Ariana Slot – Free Demo

Twenty-five fixed lines under a coral reef

Ariana is a video slot that inclines more to the traditional side with a very recognizable look and feel to it, and it has players travelling down to the sunlit shallows of the open sea. It first appeared in 2015, under the Microgaming and Quickfire branding that Games Global has since taken over. This is a realm devoid of human settlement. It is utterly taken over by the fauna. The high-value symbols are Ariana herself, a treasure chest, a sea dragon and a coral reef, with the card royals 10 through A filling in beneath them. The elegant diver Ariana is plainly the star of the show. But she is supported by several of her undersea companions. Ariana is not a high-paying slot, if the statistics are anything to go by, but numbers aren't everything, and matters have been so and so when it comes to the real potential of slots from Games Global. Immortal Romance and Avalon come out of the same studio catalogue if you want other names from it to set alongside this one.

Being an undersea slot there are no points for guessing what the backdrop setting is, and it's a timeless reef scene at the close or break of day with plenty of floating light, stone formations, and blue depths. There are bits and pieces taken from more than one supplier, so I could probably devote a whole section speaking about all the evident resemblances with other slots.

The orientation you hold your mobile in is portrait or landscape. Depending on which, you'll also have a bunch of sea creatures gazing at you in that impassive expression they seem to have in these sorts of games. The soundtrack is rather soothing, and the sound effects are pretty fine too, with each spin accompanied by the surge of moving water.

Play occurs in a game grid composed of 5 reels, 3 rows, and 25 fixed paylines, and as long as matching symbols land adjacent to each other from the first reel they can form combinations, paying left to right. The 25 lines are fixed in the strict sense: there is no switching any of them off. It is a commonplace arrangement that is normally valued by players. A selection of bet levels is offered from a minimum of 0.25 per spin. The coin size is 0.01 to 0.50, with up to 10 coins per line. It has the customary Quickfire UI, including auto and manual spins. Volatility receives 3 of 6 lightning bolts, which is as average as it gets, and it shows: the RTP is well below average on 95.48%. I put 925.00 through the game and got 823.75 back, which is the size of gap a sample this small can open up on its own.

What one sea dragon stack on reel 1 does

The scatter pays 1 times the total bet for 2 and 100 times the total bet for 5, from anywhere on the reels. Players are aided by an Ariana logo wild which substitutes for all symbols except the starfish scatter. A wild sitting on a middle reel can therefore finish a combination that an expanded stack started. The base game can grow a little dull at times. But the high-value symbols land stacked, and there is a chance to fill the first reel even before you've managed to trigger the bonus. When only one high-value symbol fills reel 1, the expansion reaches only those reels that already carry a match, so the grid opens part of the way rather than all at once. The excitement of knowing a spin can potentially open out across the grid helps break some of the tedium and give glimmers of hope.

Four triggers, sixty free spins

The real potential of Ariana can be discovered within its free spins round, while the base game does pack some punch. In my session the free spins accounted for 530.00 of the 823.75 I won, about 64% of the total. The key to unlocking the best the game can offer is the starfish scatter symbol, which can land on any reel, and during the base game if 3 or more land they grant 15 free spins. All four of my triggers came from exactly three scatters.

The real magic lies in the Expanding Symbols, along with the free spins. Across those four triggers I played 60 free spins in all. Fill reel 1 with one of the high-value symbols, and every corresponding symbol on the other reels expands to fill its own reel. This happens in the base game and in the feature alike. None of the four rounds I played came round again. The bonus round can be retriggered with another 3 scatters.

Minty Slots Verdict: Four features arrived in 370 spins and they paid 31, 23, 28 and 130 times the stake, so three quarters of the bonus material was worth roughly one deep breath each. A stated 95.48% that returned 89.1% over 925.00 wagered is not a scandal at this sample size, and the diver is still better company than the maths.

95.48% against 370 spins

In terms of gameplay mechanics, Ariana is comparable to other medium volatility Games Global slots, and what this means is gaming sessions that can just as readily turn into watching a balance gradually drain away as winning big. Mine did a bit of both, peaking at 2,028.50 on spin 26 and never getting above it again. Over 370 spins at 2.50 a spin, the best single win was 325.00 credits, or 130 times the stake. Nothing else got near it; the second best was 77.50. The session ended at 89.1% of everything wagered. I sat down with 2,000.00 and stood up with 1,898.75.

The route to big wins is plainly the free spins and the expanding symbols they bring, but the feature is actually not as simple to trigger as you might anticipate from a medium volatility Games Global slot. The first one took 26 spins to arrive. That is not so good — four triggers in 370 spins, with intervals of 62, 182 and 62 spins between them. The 182-spin gap ran from spin 88 to spin 270, which is a whole session for a lot of players. However, don't expect to win big every time they are launched, because free spins are scarce. Three of mine paid 31, 23 and 28 times the stake. They can be just as much of a tease too. Then again, get free spins on a good roll, and the payouts can be pretty respectable; it's not going to occur often. The base game manages the same trick on a smaller scale: a sea dragon stack on reel 1 on spin 211 returned 27.50, eleven times the stake. But with reel 1 filled by a high-value symbol and every match on reels 2 to 5 expanding to follow it, the outcome is a full grid, and that is where the 130x came from, on spin 332. That single round was worth more than the other three features put together.

Don't manage to reach those heights and the game is quite content to consume bankrolls though, since Ariana is one of those medium volatility grinding slots. My 370 spins cost 101.25 in the end, which at 2.50 a spin is a slow leak rather than a collapse. Casual players might get drawn in by the romantic allure of the deep blue. But if they aren't ready for a gradual drift down, Ariana can readily leave them gasping. The drift bottomed out at 1,649.50, immediately before the last feature of the session. 17 spins without a single win at the worst of it, and 50 of the 95 paying spins returning less than the stake.