The production checklist for a five-reel slot

Updated 2026-08-16

Use the checklist at the handoff, not after integration starts

A folder can look complete while still being impossible to build from. Ten attractive symbols do not tell an integrator which are special, which receive plaques, where the reel opening sits, or whether the phone view is a real composition. The useful unit is therefore not an image count. It is a set of files plus roles, dimensions, alpha, stacking order and placement data.

Slot Art Generator supplies the reel and stage package described below, and — as packs switched on in the brief — the UI hardware, the win screens, the bonus-mode art, the environment props, the extra mascot poses and the front matter. It still does not claim to generate every screen in a commercial game, and the final sections mark what remains a team's own decision. Pair this inventory with the exact slot art canvas and safe-area specifications before files are approved.

1. Reel symbols

• Wild: one isolated object on transparency, recorded as the special Wild role. Its silhouette should be closed, solid and externally lit.
• Scatter: one isolated object on transparency, recorded separately from the Wild. Its open silhouette and internal light should remain distinguishable at 96 pixels.
• High tier: the named themed objects that carry premium material treatment. A normal brief derives up to four when enough nouns exist.
• Low tier: deliberately simpler ranks or user-named icons. Blank low-tier fields resolve to card ranks; low symbols do not receive plaques.
• Mascot bust: when the mascot claims a high-tier slot, the reel image is a head-and-shoulders rendering of the same character, not a second full-character design.

The delivered base symbols are 512×512 PNGs. Each subject is alpha-cropped, centred and normalized to a tier fill: 80% for special, 76% for high and 70% for low. The source prompt leaves 10%, 12% and 14% safe margins respectively. Those numbers make the tier system measurable instead of leaving every object at the model's chosen scale.

For each symbol, check the filename, label, tier, dimensions and symbol index against asset-set.json. Then reduce it to 96×96. If the silhouette, focal detail or Wild/Scatter distinction disappears, the delivery is not ready even if the full-size PNG looks polished. The guide to visual symbol tiers covers the approval criteria.

2. Registered symbol layers

None of these belongs baked into the base symbol. Plaques are generated separately and framed onto the same 512×512 canvas. The other four are derived from the finished alpha and are off by default to avoid file clutter. If exported, the intended stack is plaque, shadow, glow, outline, symbol, rim. Confirm every layer shares the base PNG's pixel dimensions and origin.

3. Desktop and phone stages

• Landscape background: background.png, normalized to 1920×1080 for the default 16:9 stage.
• Portrait background: background-mobile.png, independently composed and normalized to 768×1366 for the 9:16 stage.
• Reel cabinet: a generated 11:7 board asset containing one dark, lightly grained panel and a quarter-cell rail. One render is fitted to both stage rectangles.
• Title lockup: a transparent 1200×400 asset. Check the exact game name and confirm it appears once.
• Corner ornament: one 512×512 top-left ornament; the manifest publishes four placements and the required horizontal and vertical flips.
• Stage previews: a composited PNG for each supplied orientation, useful for checking z-order and framing but not a replacement for the individual assets.

The background should remain a continuous environment through the reel-safe area, with lower local contrast rather than a painted empty rectangle. The generated cabinet supplies the actual panel. Its opening is measured from the fitted art and snapped back to 5:3 so a five-by-three grid keeps square cells. Use the published opening; do not rebuild it from a screenshot or hard-code a second rectangle in the client.

4. Character art

• Mascot column: mascot/<slug>.png at 512×1536, one full figure plus its own footing and contact shadow.
• Mascot reel identity: the high-tier bust that copies the same face and head-and-shoulders design.
• Optional portraits: 768×1024 character art, separate from reel symbols and recorded as portraits rather than paytable entries.

Check that the mascot is a cut-out, not a fragment of scenery. Its body should turn three-quarters toward the board while its head and eyes address the player. The feet must carry a support belonging to the submitted world; a standing pose with transparent air underneath will float on every background. The mascot design guide gives the full review pass.

5. Controls and state art

The playable preview deliberately uses identical lab controls for every set, because lab chrome that changed with the art would be one more thing to keep in step. The shipped controls are separate files, themed to the set and generated as isolated hardware on transparency:

• Primary: ui/spin-button.png — the family anchor: round, largest, deepest relief.
• Secondary: autoplay, turbo, menu, info and sound, each told apart by its outer form rather than by a glyph carved into its face, because a generated letter is a generated misspelling.
• Surfaces: ui/hud-bar.png for the balance, bet and win figures, ui/value-plate.png for a single number, and ui/progress-bar.png as an empty loading track. The two wide plates carry ornament at their ends and a deliberately plain middle, and the manifest publishes nine-slice insets measured off the returned art.
• States: hover, pressed and disabled are derived from the idle art under layers/ui/<name>/, so they register with it exactly and no second render can disagree with the first.

Add a control only if the game actually exposes the action. An ornamental button with no state and no behaviour is a file somebody will wire up.

Win presentation is its own pack: win/big-win.png, win/mega-win.png and win/epic-win.png as spelled lockups that get visibly richer by tier, win/burst.png as the radial light behind them, and win/token.png — the small object that showers the screen, deduced from the submitted world rather than defaulted to a coin. Decide the questions the pack cannot answer for you before you approve it: does a line win reuse the symbol's own glow layer, how many win levels does the maths actually produce, and does the multiplier need digits, a reusable frame, or both.

6. Bonus-mode package

• bonus/background.png and bonus/background-mobile.png — the same location under a changed lighting state, drawn against the finished base background as an identity reference so it cannot become a second place.
• bonus/free-spins-banner.png — the spelled entry lockup.
• bonus/counter-plate.png — an empty plate with a plain, high-contrast middle for the remaining-spins figure.
• The retrigger and completion banners the design actually uses, and any meter or collector hardware, split into pieces that genuinely animate. These stay a team's own decision.
• A transition treatment that does not require moving the cabinet, the symbols or the reel window.

Do not solve bonus mode by commissioning an unrelated second world. The useful contrast comes from light, atmosphere and state hardware while the location and the reel set stay recognizable. Use the free-spins and bonus-mode art guide to keep the two modes related.

7. Loading and distribution art

• Loading screens: loading/splash.png at 1920×1080 and loading/splash-mobile.png at 768×1366, composed from the background, the title and the mascot with the progress track placed at a rectangle the manifest publishes.
• Lobby art: marketing/lobby-tile.png at 1200×1200 and marketing/lobby-banner.png at 1920×1080, with the title and one readable focal subject inside crop-safe bounds.
• Paytable panel: info/paytable-panel.png, one large empty framed surface the pay values are printed onto in the client rather than drawn into the art.
• Additional store crops: only the sizes the publisher or platform actually requested. One ratio does not cover every channel, and a 16:9 stage stretched into a square is visible from across a room.
• Package archive: the complete ZIP plus an unpacked copy under source control or asset storage.

The four compositions are assembled from the set rather than drawn again, which is why they cost nothing and why they are only as good as the assets under them. Approve the title, the mascot and the background identity first; a lobby tile is where a weak title lockup becomes obvious.

8. Final handoff checks

1. Open every PNG and verify alpha where transparency is expected.
2. Compare filenames, dimensions, roles and placement rectangles with the manifest.
3. Test special, high and low symbols at 96 pixels and inside a moving five-by-three reel grid.
4. Switch between desktop and phone compositions without reusing desktop coordinates.
5. Confirm plaques and derived layers register without scaling on both axes independently.
6. List missing production screens explicitly; an absent decision is not an asset plan.
7. Archive the set before the hosted project's 30-day retention window ends.

A coherent folder is ready when another developer can place every core asset from the manifest, identify every missing product-specific state, and ask no question that should have been answered by the handoff. If the files look individually strong but fail as a family, review the reference and harmonization chain before adding more art.