Inside Toy Crush: An Interview with Alina Avekse Mathiasen, CPO at DELULU Gaming

DELULU Gaming may be one of the newer names in iGaming, but it has wasted little time making itself difficult to miss. Its games are finding their way into operator lobbies, onto the screens of leading streamers and, crucially, in front of a growing player audience. There is a certain method to the madness: each release speaks the same DELULU language of player choice, unpredictability and controlled chaos, but each has a personality of its own. That combination is becoming the provider’s calling card – strong mechanics wrapped in audacious creative ideas, characters with attitude and game worlds that rarely behave quite as expected.

Meet Toy Crush, DELULU’s seventh release and perhaps its most deceptively innocent world yet. At first glance, the new slot game is all colourful toys and childhood familiarity. Beneath the playful exterior, however, is a game with a much wilder streak. We spoke with Alina Avekse Mathiasen, CPO at DELULU Gaming, about what inspired Toy Crush and what the team wanted to do differently this time.

Q: DELULU has only been on the market for a short time, but the first numbers are already substantial: over 90,000 unique players, more than 20 million rounds played, and 230+ operators live. What do those first results tell you?

Alina: They tell us people are curious enough to try DELULU games and, more importantly, interested enough to stay. Twenty million rounds this early gives us real player behaviour to learn from. We can see which mechanics hold attention, where players spend more time, and what makes them come back. The numbers are encouraging, but the behaviour behind them is far more interesting to me.

Q: Seven games in, are you starting to see a formula for what makes a DELULU game work?

Alina: A formula would make my job much easier. Unfortunately, it would probably make the games much worse. What we have instead is a set of instincts: give players choices that matter, keep enough unpredictability in the game to make the next spin interesting, and never let the mechanics feel detached from the world we’ve created. The world can change completely from one release to another. The DELULU character shouldn’t.

Q: Toy Crush looks unusually sweet at first glance. How innocent is it really?

Alina: Not very. We liked the idea of taking something familiar and harmless and giving it far too much energy. You have toys, bright colours, and this big cuddly bear, but the longer you play, the more unstable the whole world becomes. The grid keeps reacting, the meter keeps climbing, features start firing, and eventually that cute bear takes over nine positions on the screen. He was never going to sit quietly in the corner.

Q: One thing you notice quite quickly in Toy Crush is that you’re always watching the Energy Meter and waiting for it to fill up. How important is it to the overall experience?

Alina: The Energy Meter gives the whole game a sense of direction. You can watch it charge and know that the Giant Bear is waiting at the other end, but Toy Crush doesn’t take you there in a straight line. Special Features can step in and change the picture along the way, so there’s always a little uncertainty in how the round will play out. You know the destination; the fun is in not knowing exactly how you’ll get there.

Q: Player choice has become a recurring theme across DELULU games, but as you’ve said, it doesn’t always take the same form. How do you decide where player choice belongs in each game?

Alina: One pace doesn’t suit every player, but we never add a choice just for the sake of having one. In Oh My Gods, for example, choosing Zeus or Thor changes the bonus experience itself, while MLK Voyage lets players choose between three Barrel Boosts, each offering a different route through the game. Toy Crush works differently: players can let the Energy Meter charge naturally, use Ante Bet to start further ahead, or jump straight into one of the Full Charge modes. We want players to have a say in how they play, not simply feel like passengers. The principle stays the same from game to game, the way we apply it doesn’t have to.

Q: DELULU already has more games on the way. After the first releases and the early player data, are you becoming more disciplined or more adventurous?

Alina: Both, which is probably the dangerous answer. The data makes us more disciplined about pacing, UX, and what players respond to in reality. Creatively, it gives us more confidence to go further. We don’t want a lobby full of games that look like siblings wearing different outfits; every release needs its own world, characters, and reason to exist. Great ideas are always welcome in our team, and we can twist them, test them, and take them in all sorts of directions. But in the end, you only really know whether you got it right when the game meets the players. So yes, I’m afraid I’m sticking with both.

About DELULU Gaming

DELULU Gaming is an iGaming provider creating slots that combine bold visual worlds, distinctive characters and mechanics built around player choice and unpredictability. Each release brings its own personality while sharing the same playful, rebellious DELULU spirit.