Play Your Cards Right Slot
Gameshow tie-in slots are a specialist area for slots software creator Fremantle. Shows do not come any bigger and better than ‘Play Your Cards Right’ which first appeared on British TV in the 1970’s. This game is fast, smooth and has 2 different bonus games which are both based on the famous high-low card game from the show. There are progressive cash-pots and a wild symbol to help make up winning combinations in between the bonus features.
Visually, there is a definite retro twist to this game. The reels are made to look like the grid on the gameshow which is used to hold the cards. The symbols are simple, though the shading gives them away as being new creations and not from the past. These include the card suits in 3D and the king and queen heads from a traditional set of playing cards. The wild symbol takes the form of the joker from a playing card set. Other symbols are the double chance and grand final logos and an animated ‘cash pot’ one which displays moving cards and an amount of cash which is added to the progressive prize pools top right of the reels.
Music is varied for each spin. These are standard brass band game-show tunes. I like the idea of varying these, though after a reasonably long session you’ll probably be reaching for the volume control.
The bonus games are animated, and break out to new screens. Again the feel is retro, though the smoothness of the animations gives away the fact that this slot is more recent than it looks.
Setup and Play for Play Your Cards Right
There are 15 win lines for this game, which you can lower if you wish. The minimum coin per line is 2p with the possibility to bet £10 per line ($150 per spin) if you wish. Auto play lets you choose up to 50 spins in this game. If that brass band music gets too much, you can toggle this off via the options button on top of the reels.
Individual wins are on the smaller side, with the bigger prize potential coming from the bonus games instead. This does keep your bankroll ticking over nicely. I would rate this as a low to mid variance slot. Kings are the best paying regular symbol, 5 of these will get you 500 coins, with 200 for 4 and 45 for 3. Next comes the queen with a top prize of 300 for 5, the jack is next at 250 for 5. The suits are led by the diamond at 200 for 5 with the others smaller still.
Grand final bonus symbols have a scatter prize, which applies to 3 or more anywhere on the reels. If you hit 5 of these you will win 1000 times your total stake (which can then be multiplied in the bonus game). 4 get you 50x the total stake and 3 gets you 10x.
There is a wild symbol in the form of the winking joker, which substitutes for all of the regular features – though not the special or bonus ones. Three symbols are involved in the double chance bonus. Two coloured cashpot symbols increment the pots on top of the reels if they land anywhere on the screen. The double-chance logo is then used to trigger the bonus round that allows you to win them, with 3 consecutively on the reels.
Play Your Cards Right – Bonus Games
Both bonus games are similar, with the double chance having two rows of cards and the grand final having a 3rd row. In the grand final you go to a break out screen and your hostess to the left of this will introduce the game. You start on the bottom row of cards, and have to guess high or low to move across from left to right. As you reach the end of the row, you win a multiplier of the scatter win that got you to the bonus. This is 2x for the bottom row, 5x for the middle and 10x for a single card on the top row. If any choice is wrong, the bonus ends there. In the double-chance bonus, you are instead trying to reach the progressive red and blue cash pots which accumulated during play.
I enjoyed the bonus games, though there is little more frustrating than going higher on a 4 and hitting a 3 for the 10x bonus!
Play Your Cards Right – Conclusion
This is another solid game show recreation in the ever growing line of Fremantle slots. I like the retro look combined with their characteristic fast and smooth game play. The bonus rounds are not too frequent. When you keep in mind that the wins can be huge (up to 10,000 times your total stake for that spin) then these are worth waiting for.
