Blue Heart Pokies
Colourful jewels and a couple of jewel thieves turn up across the 5 reels of the Blue Heart video pokie, which has 100 paylines running across it and a couple of bonus features to make it sparkle. The theme isn’t immediately obvious, as the thieves could just as easily be a jeweller and customer, but according to the developer EGT, this pokie is all about villains making off with the Blue Heart diamond and players having to find clues that lead them to justice.
We’re not sure about what clues we should be looking for, but ignoring this, Blue Heart by EGT is a good-looking game with a low volatility that’s already successful at both land based and online casinos, although it’s not mobile-optimised.
The rich red of a jewellery cushion forms a luxurious backdrop to this pokie, and alongside the title above the reels, players will notice 4 progressive jackpots, each linked to a card suit. These are part of the Jackpot Cards round that gets triggered at any moment, taking players to a new screen where they will need to pick from 12 face-down playing cards, winning the jackpot that corresponds to the first suit found on three cards.
Playing Blue Heart
The first thing many gamblers will want to do is review the paytable, to find out what each combination is worth and what bonus features they can expect to trigger. It’s also worth checking out the low limit and high limit bets, which in this game are set at 1.00 and 50.00 per spin. To win in the base game, they will need 3 or more matching symbols across any of the 100 paylines, on sequential reels from the left side and in common with many other pokies, the smaller prizes come from landing playing card symbols.
The Q and J are each worth the equivalent of 5x, 25x or 100x the amount staked per payline when landing across one on 3, 4 or 5 reels, while the K and A pay out 5x, 50x or 125x. Yellow and purple jewels return wins of 10x, 100x or 200x to players, and a round, green jewel pays 25x, 150x or 350x.
The most valuable regular jewel symbol is a red diamond that’s worth 25x, 150x or 400x the line bet, but the 2 character symbols will each reward players with 50x, 200x or 600x the line bet when landing across 3, 4 or 5 reels at once. The top awards however, come from the Blue Heart diamond, as this shiny object is worth 100x, 225x or a huge 1000x the line bet, while it’s also the wild symbol of this game.
Blue Heart
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Bonus Features
By doubling up as a wild card, the Blue Heart symbol will help boost the ratio of wins to spins, acting as any other, with the exception of the scatter icon, if it’s then able to complete a winning combination or extend a win further across the reels.
The scatter symbol is a picture of the jewellery shop, and although it looks a little out of place here, it’s also got a couple of important jobs to do. When it stops anywhere on reels 2, 3 and 4 at the same time, players are given an initial scatter win of 200 coins and then treated to 10 free spins. An alternate set of reels is used during these games, but the average payouts are the same, while landing any 3 scatters at once will be enough to retrigger the round, and a further 10 spins are added on to the existing ones.
Any win of 3500 or less, whether it’s in the base game or bonus round, can be gambled. Players will need to get the colour of a playing card correct to double their win, collecting the prize or trying to double it again if they get it right, but losing the triggering bet of they got it wrong.
The Verdict
Despite a slightly unusual theme, Blue Heart video pokies is an attractive game that has just enough going for it to make it worth spinning the reels a few times. There’s nothing particularly unique about the gameplay or bonus features, although having 100 paylines, all of which are permanently active could be an issue for players on small budgets.
Like all EGT online casino pokies, it’s a fair and reliable game, so the returns to players should ensure that these jewellery thieves are not going to plunder the bankrolls of anyone who wants to play for real money.