Macaw Money Pokies
Aussie casino games developer Aristocrat have made a name for themselves with beautifully designed pokies but even they have excelled themselves with Macaw Money, a 5 reel game set in the jungles of South America.
From the beautiful backdrop of mountains and waterfalls to the cute creatures that make up many of the symbols, this pokie is a real feast for the eye and thanks to features like extra wilds, scatter wins, sticky wilds, free spins and multiplier payouts, it can be something of a feast for the bankroll as well.
30 paylines should be enough to give players lots of winning spins and with some of the extras being triggered at random, they shouldn’t have to spin the reels for too long before entering a bonus round of some sort.
Carry On Up The Jungle
One look at this pokie could be enough to turn potential players into fans, as it’s really something to behold. The mountainous jungle background is almost photo-realistic and lots of very cute critters stare out from the reels to give it a unique appeal.
Payout tables list what each symbol is worth, with players getting rewarded each time 3 or more identical icons line up across adjacent reels on a payline running from the left side, although a couple of the high value symbols only need to land on 2 reels.
If there’s any slight downside to Macaw Money, it’s the inclusion of standard playing card icons, although even these have been given subtle makeovers, with little bits of jungle foliage added to help them fit in.
The 9 is least valuable and A is the most rewarding card symbol, but it’s the jungle animals who pay the most and it’s them who give this pokie the delightful look that makes it stand out.
In order of value, the animals are a river dolphin, cute frog, an even cuter monkey, and there’s an overload of cuteness with a sloth, all topped off with a smiling black panther who pays out with only 2 on a line.
Macaw Money
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Amazonian Additions
Of course, it could be the best-looking game in the world, but if the features are no good, people won’t stick around for long, so Aristocrat have given Macaw Money some pleasing extras to complement to great looks.
The macaw pops up as a wild symbol and this is another that can be worth a payout when landing on just 2 reels, while a full line of 5 will be worth 1500 credits. Our perky parrot comes in 3 forms, with the standard one being in a square frame and the round-framed wild appearing in both the base game and the bonus rounds, where it triggers some extra features.
The Extra Bonus Wilds feature is a randomly-awarded treat that sees the macaw also turn up inside a star-shaped frame. In this feature, between 1 and 15 extra wilds are placed around the reels, with the star being a multi-wild that turns other symbols wild as well. Once the feature has completed turning symbols into wilds, any winnings are added up and players return to the main games.
However, on top of all this it’s possible to get sticky wilds, where the macaws will stay in place as other positions spin once or twice and new wins are added to the total.
The bonus game starts whenever 3, 4 or 5 of the blue egg scatters appear in any positions, with 8, 12 or 20 free spins awarded depending on how many scatters triggered them and there’s yet another extra to the standard gameplay with a random multiplier feature that can be awarded after any winning spin, where it’s simply a matter of the win being boosted in value by between 2x and 20x.
The Verdict
Macaw Money is arguably one of the most attractive pokies on the market, although anyone who isn’t interested in wildlife will probably still give it a miss. But they would be missing out on some interesting features that can potentially bring in big rewards.
Like many Aristocrat pokies, Macaw Money treats players to random bonuses, so they never know if the next spin is going to win, lose, or trigger an extra game. The fact that these features are attached to such a great-looking pokie are an added appeal, but also in common with many Aristocrat games, it does seem a little complicated until players have got used to how all the extra wilds, multipliers, respins, free spins, sticky wilds and who knows what else, all fit together.