The Romance of Fire and Rain

2 April 2015

By John Grochowski

Rolling out new slot machines is a year-round process. Video slot players are always eager to see what comes next as game designers put their imaginations to work, and what’s next from Aristocrat Techologies is The Romance of Fire and Rain.

Aristocrat has long been known for its high-volatility games that give even penny players the chance at sizable jackpots. In recent years, the company has expanded its range with the E*Series. The “E” stands for entertainment, and the games are built with plenty of eye-catching, exciting experiences designed to keep you in your seat and wanting more.

The Romance of Fire and Rain is the latest in an E*Series line that was launched with games by Dan Marks. Marks, now working exclusively for Aristocrat, formerly designed slot games for High 5 Games, an independent game designer that has developed slot games that then were produced and distributed by a number of leading slotmakers, including Aristocrat, Bally and IGT.

Among the games already available in the E*Series include Mythos, Moon Maidens, Pearl Warriors and Temple of the Tiger – games filled with fun animation and special features such as Max Stacks, with long stacks of repeating symbols, and Mega Symbols – oversized symbols that can fill multiple reels to enable big, multiple-payline wins. You can recognize any of Aristocrat’s E*Series games at a glance by the purple edge lighting, to differentiate from C*Series – for “core” – games that have blue edge lighting.

The Romance of Fire and Rain adds unique reel spin music and sound effects, and a new 2 x 5 x 8 reel layout. The allows for truly mega Mega Symbols – they appear on reels two, three and four, and can be four or eight symbols deep. A symbol that’s three reels across and eight symbols deep means you can win on a whole lot of paylines if you have a matching symbol – or even better, a matching stack – on reel No. 1.

On top of that, The Romance of Fire and Rain features a variety of free-spin features and a five-level standalone progressive jackpot. “Standalone” means the progressive builds with each bet on the individual machine, as opposed to linked progressives, where several machines share the same jackpot.

Chances are that if you play for very long, you’re going to win a progressive. The smallest level – the mini jackpot – starts building from a $10 base. Jackpots of that size are designed to keep you involved in the game, building anticipation and extending your playing time with frequent awards.

Other jackpot base levels are $30 for the minor level, $100 for maxi, $250 for major and $1,000 for grand. There are no lifestyle-changing jackpots here, but $1,000-plus is a nice payday, and the top pot will hit a lot more often than bigger jackpots do.

Like all slot machines, The Romance of Fire and Rain is being made available to casino operators with a variety of payback percentages, ranging from 85.37 percent to 94.75 percent. It’s also configurable for denominations from pennies to $20. You can expect to see mostly low-denomination games, and most operators will pair penny games with payback percentages from the low end of the range.

For gamemakers, attracting players is all about offering different play experiences to different segments of players. There are big jackpot games, high volatility games, second-screen bonus games, free-spin bonus games and more. With The Romance of Fire and Rain, Aristocrat is reaching out to players who want entertainment, extended playing time and frequent, attainable jackpots.


Look for John Grochowski at www.casinoanswerman.com, on Facebook (http://tinyurl.com/7lzdt44) and Twitter (@GrochowskiJ).

The Romance of Fire and Rain is republished from CasinoVendors.com.