Win Wizards Slots
With their pointy hats, baggy sleeves and lurid attire, wizards aren’t the coolest of characters. It’s no coincidence that in internet parlance, the term ‘wizard’ is pejoratively used to describe a man who’s made it to the age of 30 without ever having a girlfriend. Wizards: the eternal forever alones.
In the world of video slots, however, wizards are a far flyer entity. They may be not cool in the street sense of the word, but when it comes to administering scatter symbols and bonus features, wand-waving wizards are absolute gods with the power to make or break your day.
Give Novomatic’s Win Wizards a spin and you’ll soon develop a newfound appreciation for these terminally unhip patrons of magic and mayhem.
We Wizards Now
The most famous wizard in the world also happens to be one of its most sociable: Harry Potter. What’s this got to do with a 5-reel slot called Win Wizards? Cast a glance at the game’s logo and it’ll all make sense. This may not be a licensed Harry Potter game, but there’s no disguising where its influences lie.
Aside from the distinctive gold and purple logo, the reels are fringed by a pair of fierce looking golden dragons. Wizards may not boast the biggest number of Facebook friends, but when they’ve got dragons to call upon in their hour of need, it’s pretty clear who’s winning at life.
Gee Wiz
Below the game’s 5 reels, the usual controls and functions can be made out. The green start button sits to the extreme right, with its autoplay counterpart to the left. In between there’s the ability to set the number of active lines and the bet level per line. In a normal 5-reel slot, you’d typically expect the number of lines to be set between 1 and 20 and the maximum bet set at, say, 500.
Not so Win Wizards. Not only are there 50 lines to choose from, but the bet level can be set anywhere from 1 to 3,000. If you’ve always dreamed of wagering 3,000 on a single spin of a slot, now’s your chance. Just don’t take it too badly if you draw a blank. “Please place your bet” instructs the text emblazoned below the reels. Win Wizards is nothing if not polite.
Magical Money
Win Wizards’ symbols combine a blend of the familiar – standard playing card values – and the esoteric. The first of these is a curious black and red ball with a golden bird’s head attached that’s reminiscent of the golden snitch from – that’s right – Harry Potter. 3 matching symbols are worth just 20, but this rises to 75 for 4 and a respectable 250 for 5.
Next up is an ornate spell book which commands 20, 80 and 400 for 3, 4 and 5 in line. This is followed by a glowing red, purple and gold pendant worth 25, 100 and 500. You’ll be seeing a lot of gold in this game, as you’ve probably figured by now.
Top of the heap are two wizard symbols, one of whom looks relatively benign, the other not so much. The nice wizard, a bald fellow with a flowing grey beard, appears to be buried in a spellbook. The more evil looking of the two, clad in a green hat and resembling Rasputin, is a wrong ‘un but a very valuable one at that, worth a cool 2,000 for 5 in a row. See, wizards can be cool.
The other symbols to chase down in Win Wizards include scatter, which is played by a fire-breathing dragon. 5 symbols are worth a whopping 12,500. Nice. Next up, we have the wild symbol, which is played by 3 ferocious looking dragons, their teeth bared and eyes venomous. They’ll substitute for any of the regular playing symbols except for bonus and scatter.
Absolutely Wizard
Bonus is the final symbol of note in the game. It’s depicted by a mysterious looking treasure chest. Any time it appears on reels 1, 3 or 5, a bonus will be triggered – it’s that simple. There’s one last little quirk to this game to report on: remember those wizards we mentioned earlier? Like a yin and yang, they’re interconnected. They may be separate symbols but in execution they act as one.
Whether you match all good wizards, all evil or a combination thereof makes no difference. Why? Because wizard magic, that’s why.
Win Wizards isn’t the prettiest or most original of slots but it’s a lotta fun to play. An unusual scoring system, with a couple of unique features, give this game more longevity than you might suspect on first glance. Go Wizards.
