Crystal Ball Golden Nights Bonus Slot – Free Demo
Provider:
Gamomat
Every free games round here begins by drawing one symbol at random, and for the next ten spins whole reels are stamped with it. Two of those rounds inside 400 spins carried 48% of everything I won, on a grid that pays five lines and hands the crystal ball the wild job and the scatter job at the…
Play Crystal Ball Golden Nights Bonus demo
One symbol covers wild and scatter
Wizardry is on offer in this fantasy-themed Gamomat slot. Any win can be taken into a card gamble on red or black, or into a ladder gamble a step at a time, before it is booked to the credit. It is played on a 5-reel reel set with 5 paylines, paying left to right from the leftmost reel with the largest win per line only. Wins landing on separate lines are added together. It's a fairly basic slot that still supplies an element of surprise, although it is far from inventive, and moreover, the features contained in the game have all been tried and tested for years and are normally appreciated by players when executed right. The two features are the free games with their stamped reels and the Golden Nights side game, which is bought with an added bet on top of the stake. There are some drawbacks to it, however, that I will come to in my conclusion. I put 400 spins through it at a 5.00 stake to see how it behaves.
Crystal Ball Golden Nights Bonus is playable on all devices from a minimum bet of 0.01. Gamble is barred on high wins, so the biggest results go straight to the balance. It profits from a bonus game with stamped reels as well as a special wild, and the 96.12% RTP tracks the industry norm. Scatter wins from the same spin are added to whatever the lines have paid. Regarding variance, it sits at 4 out of 5 on the volatility scale.
The wizard and the crystal ball
The game was launched on December 30, 2017. The wizard sits at the top of the paytable.
In the main game, players can also profit from the crystal ball. It pays from any position on the reels rather than along a line. It is wild and scatter in one, and it stands in for everything except the stamped bonus symbols in the free games. Where more than one scatter win is available, only the highest of them counts. A full line of Wilds pays as the wizard. That holds when the wizard combination is the highest win going on that line.
Ten free games and a symbol stamped across reels
Three, 4 or 5 crystal ball scatters landing anywhere on the reels will grant 10 free games, always the identical count, whatever the trigger, and it's also feasible to re-trigger the bonus game. The free games themselves cost nothing, with the bet per line and the lines played carried over from the triggering spin.
In the bonus, players will profit from stamped reels, and the feature begins with the draw of one bonus symbol. A card announces the 10 free games and shows which symbol has been drawn. That is any symbol but the crystal ball. The reel strips used during the free games are not the ones used in the paid game. Every reel carrying it is stamped to a full reel after the line wins are paid, the stamped symbols need not sit on neighbouring reels, and the bonus symbol is not redrawn on a re-trigger. Stamping only happens where it can add to the win, and a total win screen closes the round out.
Chests, thermometer and the added bet
What is more, the Golden Nights Bonus itself can be activated with an added bet. While that added bet is running, the side game can trigger on any spin. There are three chests, then the Golden Nights draw, where points collected on the reels fill a thermometer that fixes the win, and a larger added bet prefills the thermometer and lifts the trigger chance. The chests open one after another from left to right, and all three have to fill before the draw follows. Most of the potential is assigned to the bonus, so it's plainly the chief attraction of the game. Both of the rounds I saw came from the scatters rather than from the side game. Across my 400 spins the free games paid 665.00, which is 48% of everything I won.
The Minty Summary: Two free games rounds carried 48% of my winnings, and the other 398 spins split the rest between them, so the stamped reels are the game and the five lines underneath are the wait. Gamomat has bolted the same Golden Nights layer onto Take 5 Golden Nights Bonus, and the plain Crystal Ball runs the same reels without the added bet at all.
400 spins at a 5.00 stake
Crystal Ball Golden Nights Bonus is quite a middling and simplistic slot missing innovation and ambition, and it's not a dreadful slot by any means. The wild and the stamped reels are the whole of the feature set, unless you pay for the side game as well. I do struggle to grasp why anyone would elect to restrict a 5-reel set to 5 paylines, though, and in my view, at least, it's a bit of an oxymoron. Five lines is five chances a spin, and the crystal ball is the only symbol that pays outside them. Moreover, the base game is dull and could really need a kick in the behind. Long dead runs in it are what a 4 out of 5 volatility rating looks like from the player's seat. 88 of my 400 spins paid anything at all, and 42 of those paid less than the stake.
Less favourably, the bonus frequency was meagre for me. Three scatters anywhere is the only route in that does not cost extra. It was two rounds in 400 spins, 158 spins apart, so I had ample time to wait in the tedium of the base game. The first of the two ran its 10 free games without a re-trigger. The better of the two, on spin 268, returned with 530.00, or 106 times my 5.00 stake. That one did re-trigger, so it carried on past the 10 free games it opened with. The balance never once climbed above the 5,000.00 I began with and I ended on 4,388.00, a return of 69.4%, and all in all, Crystal Ball Golden Nights Bonus is an ok slot but doesn't really stretch all the way in spite of the bonus.