Pillars of Fortune Casino Games
Online casino games can be simple without being boring, but that’s not always an easy design task. When there aren’t a lot of player decisions to be made or moving parts to wow gamblers, it can be hard to figure out how to keep up the energy in a game that is being decided entirely by chance.
One game that does an excellent job of balancing these factors is Pillars of Fortune. This is a title that fits in the nebulous world of specialty games: unique creations that don’t fit into one of the more established categories of casino gambling. In this Egyptian-themed offering, you’ll be matching symbols in the hope of clearing a grid to win prizes before your luck runs out and the game ends. This could be too simple to be fun, but tense action, a dramatic lives system and a shot at a major jackpot on every play definitely helps this be an engaging and exciting experience.
Colors and Shapes Lead to Big Prizes
Pillars of Fortune is a game played on a 4x6 grid of tiles, all of which feature hieroglyphics on four colors: blue, yellow, green and red. At the start of each round, you must choose how much you’d like to stake on the outcome of the next game. Once you’ve started the round, you’ll see your tile layout displayed, as well as the prizes you’ll be competing for.
On the left side of the play area, you’ll see a spot where a randomly displayed color/symbol combination will be chosen. Usually, this will match one of the tiles in play. Click on the tile, and it will disappear, causing the tiles above it to fall down into place. If you’re especially lucky, you’ll hit a triple match: your symbol will appear on the grid three times, and clicking any of those symbols will cause all three to disappear.
Clearing lines will lead to you winning prizes, some of which are standardized and others that vary. Clearing columns is where there is some variance: at the beginning of each game, you’ll see new numbers appear below each one, telling you how much you’ll earn should you clear that line. This could range from anywhere between half of your initial wager to 10x your bet.
On the other hand, the prizes for clearly rows are the same every time you play. In order to earn a prize, you must reduce the grid so that no more symbols appear on that particular row. If you entirely clear the game to below that height, then you’ll win the associated prize as follows:
- 4th Row: 1x
- 3rd Row: 3x
- 2nd Row: 10x
- 1st Row (Clear Entire Board): 100x
So far, this might sound simple, but there is a catch. If a randomly chosen symbol no longer appears on the grid, then you’ll lose a life. You’ll see that glyph played in the sarcophagus, where there is room for three orbs. Fill up the entire tomb, and your game is over immediately.
However, there is a way to claw some of your chances back. If an icon already appears in the sarcophagus, and it comes up at random again, then the two will cancel each other out, giving you one of your “lives” back. Until three orbs appear in the sarcophagus at once, you’ll still have a chance to win.
The Perfect Run Jackpot
There’s one more possibility to consider while playing Pillars of Fortune: the massive jackpot that is available for a perfect round. In order to win this prize, you’ll need to clear the whole board in 16 moves – hitting each type of icon once, without any repeats whatsoever. In other words, you’ll need to have a perfect run without any orbs ever appearing in the tomb, even if they later disappear. It’s hard to pull off, but the rewards are enormous: the payout is 10,000 times your initial stake.
Plenty of Fun, No Thought Required
As you might have figured out by now, there is no strategy involved in playing Pillars of Fortune. You can’t control the random icons that are selected for you, and while you get to do the clicking, there are no choices to be made in selecting what leaves the field of play: all of the matches are always eliminated when the proper glyph comes up.
But despite the fact that this is a simple game, it is still a lot of fun. The pace of play is perfect to create drama without getting boring, and the fact that you can win chances back means that there’s always the possibility of an epic comeback to get a big prize. Perhaps best of all, the odds are rather good, with a return to player of 96.24%. Put that all together, and we think this is a great choice for casual casino players who want some excitement in their gameplay, or even more experienced gamers who want something less intense to play in order to break up their sessions.
