A Bottega Systems game

Vulpalazzo

The slot machines are characters. Play slots, blackjack and craps in a casino that remembers how you play, and climb a ten-tier loyalty card whose perks are real and whose meaning is never printed on it. Anthro cast, made for grown-ups.

The gambling is simulated, with a fictional currency you can't buy or cash out.

Coming to Steam Bluesky X press@vulpalazzo.com
A three-reel slot machine in 3D. Its reels show cherries, lemons, an orange, a bell and a gold coin, with the middle row lit. Glowing teal dot-matrix displays show the credits, bet and win, a column of jackpot meters climbs its left side, and a row of chunky lit buttons, a yellow SPIN among them, runs along its deck. A small capybara in a top hat sits on the ledge.
Classic, on the floor. Work in progress: modelled in 3D with AI tools, and its fruit art hasn't had its human pass yet.
The Dun

Why our casino faces east

On the real terrain, the sun drops behind the western range 18 minutes before sunset. Dusk arrivals see the Vulp against the last light, and the morning after, its front takes the first sun. The Strip around it has nine neighbours, and none of them is a real casino.

The Vulp's hotel tower at dusk, dark against a peach glow on the horizon, between lit neighbouring hotels, with palm silhouettes and red tail lights on the street below.
The same tower the morning after under a clear blue sky, seen past a tall sandstone pillar and palms, with a low mission-style building and a small bell tower at right.
The Strip at dusk from the median: a wide boulevard of traffic under date palms and lamp posts, lit hotel towers on both sides, and red tail lights running to the horizon.
The Strip from the air at dusk: a freeway interchange in the foreground, and resort towers of many different shapes lit along the boulevard, with mountains behind.
The whole city from the eastern ridge at sunset: a grid of houses stretching for miles to a thin line of resort towers, with the sun sitting just above the western range.

Work in progress: modelled in 3D with AI tools on real USGS terrain, before its human pass. No image generation. Elevation data available from the U.S. Geological Survey, National Geospatial Program.

The Vulp

One building, built once

We built the Vulp once, in 3D, inside and out, and every scene in the game is a camera on it. You pull in off the boulevard under the porte-cochère. Inside, slots sit in warm pools of light, every table is lit from both ends, and each part of the floor has its own family of chandeliers.

The casino's covered entrance at blue hour: a deep canopy studded with lights over stone columns on red granite bases, a glowing doorway into the casino, a fountain with arcing jets at left and a clipped boxwood ball on the brick paving.
A wide, empty boulevard at blue hour, lined with leafy street trees and lamp posts. A long, low stone building sits beside it, with the dark tower of the hotel rising behind.
A round fountain with arcing jets on a red brick plaza by day, in front of the low stone casino building and its entrance canopy, with trees and clipped hedges on either side and the hotel tower above.
The pool deck by day: two pools on pale stone paving, a row of date palms and slim cypress trees, and white cabanas along the far edge under a clear sky.
A round bar at the centre of a casino floor, its back bar lined with lit bottles, wrapped around a tall column of crossing brass ribs that rises into a dark ceiling. Red-topped stools ring the counter, the polished floor reflects the lights, and banks of slot machines glow beyond.
A wide polished walkway through the casino under a gold-lit ceiling, with a candle chandelier overhead. A long row of slot machines with red stools runs down the left, the round bar glows on the right, and leafy trees grow from stone planters on either side.
A tall money wheel on a wooden post, ringed with marquee bulbs, standing at the corner of the table games. A red glass chandelier hangs at left, a craps table sits in the shadows, and slot machines line the far wall.
The whole casino floor seen from above with the roof off: the brass-ribbed column and round bar at the centre, rows of slot machines set at angles in every direction, table games at right, and walkways lit by pools of light.

Work in progress: modelled in 3D with AI tools, before its human pass. Many of its surfaces are textures made from the developer's own photographs.

The cabinet

The machine is the interface

Almost nothing floats over the game. The credits, the bet and the win are on the machine's own display, and the jackpot ladder climbs the side of the cabinet. Every button, lens and lamp is modelled and lit in 3D, the way a real cabinet is built.

Close-up of the machine's teal dot-matrix display: CREDITS 3,086, a small grid icon, WON 50 x1, BET 25 and WIN 50, each in its own framed window.
Close-up of the button deck: BET minus, BET plus, AUTO 20, FAST and HELP in white, a bright yellow SPIN, and an orange CASH OUT.
The same cabinet rendered in Blender with its reels and displays empty, standing between two other machines on a dark carpeted floor, lit from above.
The cabinet as it comes out of Blender, before the game draws its reels and displays onto it.
The floor

The machines are people

Every machine on the floor belongs to somebody. Ruby runs the Deluxe. The County Fair cabinet came in off a truck. They have opinions about how you play, and they are not shy about them.

You are not pulling a lever for money that does not exist. You are pulling it because it is how she talks to you.

The card

A casino that keeps a file on you

The loyalty card has ten tiers and the perks are literal — valet, a room rate, lounge access, a line you no longer wait in. It never tells you what it means. It does not have to. Everyone in the building treats you differently once you have one.

The deal

The house has already been paid

You bought the game. That is the entire transaction. There is no second currency, no energy timer, no ad break and nothing to buy again, ever.

Which is why we can do something no free-to-play slot can afford to: publish the real numbers, like the one above.

Who made it

Made by someone who repairs these machines

There is a 1963 Bally Money Honey in my house. It was the first slot machine that could pay you out without calling an attendant over, and it is the reason casino floors look the way they do. There is another Bally that was my dad's. Four pinballs, two of which work. Two cocktail cabinets and a pair of jukeboxes.

I am a repairman through and through. I love breathing life into something retired or forgotten, that everyone else swore had outlived its purpose.

That is what this is. The cabinets are built as objects because that is what they are. If it feels like somebody cared about the hardware, that is why.

— the developer
The game

What you actually do

  • Slots that are hand-built machines, not reskins — each with its own paytable, bonus, jackpot ladder and personality
  • Blackjack at a real table, with your bankroll at stake and no take-backs
  • Craps, when the pit opens
  • A story told in beats, between hands, by people who work here
  • An entourage you assemble, who show up on the floor and have things to say

Made for grown-ups

Light sexual themes, simulated gambling and drug references. The gambling uses a fictional currency you can't buy or cash out.