In Quickspin’s slot machine, Wild Harlequin, the game’s most thrilling moments are triggered by the game’s full-reel wilds, which feature the slot industry’s notoriously flirtatious-looking harlequin characters. Wild Harlequin is, as you may have guessed, a slot machine reminiscent of those found in Las Vegas, although with a distinct 1930s flavour; it’s rather straightforward in places, but can pay off handsomely if you know how to make the most of your harlequin wilds.
If you’re used to playing slots featuring harlequins, the soundtrack on Wild Harlequin can fool you into thinking it’s still being made. It’s a classy jazz club piece in the vein of Minnie the Moocha rather than a pounding dance track designed to get players to whip out their lasers. This is not necessarily negative, since it puts you in a defensive position and gives you a more relaxed demeanor than you actually possess. That being said, when the odds are stacked against you, the soundtrack might make you feel like you’re in a mafia movie and the Don is going to give you a whack. The band doesn’t start playing until the free spins feature activates, at which point the celebration gets turned up a notch with some tasty piano soloing. With a simple burgundy backdrop in the main game and scrolling card suites on the walls during free spins, the visuals are restrained.
The action of Wild Harlequin, a slot machine with 5 reels and 10 paylines, takes place in the rear tent of an independent circus. In spite of Wild Harlequin’s seeming simplicity, Quickspin claims, “it’s all smoke and mirrors in this show,” implying that the game is actually rather large and features a highly volatile mathematical model to match. The return to player percentage (RTP) ranges from 96.27% in its base form to 96.50% with the 80x feature purchase and 96.76% with the 200x option.
Wins occur when three to five matching symbols fall near to one another beginning with the first reel on the left and playing from low to high stakes (from 10 p/c to £/€100 per spin). Spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts are the low-paying suits, while sapphires, emeralds, rubies, and diamonds are the middle-paying ones. The payout for five of a type of the middle symbols ranges from 3x to 7.5x the wager, with the wild being the only high paying symbol at 10x.
Features of the Slot Game Wild Harlequin
The wild symbol acts as a doorway to the game’s other features, such as nudges and free spins with increasing multipliers on each reel. If a Wild Harlequin symbol lands on a reel only partially in view, it will expand to fill the entire reel and act as a substitute for a normal pay symbol. Free games of 10 are granted when 3 or more Wild Harlequins appear at the same moment.
During the bonus game, the reels on which the triggering wilds appeared transform into Magic Reels. In the event that a Wild Harlequin appears on a Magic Reel, the accompanying win multiplier will rise by 1. Additional free spins of +2 are granted once a Magic Reel achieves a multiplier of 5 (x5, x10, etc.). A Magic Reel’s multiplier is applied to any win, even those from Wild Harlequins. Multipliers from many Magic Reels are added together to determine the final win amount. A win with three Wild Harlequins on the Magic Reels, each worth x3, x3, and x7, would result in a multiplier of x63.
If doing so is allowed at your online casino, you have two ways to gain access to free spins. The cheaper one costs 80 times the wager and starts a spin with a 3 Wild Harlequins guarantee. Option 2 doubles the stake to 200x and ensures 4 Wild Harlequins or more.
Slot Review: Wild Harlequin
If you’ve ever played Harlequin Carnival xNudge by Nolimit City, Wild Harlequin may look and feel familiar. Both include nudging full-reel harlequin wild symbols and have similar characteristics. However, their dissimilarities are more consistent with those of second cousins than with bickering siblings. While Nolimit’s party took on a posh, masked Venetian theme, Quickspin’s game hews much closer to the classic harlequin/fruit slot formula. Having alternatives is always a plus for gamers, and a closer look at the capabilities of each position reveals even more distinctions between them.
Since there is less potential for the base game to achieve anything unique, Wild Harlequin is more of a game of two halves than its competition. Full-reel wilds in Nolimit’s Harlequin Carnival nudged always with a multiplier, triggering respin opportunities. In contrast, the wilds in Wild Harlequin’s base game only serve to nudge and replace. This generally results in a less interesting, less dynamic, and more predictable foundation game. However, things alter dramatically when free spins activate, so the option to purchase additional spins is sure to be well received.
It was also fascinating to see how often we purchased the feature and ended up with a larger coin total from the spin that activated the bonus round than the bonus round itself awarded. On rare occasions, all five reels were filled with triggering Wild Harlequins, ensuring a smooth transition into the free spins bonus round. During the bonus round of free spins, the outcome of the game is quite unpredictable. In our testing, the maximum payout on Wild Harlequin was roughly +1,003 times the reference stake, and this is due to the fact that reel multipliers double each other. The potential is decent, with maximum payouts of 30,000 times the initial wager.
When compared to other harlequin-themed slots, Wild Harlequin is a lot livelier and has more winning possibilities. Wild Harlequin may come across as loungey and low key most of the time, but with the perfect prod, it can really go nuts.
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