Asian games abound

4 March 2018

By John Grochowski

Asian themes have become slot machine staples, with images of Far Eastern gardens, koi fish, pagodas and more taking their places along symbols of good luck and progressive jackpots.

Nearly every game manufacturer has Asian-style offerings, and there are a number of such themes on their way to casinos for 2018.

Everi, a company that resulted from a merger between Multimedia Games and Global Cash Access, has a whole family of games with Asian sights and sounds. All are five-reel video, designed for penny play.

Each has its own pay configuration, with game titles Fu Xuan (75 lines), Fire Fortunes (50 lines), Sheng She Gui Fei (243 ways to win) and Bai Shou Fen Xiang (243 ways to win).

Fu Xuan has multiple reel sets, as if you're playing three games at once. When you play them all, it opens chances fro multiple wins as the wild Fu Bat symbol transfers across reel sets.

Fire Fortunes has a five-tier, symbol-driven progressive jackpot and frequent mystery wilds to create large wins. Sheng She Gui Fei has free spins and a progressive pick feature. During the free spins, the featured Dynasty Queen symbol has a special stacked version that can nudge up or down.

Bai Shou Fen Xiang, also with free spins and a progressive pick, lets you pick a special animal symbol during free spins that replaces low-paying symbols to create big win potential.

With such a variety in game play, Everi will keep players busy exploring bonus features and big-win possibilities.

• Incredible Technologies has its own attractive Asian theme on the way with its Fate of the 8 Power Wheel, combining gorgeous imagery, the lucky number "8" and the Power Wheel for bonusing.

On the 30-line video base game, your credits build with the Instant Stack scatter. Any vertical stack of three like symbols awards credits instantly.

When three Power Wheel symbols land on the reels, you unlock the huge wheel overhead. Your spin of the Power Wheel could win credits, one of six progressive jackpots or take you to the Koi Catch bonus game. If the wheel lands on a credit award, you also get to spin a secondary wheel for chance to multiply winnings up to four times.

In the Koi Catch bonus, the inner wheel awards you a number of picks, and Koi fish then swim up and down a crystal stream across your screen. You tap on fish to collect credits and extra picks.

• Scientific Games has its own set of Asian themes with Fortunes. Three games from Scientific's internationally successful Duo Fu Duo Cai family of games come to the TwinStar cabinet. Featured are Echo Fortunes, Fu Daddy Fortunes and the original game in the series, the popular 88 Fortunes.

All have gorgeous Asian imagery and the All Up game mechanic, where an extra bet can purchase higher-paying gold symbols. They have two-level progressive jackpots and the Fu Bat Jackpot feature, where players pick from 12 golden Lucky Coins to match three Fu Babies for a corresponding jackpot.

Each Fortunes 3 game has its own feel. Echo Fortunes is a five-reel, 10-line game showcasing a free games bonus that is triggered by four or more Golden Gong symbols. The five-reel, 50-line Fu Daddy Fortunes offers a free games bonus that awards a multiplier equal to the number of Fu Bat symbols that land on each spin. And in the original five-reel, 243-ways 88 Fortunes game, three, four or five scattered gong symbols award 10 free games and a 5x, 10x or 50x total bet prize.

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