian was convinced that he would make this into another Kickstarter, so he might as well get the rights to use his artwork straight away. The artwork would end up being used to draw looks and raise interest, but these art pieces never ended up in the final version.

Early Artwork used in Prototype
Designing Variants
That “breaking the bank” concept stayed at the heart of the game for a long time. Every decision players made brought the table collectively closer to the end.

Early versions experimented with all kinds of mechanics. There was a hold mechanic inspired directly by video poker, where players could lock certain symbols while rerolling others. At one point the game drifted surprisingly close to being a memory game, asking players to track information across turns. We also introduced income mechanics tied to clover symbols, giving players more long-term strategic engines to build around.

One early mechanic that Kristian thought was interesting was the fact that you gave your cards to your opponents, and if they used those cards when they won some coins, you gained some coins because your cards were used. This caused the players to get an influx of coins out of turn. The coins could then be used to purchase new cards to improve your hand.

Early on, the game used achievements with decrementing values, so the first player to hit a three-of-a-kind would get the highest victory point token. Variants of this remained in the game and eventually ended up becoming simply cards that were awarded to the players.

Decreasingly valued VP cards awarded when hitting 3 of a kind
Later iterations used a game board where players were moving between casinos and trying to break each and every one of the banks.

A version had players move between casinos and collect poker chips
The hold mechanic showed promise, but caused the timing of the game to become strange. Players needed to be finished with their turn at the same time to create order.

The Pitch Project
The game eventually took shape into something representable. During the peak of Covid, Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim realized the lack of opportunities for designers to pitch games to publishers, so they organized an event called the Pitch Project. The workshops during this event built the foundation and taught us how to properly pitch games to publishers.

Sell Sheets
The requirement to enter the competition was to make a Sell Sheet and use that to qualify for the online pitch where dozens of publishers would look at your game.

The sell sheets went through many iterations. Initial versions had too much text, then later versions were too rules-heavy, and slowly the feedback shaped them into something more refined.

Evolution of the sell sheet
First Contract
Jackpot qualified for the Top 50 out of roughly 750 submitted sell sheets and was set to hold a two minute video pitch for publishers. Shortly after the Pitch Project, the game was evaluated by multiple publishers and was eventually signed by an American publisher and entered a longer development process.

Development
Seeing another team engage deeply with the design was exciting and slowly but surely made improvements to the game.

The development team aimed to improve Jackpot’s pacing and deck-building feel by reducing or removing the coins while keeping and refining popular features like wild cards, and allowing longer gameplay for better progression. Some of the ideas explored during that period still echo in the current version of the game. Hold was scrapped, coins were cut, and eventually clovers were introduced as currency, shifting the focus towards pacing, accessibility, and making every turn feel active for all players.

Game Is Put On Hold
Unfortunately, the publisher later ran into internal difficulties and had to let the project go. After a couple of years, the rights reverted back to Kristian, along with a huge amount of valuable feedback gathered during development.

Jackpot was put on ice whilst other designs were made. Two years went by.

Enter Kenny Zetterberg
For the next couple of years, Kristian and Kenny Zetterberg started to make multiple designs together. At some point, they revisited Jackpot and began tweaking it further, while also exploring what else could be done with the jackpot mechanic.

Jackpot itself remained on ice while other designs explored what we now call the “jackpot mechanic”. This was added as an action selection system in other projects, eventually leading to a eurogame using that core idea.

Prototype of the eurogame Kalix using the Jackpot mechanic
Exploring the jackpot mechanic in other designs proved valuable. We realized that, contrary to traditional slot machines, partial matches needed to be rewarded. Matching one or two symbols still gave players something. The game became more generous, more energetic, and far less swingy, keeping players emotionally engaged even when narrowly missing the perfect result.

A crucial discovery during this period was the income phase. At the end of each round, players received income that could be used to purchase more cards, whereas earlier versions only rewarded wins directly.

Clover indicating income at the end of a round
Jackpot was occasionally revisited, and bonus actions were introduced when players achieved two-of-a-kind, which felt like the missing piece. The game timer was changed to “first to 33 VP wins,” and the game was ready to be pitched again.

Reddit
During the sell sheet design, Kristian posted in the r/tabletopgamedesign subreddit for feedback. Dranda Games had seen Jackpot during the Pitch Project and noticed that several years had passed without release. An old sell sheet post caught their attention, and they reached out to test the game.

Conversations started, prototypes were sent, and before long Jackpot had found a new home.

Dranda Games
The development team at Dranda Games loved the game but felt there was more design space to explore, particularly inspired by mini-games found in modern slot machines.

We began experimenting with very small mini-games integrated into the core gameplay. Designing these was an interesting challenge, as players would only experience them for a few turns. They added variety and created playful breaks in the flow of the game.

Some experiments proved too complex and were cut, including Roulette and Minotaurs Maze, which required too many components and slowed the experience.

Mini-game development exploration
Seven Seas mini game Prototype
Kickstarter - Jackpot: Set the Reel
What started as a simple idea in a hotel room opened up many doors and possibilities, and six years later found a home with Dranda Games. Jackpot reached its funding goal on September 5th and has its official release at UKGE 2026.

As a bonus, Jackpot: Set the Reel is now in the beta stage of development on BoardGameArena.

Kenny Zetterberg & Kristian Karlberg at Essen Spiel 2025

We couldn’t be happier with the game and we truly hope you will enjoy playing it!
Thank you for taking the time to read about our journey.