Slots Adventures

this is the first of the new slots i’m trying out.  it’s a video slot - 25 reels - up to 10 coins a line.  that’s a lot of wagering options.

 the theme is a cat’s school of magic, so it’s a cross between harry potter, and, i don’t know, some disney movie where all the characters are cats.  the intro flash movie is kindof cool.  they’re playing one of those sliding puzzle games where the tiles are letters instead of numbers, and eventually it spells out “Magic Spell”, then whisks you off to the slot. 

the slot has a line-up of cats on the reels, as well as some images from the school.  so there are books with a uniform necktie, a picture of the schoolhouse, things of that nature.

the WILD symbol is Master Tom.  here’s the unique thing about this symbol, it only substitutes for certain symbols.  so it’s not the traditional WILD that will fill in anywhere it’s needed.  instead, this guy only fills in winners with the other cat symbols.  typical cat thing, even the wild symbols on a slot machine are finicky!

besides filling in a winner, it’s also a multiplier.  it’ll multiply the value of the winner by five, so that’s quite a hike in the payout.

wait, i just hit a winner using the WILD, and now i’m officially confused.  here’s a shot of it . . .

i got paid, and the win was multiplied, and there were no cats involved.   maybe wince i landed three of the WILDS in a row?  i don’t know. 

lol, that’s the great thing about slots.  they just pay you for the winners, whether or not you can pick them out!

oh, here’s the payline layout . . .

another feature is the “MAGIC” round.  you need to line up 5 symbols for this one, instead of the usual “land three or more scatter symbols” approach.  i failed to land all five, so i can’t tell you what the bonus screen game is really like. 

i do know that once you hit the first two symbols, the machine goes into suspense mode.  the reels spin a little longer, and the music changes pitch.  and for me, it all snaps out of it once i miss landing that “i” on the fourth reel! lol.

at the moment, everyone must be getting in to the casinos and downloading/playing because the game is a bit jerky, like the computer connection is getting clogged or something.  the animation isn’t smooth, and it’s not really as much fun as it should be.  so, i’m walking away for a while.  i’ll get to reviewing the others tomorrow i hope, and i’m sure it’ll be more fun when things are all spinning smoothly.

but for now, my first impressions of the machine is that it has a couple of new twists to it, so that’s cool. 

the second of the new slots coming out from microgaming in february is the Prime Property game.  it’s a video slot with a whopping 40 paylines. 

besides packing in the paylines, it looks like microgaming packed in the features as well.  there is a wild symbol on the reels, and a scatter.  but besides those two staples you can also a free spin session and a bonus game to the list.

the word on the free spin session is that it is not triggered by a free spin symbol.  i guess i’ll have to play it to find out how they trigger it.  maybe from inside the bonus game or something.

 the bonus game is a “pick until pop” like the Age of Discovery machine.  you get to keep going until you choose the “collect now” piece.  this is probably my favorite form of bonus game!

with all of the features and paylines, i’m kindof looking forward to taking a couple of spins on this machine when it comes out so i can see how they packed all of this into one slots game.

it will be available, like all new microgaming slots are, at Roxy Palace casino.

this is another of the new microgaming slots that came out on the first of December.  i’m doing some more playing at All Jackpots, and decided to give this slot a few spins and see what it feels like.

there are several interesting features on this slot. the first is the geisha scatter symbol.  this symbol also acts as the trigger symbol that unlocks the Free Spins Round.  you can land the scatter symbol for a regualr scatter win, or you can land three or more in a row (from left to right starting with reel #1), and unlock a series of 10 Free Spins.  the winning combos are doubled in value during the free spin session.

you can also retrigger the free spins session by landing more scatter symbols in a row. 

the second interesting part of the game is the expanding samurai special substitute.  these symbols only land on reels two and four.  and, if they are capable of filling in a winning combination, they will expand to cover all three symbols in the column, and create a winning combo for you. 

so, they act like a very tall WILD symbol, or some such sort of thing.  i hit my biggest winner of the session when two samurai sprung into action and filled in reels two and four with wild symbols, letting me create five symbol winner! 

i was using autospin (from the expert mode) and didn’t set the game to stop, so no chance to get a screenshot on it.

when the samurai springs into action, there is a cartoon/anime that covers the whole column, so the visual effect, coupled with the samurai sound, really jumps out at you.  i think it’s a pretty neat touch.

before my time on the slot was finished i managed to unlock a free spins round.  most of the spins were worth zero, but i did hit one winner that managed to make the whole bonus round worth hitting. 

in the end, i think the Twin Samurai machine is a pretty rich Video Slot game.  it’s definitely a winner.

the second of the new video slot games coming from microgaming at the end of the month is the Twin Samurai slot.

this machine has 20 paylines as well, so it’s a double dose of 20-payliners this month.  the coin sizes go all the way down to a penny, which is something i like. 

i’m not always a penny player, by any stretch, but playing slots like this is all about having fun.  and at a penny a line, you can get a lot of fun out of a couple of bucks.  and why not?  it’s an online casino, so it’s not like they’re bringing you mixed drinks and such.

here’s the paytables for the game . . .

the twin samurai symbol is a special symbol, here’s how they describe it in the press release . . .

“The Twin Samurai Special Substitute occurs when Samurai appears anywhere on Reels 2 and/or 4. 

The Samurai symbol expands to cover all 3 positions on the reel it appeared on.  Pays are now calculated with the Twin Samurai substitution”

all three positions on the reel.  hmmm, that’s interesting.  so, if you land one wild, you actually get three wilds covering that whole column?  this, i’ll have to see. 

there’s also a free spins feature.  land three or more of the geisha, and you’ll trigger a round of 10 free spins where the winners are doubled.  you can retrigger more free spins during a free spins, which sounds like a very nice situation.

the twin samurai expand a bonus symbol feature won’t occur during your free spin cycle, but that’s not anything that seems worth complaining about.  looks like there’s enough winning possibility built into the slot as it.

i’ll be certain to put this slot through a test drive when it goes live.  that special WILD symbol feature has me curious.

the pharaoh’s tomb slot machine is now live at many of the microgaming casinos online.  i decided to take some spins on this machine this morning over at All Jackpots Casino.  there is an overreview of Pharaoh’s Tomb game that i wrote when the game release was announced.

the machine is another 20 payline game that can be played for as little as a penny a line, or as much as $1 a line.  you can also wager up to 20 coins per line, so you’re looking at a lot of different ways to wager on a spin with this game.

in testing the slot i’m playing at $.02 a coin, one coin per line.  the machine is advanced enough to let me just click on the line number up by the reels to select the number of lines i want to activate.  this means i don’t have to push the “select lines” button 20 times.  yay.

there is a scatter symbol, the scarab, that comes to life when you land aenough of them to qualify for a winner.  and, since landing three or more scarabs unlocks the bonus screen, the slot makers have thrown in a bit of extra suspense.  after landing two scarabs, the machine goes into suspense mode with leading tone music and extended spin time on the remaining reels.  it’s as thought the machine is presenting a drum roll, and you’re waiting for the big crash.  i really like it, it’s a great touch.

microgaming is getting sooo good at making slots.  these new games like pharaoh’s tomb are sooo much better than most of the old machines.

another of the special symbols is the golden pharoah’s headcover, which i’m sure there’s a more poetic name for.  it looks like the King Tut mask of gold.  and it’s WILD. and it too comes to life when part of a winning combination. 

there’s an “expert mode” on the slot, a feature i probably should have noted on many of my recent slot machine test drive posts.  i’m hanging in there waiting to unlock the bonus screen, and in exert mode i can just hit the spin 10x button and sit back and watch, so i’m happy they have things like uatoplay built into the pharaoh’s tomb slot.

woo-hoo!  finally!  i hit the three scarabs

i had the chance to choose one of the three coffins, and found the key, which gave me a pass to the next level.  on that level i found the key as well, so i moved on to level three.  and that’s where my bonus game came to an end.  i did get a couple hundred in credits though for the effort.

the new microgaming slot machines went live, i think at the end of last week.  i was gone for the weekend, so this morning is the first chance i got to test drive the new games. 

the first of the new slots i sat down to play is the dogfather slot game.  this slot is a 20 line video slot that i’m testing out at All Jackpots Casino.  the coin size goes down to a penny at All Jackpots, so you can get full payline spins in for $.20 a spin.  it also goes up to $.50 a payline, so you can wager quite a bit more if you’d like, and of course you can stop anywhere in between if that’s your comfort zone.

the thing i noticed in playing the game is that the graphics are remarkably crisp.  i don’t know exactly why the symbols on this particular machine catch my eye, but they do.  and, like the most recent slots from microgaming, several of the symbols spring to life when you land them.

in fact, on my very first spin on the slot, i landed that fire hydrant bonus, and they spring to life spewing out geysers of cash.  here’s a screenshot of the event . . .

the slot tells you what you have left in “coins” as opposed to real money totals, which is fine.  it kindof helps when you’re running your bankroll down because you can easily see that you don’t have much in the line of coins left if you keep the current size.  lower the coin size, see the credits rise.  it’s just a little tweak from the older microgaming slots, but it’s a recent enough tweak that when i see it, it makes me do a quick double-take.

the sounds of this slot are right to my liking.  the background music is this “Jazz club” diddy, and when you land certain symbols they’ll have certain sounds associated with them.  when i hit the fire hydrants a little burst of sound came out at me, in stereo.  it was enough, along with the cash gushing out of the symbols on the screen, to make me go “whoa”.  it was cool. 

they took enough time to tweak the little things and make for a neat little, remarkable, experience.  i loved it. two thumbs up.

as for the play of the slot.  i’m finding myself holding on, waiting for the bonus screens/free spins (where the winners are tripled, by the way) in order to get my credits up.  the regular winners on the screen just haven’t been large enough to keep the credits up there.  instead, it’s like i’m holding on until i hit the bonus screen, and that’s where i’ll find the big rewards.

i did hit both the bonus screens in my session, the extra spins released by “itchy da flea” character, and the fire hydrant “pick’em game”. 

overall, it gets a thumbs up.  if you’re into the pick’em bonus games or free spin cycles, then this slot is worth a test drive of your own. 

while i haven’t been playing that often at Intercasino, this morning for some reason that’s where i ended up after coffee.   they have a pretty developed line-up of slot machines to play, and i haven’t played many of them.  so, it’s a chance for me to try something new for a change.

the first game i downloaded (i had already downloaded the casino, just not all of the slot machines), was the Around the World slot machine.  it’s a video slot, so there are 5 reels on it.  here’s a shot of the gamescreen . . .

there are a lot of interesting things about this slot game.  first off, the winning combinations, that intercasino refers to as “win patterns”, work going left to right or right to left. the first time i hit a backwards winning combination i was wondering what kind of wild symbol was involved because it didn’t look like a winning combination.  playing on microgaming and vegas technology slots for the past three months, this paylines going in both directions idea caught me off guard!

the “Around the World” theme of the slot is apparent in the symbols on the reels.  there are landmarks from around the world including the big ben clocktower, mt rushmore, and the opera house in sydney.   the symbols do jump to life when you land a winner, so there’s some flashy entertainment going on when you play Around the World. 

the paylines on the game, besides going in both directions, are plentiful.  there are 20 of them.  and, i think that intercasino has a line-up of 20 line slots, so i’ll probably be testing out more games with this same payline arrangement.  here’s a look at the paytable for the slot . . .

the different winning combo’s also have their own little sounds.  the winning combinations that include a wild symbol come out at you in stereo, as you hear the airplane symbols whizzing across your computer screen.  it’s a nice touch.

i played in “practice mode” this morning, which the casino states is available offline.  that makes these the first offline fun play slots i’ve ever found.  usually you need to be connected to the casino’s computer to play as a guest.  so, the games at intercasino are different than a lot of casinos.

in the real money mode, the coin sizes range from a penny up to $5 per coin.  on a 20 payline machine that means you can put $100 on each spin.  that’ll keep the high rollers happy.  the max win is 30,000x, which is just insanely large.

well, try as i might, i couldn’t unlock the bonus screen today.  sorry, no snapshots of the “game within a game” on this machine.  well, ok, one more try of 20 spins.  i’ll just put the game on autospin (a feature which is built right into the face of this machine, not hidden in the “expert” mode like the microgamings).

oh well, no dice on the bonus screen.  the Around the World slot game is certainly familiar enough to enjoy, but the little twists in it make it different enough to be fresh (to me).

stopped by EH tonight to check up on how the big tourney is going, and see if any other ones opened.  and also, to see if the new Real Deal slot went live or not.  i wasn’t really expecting that it would have, but, there’s always hope.

sure enough, it’s up and running.  so, i downloaded it, and got the chance to play the game!

first off, here’s a screenshot of the 20 paylines.  they are interesting, and since i’m not used to them, winners were popping up at me from the strangest of places the whole time i played the machine.

there are some “stacks of money” symbols that are kindof like bar symbols on most of the classic machines.  they come in single, double, and triple stack sizes.  but, there is no winning combo for say, three of any stack.  so, i’m seeing the screen nearly filled with piles of cash, but i’m not landing enough of the same sized piles on a payline to hit a winning combo on the machine.  that’s a bit confusing.  hopefully i’ll get past it.

 the symbols on the reels do spring to life when they’re part of a winning combination.  the whacky cell phone dance may be my favorite.

ah . . . i’ve just unlocked the bonus round! 

oh brother.  this is an honest game of Deal or No Deal going on.  there are a stage full of suitcases, and i’m sure the amounts in each are based on the coin size you’re using when you take the spin.  i’m playing pennies (hey, bankroll management is part of it all.  besides, i has some bonus cash lying around and didn’t feel like depositing).  the prizes start at one cent, two cents, etc. all the way up to $100.

i choose a suitcase as mine, then i start eliminating suitcases from the stage.  after i toss off a couple of suitcases, they make me an offer.  i toss of more briefcases, they make another offer.  i get all the way down to where there’s only two suitcases left.  the missing amounts are $100, the top prize, and $.05. 

the offer they made me was a smidge over $50.  so, i could take the $50 (and remember, i’m honestly playing for pennies here), or chance it to see if i actually chose the $100 breifcase out of all of them at the start. 

well, being the gambling man i am, i take the cool $50.  and they promptly show me that the briefcase i chose had the $100 winner in it.  heh.  i should have taken a screenshot of that!

but, i started with about $20, and now i’m over $60, playing a penny slot.  hard to harbour complaints about that.  hehe. ok, there is no such thing as a good pun.  i realize that now. 

anyway, i test drove this slot at english harbour casino.

ahhh, i’m uncovering things in my email box this evening (i tend to get buried a little more each day, but i try from time to time to get to the bottom despite the overwhelming turth of it all).  AND, i come across a “heads up” from the fellas at English Harbour.  nice chaps.

turns out they’re shooting me a sneak peek at their upcoming slot, the Reel Deal slot machine.  as always, a big thank you for turning this humble blog onto a sneak peek, so thank you English Harbour Casino. 

The Reel Deal slot game is the (probably unofficially) Deal or No Deal slot game to hit the online market (that i know of - and i’ve been waiting for the official one from another operator for months and months now). 

 I just logged back into Harbour and tried to find the game, so it really isn’t quite live yet.  and, i can’t give you too much of a background on it, since it wasn’t really a full press release that i got.  but from the looks of the screenshots, shich i’ll thumbnail up here in a moment, it appears to be . . .

a 20 line video slot with a wild symbol, and a very familiar bonus game. i have a couple of bucks lying around (bonus and cash) that i’m sure i’ll pump into this baby when it goes live, so i’ll put up a more full review then. 

in the meantime, here’s some screenshots of the new game . . .

and the bonus screen(s) . . .

tonight i checked in at EH to see how things are developing on the big one, the $5,000 free slots tournament on the wheel of chance video slot.  my standings haven’t changed much, i’ll need to make a push for it by the end of the tourney because i’m still not in the money on it.

i checked out that else was going on in the tournament lobby, and there was a tourney on the princess jewels game.  the tourneys at EH started out with the simpler slots.  most of the early ones were on the “three reel bandits”.  now that they’re involving the video slots, i think they’ll be a little more enjoyable.  at least we’re getting time on different slots than we used to.

here’s the stats on the tourney tonight . . .

> Bonus Money - $250

> Real Cash - $335

there are already 2,343 players in the tourney.  that’s a ton.  and they all start with $300 in tournament credits.  the best of them has already gather over $20,000 in tourney credits.  that’s some big time winning!

i’ve gotten my warm up spins in, and i’m up $9, standing in 73rd place.  i have some ground to make up, but i’m hoping to hold in there long wnough to unlock the bonus screen, so i’m taking $9 spins on the machine.  9 paylines, at a $1 a coin.

here’s a shot of the princess jewels slot game . . .

the machine has some neat features on it, like an autospin function.  it is one of the newer video slots, so that’s not a big surprise, but it’s a nicety.  i’ve gotten used to pushing the spin button over and over after all those tournies on the older three reels i played here.

there is also a stop button.  it’s not a skill-stop (which i hold no faith in anyway), but just a “stop right now” buttong in case you don’t want to wait for all five of the reels to finish doing their business before you check for winning combos.

when you hit a winning combo, the symbols will come to life, like some of the newer microgamings.  maybe they were doing this before the last crop of microgamings came out and i never noticed?

there is a Wild Symbol, and that is the princess herself.  there is also a bonus symbol, that i don’t think acts like a scatter.  it seems you have to land the fairy godmother symbols on a payline to trigger the bonus round.  i’m still chasing that . . .

 well, i’m up to 58th place after a couple of nice wins, including a $100 hit.  the money reaches down to  23rd, so i’m going to keep on spinning, hoping to catch a bonus screen . . .

 oh yeah, can i get a woo-hoo!  here it is . . .

 the bonus screen is a triple spin on the jewels wheel.  there are three layers of jewels, each with a multiplying number value.  the wheel spins once, and i landed a 7x.  on the second spin, i got a 4x, and on the final one i got a 4x. so thats 7×4= 28 x4 = 112.  a $112 bonus spin.  in tournament credits, that is.

now, i’m up to $400, but still only 47th place.  i’ going to pick up the pace a bit and hope to get another quick winner to launch up into the money in the tourney. . .

well, that was over quick.  at $5 a coin, it’s $45 a spin.  never did hit a winner.  but, i had enough of a bankroll to take some big spins, and i needed a good hit to get up there into the prizes, so i made my move.

maybe next time.