Genie’s Gem Bonanza: Slot Overview
Editor’s note: This review is based on an early access version of the game. We may update the review after the full release if necessary.
Ah, the age-old question, what would you wish for if you happened upon a genie’s lamp poking out of the sand in a desert or while perusing antiques in the twisting labyrinthine streets of a Middle Eastern bazaar? It’s kind of like thinking what you’d buy if you won the lottery or had the good fortune of hitting a massive slot jackpot. On a side note, is this sort of daydreaming fun, painful, or pointless? Anyway, fantasies aside, let’s take a look at developer Pragmatic Play‘s magic lamp slot Genie’s Gem Bonanza, a scatter pays game with multis, mystery symbols, and cash coins.
Pragmatic Play has a few genie slots under its belt now, and in games such as 3 Genie Wishes, Lamp of Infinity, and this one, the genie character always has blue skin. The magical chap in Genie’s Gem Bonanza is a happy sort, rising out of a lamp in a pink mist, occasionally throwing special symbols onto the game board. The sights and sounds are all pretty generic, though. Genie’s Gem Bonanza ticks off the minimum of what you’d expect to see in a game of this type, but the studio hasn’t chosen to do anything particularly special with the genie format.
Genie’s Gem Bonanza is a highly volatile slot played on a 6×5 gaming area. It uses a scatter pays system to create winning combinations, so when at least 8 matching symbols land anywhere on the reels, a win is formed. The highest possible RTP when betting 20c to $/€240 per spin is 96.5%, rising slightly to 96.51% when using the ante bet, which increases the stake by 50% to make it more likely to trigger free spins.
There are nine pay symbols in Genie’s Gem Bonanza, all of them are gems of some description, hence the bonanza. On the lower side are gems in the shape of clubs, diamonds, spades, and hearts, then come five miscellaneous shiny gems. Scatter wins of 8 OAK in size pay 0.25x to 5x the bet, going up to 2x to 50x for landing a 14+ OAK. Wilds do not land in the game. The tumble mechanic causes symbols from winning combinations to disappear, leaving gaps on the grid. These holes are filled by symbols tumbling downwards, providing another chance to win. If a new winning combination appears, the tumble feature triggers again.
Genie’s Gem Bonanza: Slot Features
Available amongst the scattering are tumble wins, Multiplier symbols, Mystery symbols, free spins, and a bonus buy.
Multiplier Symbol & Mystery Symbols
The Multiplier symbol may land anywhere during spins or tumbles and during all phases of the game. Multiplier symbols land with x2 to x100 multis. When tumbles end, the values of all Multiplier symbols on the reels are combined, and the total multiplier is applied to the total win. Also, mystery symbols may appear in random positions to reveal pay symbols or Cash Coins. Cash Coins have possible values of 1x to 100x the bet, which are added to the tumble win. Randomly at the end of spins or tumbles, Mystery, Multiplier or scatter symbols may be added to random positions on the grid.
Free Spins
Hitting 4 scatters awards 12 free spins, plus an extra 2 free spins are granted for each scatter beyond the fourth. Nothing officially new occurs during the bonus round, but landing 3 scatters awards +4 free spins, with each extra scatter awarding +2 free spins.
Feature Buy
The bonus round can be bought for 100x the bet, which randomly lands 4, 5, or 6 triggering scatters.
Genie’s Gem Bonanza: Slot Verdict
Pragmatic Play is one of the undisputed masters of scatter pays slots, having released some of the biggest and most beloved examples of this type. The iconic Sweet Bonanza 1000 is up there, as is Gates of Olympus 1000 and its related offsprings. Genie’s Gem Bonanza, yeah, not so much. All those gems on the grid do have a lustrous effect, but the average use of the theme was such that Genie’s Gem Bonanza’s genericism didn’t get pulses racing at the first impression. Reading over the paytable barely caused an increase in heart rate either. There are interesting things for a scatter pays slot here, Cash Coins and Mystery symbols, for example, but the game lacked a climactic focal point to get hyped about.
Genie’s Gem Bonanza misses out on stepping things up in its bonus round. There’s just nothing really there to make it stand out from the base game. Sweet Bonanza used the bonus round as an opportunity to introduce multiplier symbols. Gates of Olympus‘ free spins are where applicable multiplier symbol values are added to a total multiplier. In Genie’s Gem Bonanza, there’s nothing like that. The action oddly ploughs along essentially under the same set of rules as the base game. Shame, because the game does have Mystery symbols and Cash Coins, which are relatively novel in this setting, and could have been used to greater effect. Thinking aloud, perhaps Pragmatic Play is testing the waters with those features in a scatter pays game, and both will be expanded on in future releases, depending on Genie’s Gem Bonanza’s reception.
Max potential-wise, Genie’s Gem Bonanza caps wins at 10,000x the bet, so it’s theoretically able to blow the roof off when it’s in granting wishes mode. While Mystery symbols and Cash Coins are interesting, more might have been made of them, and Genie’s Gem Bonanza on the whole wasn’t the most exciting scatter pays game Pragmatic Play has ever released.
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