Sound Effects and Graphics
The free Gunslinger slot machine forms part of Blueprint's new Colossal Payout range of slots. The maximum jackpot from a single game is set at 250,000.00, or 10,000x the bet, whichever is reached first. As with a lot of Blueprint Gaming slots, Gunslinger works well on a range of portable devices.
Players are captivated by the quality of animations and sound effects on display on the Van Helsing slot machine. You can look forward to an exceptional gaming experience as the environment onscreen is creepy and befits the symbols and the theme of the game. The colors used in this slot game are mostly shades of orange and blue. A towering castle is depicted in the background, making for an eerie ambiance.
Symbols in Van Helsing Slots
The design of the symbols is very clear and there aren’t too many colors making it easy for players to not only find the symbols attractive, but also enabling them to focus on the game instead of getting distracted by bright and vibrant icons. Some icons in this game include a red-haired woman, a blonde damsel, two ravens, a perfume vial, a castle, Count Dracula and Van Helsing. Cards are also used as symbols in this game, but rather than high value cards, you can find red heart, blue spade, pink diamond and purple club. The special icon in this game is the Van Helsing logo. It is a wild icon and collecting 3, 4, or 5 of them can help in triggering bonus features.
Bonus Features and Free Spins
The Van Helsing slot machine offers players with innovative methods to win money. Free spins are offered in the bonus round depending upon how many wild icons you have collected to activate the feature. You have great chances to bag attractive payouts thanks to the wild icons which remain fixed after you spin the wheel. The remaining icons fall automatically into place, thus helping you win the payouts. The bonus feature in this game can be highly rewarding. As a result, it cannot be activated very often. However, it always offers a huge payout every time it is activated. Players can win 5X of their line payout upon striking a winning combo, making it one of the most impressive and rewarding bonus features in the history of slot machines. Once you have exhausted all your free spins, the base game will resume. The credits will keep adding up and paid out when the free spins feature ends.
The days of spinning three reels and waiting for three red sevens to turn up are nearly over. I’ve seen a few recent online slot machine games designed in the “classic” style. I guess slot gaming nostalgia will always be part of the trade.
But every few years, slot machine games take a leap forward in design and complexity. What makes this such an interesting topic is that physical game cabinets provide game designers with much more freedom than online slot machine games.
How do these differences influence the evolution of game designs? Here are two examples of relatively new slot machine games. After discussing each game, I’ll move on to where I think the designers could go in the future.
Colossal Diamonds by AGS – Big Slot Gaming Cabinet
Large slot machine units are nothing new. My parents played on banks of slot machines in the 1990s that were networked together as progressive games.
In Las Vegas, I’ve played games with wide screens and tall screens. They have speakers and some shake, rattle, and roll. The emphasis on land-based slot game design has moved away from winning random jackpots to creating an audio and visual experience, plus winning random jackpots.
Did I say watching three reels spin was a thing of the past? Colossal Diamonds blends the old-style slot game symbol set with large screens, a vibrant soundtrack, and “new math.” The “new math” attracted my attention.
Three-reel slot games are notorious for near wins, where a blank slot falls into place on one reel while the other two reels line up for what looks like a win. This design flaw has been criticized by gaming researchers and reviewers.
If you’ve played one of the old three-reel diamond slot machines you know how this game plays. The experience is different because the symbols are large animations. The cabinet dedicates a viewing screen for each virtual reel.
When the symbols pay a prize, they dance, light up, and play a brassy soundtrack. The days of ringing bells are almost done.
The “new math” makes the game a low volatility game. That means the prizes are smaller but so are the per spin losses. Casinos that test this game see very happy customers and some casinos report earning 7x to 10x per box what other games pay.
How are they making more money on a low volatility machine? The players make larger bets. It’s a $5-minimum game. And they play longer.
Each machine tends to attract a crowd, so it creates what promoters call a social experience. People stand around and watch as a player doesn’t lose all her money quickly.
The fact people aren’t losing in rapid-fire fashion may make other players more comfortable with the game’s high cost of entry. But eventually, the players grow tired of not winning a big jackpot and move on. The casinos don’t mind as long as someone else takes their seat.
Foxium Takes on Big Cabinet Games With Boom Pirates
The online gaming market has to compete with the visual appeal of large game cabinets. When people are playing slots on their smart phones and home computers, they can’t see 50 rows of slot symbols like on the taller Las Vegas-style games.
The only way an online game design can match that experience is to expand sideways. I haven’t seen any slots designed for multiscreen users, but Boom Pirates is a part of a new generation of online games willing to expand sideways.
Players start with five of nine reels being active on four out of six active rows. The game symbols are drawn in cartoon-style graphics. The background screen displays animated 3D cartoon graphics.
Every now and then, the pirate ship in the background fires its cannons, activating new rows or reels on the screen. During a bonus game, you could see all nine reels spinning across all six rows.
The game rules for winning prize combinations are standard. Everything pays from left to right but now, you have over 1,000 ways to win. And that’s just the basic game.
If all six rows and nine reels are activated, there are 10,077,696 “Wonderways” to win. I think the cartoon quality of the graphics works in Foxium’s favor for this kind of game layout. Although you’ll hear the pirate woman scream out “fire!” every now and then, the simple graphics make it easy for the player to see the graphics.
If they were to use fine-detailed pictures like from a movie or game show I think the images would blend together too easily. The screen resizes based on how many reels and rows are in play, so that improves visibility, too.
Everyone Is Talking About Virtual Reality Games
If you don’t mind wearing goggles and looking silly for your friends and family, there are many virtual reality games you can download for your phone.
Virtual reality casinos have limited offerings, but they can also be played on your desktop computer. The VR casino looks like a 3D game.
The sounds for VR gaming make up part of the experience. I don’t know of any VR casino games that connect to them, but there are gaming chairs and consoles you can buy that vibrate and tilt.
Of course, the biggest thing about VR chairs is the speakers. Imagine a full VR gaming system where you feel breezes and smell real fragrances. I’ve visited gaming venues that offered VR rides like that but haven’t found a comparable home-based experience.
We have the physical technology to make virtual games a full sensory experience, but gambling games need something more. They need a new design concept.
Until that new concept comes along, the most interesting VR experience will be picturing yourself walking around an empty casino and playing a modest number of games.
Virtual reality could make a different kind of slot game possible. Working out the math will be the hard part. The graphics and controls already available.
What If You Play Several Slot Games at Once?
Some of the newer slot machine games use multiple screens. It’s like playing multiple games in video poker or video keno. The multi-screen games I’ve tested activate a second screen if the player makes two concurrent wagers or wins a special bonus round.
What if someone designs a virtual reality game where you can play two versions of the same slot game at the same time? It’s time to do the full Tony Stark treatment. Let the player slide deposit balances between games just like Google lets us drag and drop pictures in image searches.
With a flick of your wrist, you can call up or dismiss a slot game you were playing. You can scroll through a list of available games. And why not let players set up little robots to play slot games for them?
Colossal Diamonds Slot Machine Payouts Machine
Yeah, that’s the Auto Spin button on steroids. This is all doable right now. Gaming companies just need a compelling reason to make it happen.
Enjoy More Interactive Service While Playing Slots
Slot games can become more interactive, too. In a land-based casino, why not add the ability for players to order food or drinks?
That will require a little more engineering than the typical game designer is used to. The first game company that offers a game-to-kitchen ordering system may reap great rewards.
Online slot games are already ahead of the land-based casinos. The online games I’ve played launch in a console that allows the player to connect to the casino’s support system.
Slot Machine Payouts By State
But what if the games themselves come with a customer service chat box? It can’t be that hard to integrate a chat bot into a game system. These platforms are leased from the gaming companies. They should have everything they need to make it happen.
Maybe I just need to play more online games.
Conclusion
What online slot games lack in physical experience they are making up for in complexity. But they’ll need to go beyond adding rows and columns to keep players playing.
The online gaming industry has its share of low volatility games. Maybe combining low volatility with a richer, more detailed gaming experience will keep people spinning online reels for decades to come.
The only certainty in gambling is that the casino will take your money. They can afford to wait a little longer if you’re willing to keep playing.
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