Royal Gardens Pokie
The unlikely combination of dice, royalty and horticulture make the Royal Gardens video pokie from EGT a strange sight, but still quite pleasing for some reason. Set in the French court, there’s pictures of a King, Queen, Cardinal and royal crest on the higher-value dice, while the rest of the dice symbols are cleverly designed to look like finely decorated items. Behind the 5 reels, there’s an image of the royal palace, and this is where the gardens are featured, as there’s no reference to them on the actual symbols.
There’s just 10 paylines running across the reels and players will need a low limit of 0.10 to get started, although for anyone who likes to test a game before staking their own money, free Royal Gardens video pokies are provided at most casinos. Standard wins are made when matching symbols land across any line, on connected reels from the left side, but there’s a wild symbol that helps to complete wins and trigger bonus rounds.
A free spins game is the main bonus here, but like all EGT online pokies, there’s the option to gamble wins, plus the Jackpot Cards feature, where players who enter the round will be guaranteed either the Club, Heart, Diamond or Spade jackpots displayed above the reels.
Playing Royal Gardens
Dice symbols are all in soft colours and it can be a little hard to tell them apart, but a review of the pay table reveals that the grey, light blue and darker blue dice are each worth 5, 25 or 100x the line bet when 3, 4 or 5 of the same kind stop across a payline. Pink-ish and red dice will win a little more and the olive green pays out a top win of 750x when landing across a line.
The Cardinal is worth the same, leaving the heads of the royal family to pay out the best prizes with the Queen valued at between 5x when she’s on reels 1 and 2, and up to 2000x when she lands right across all 5 reels. The King is even more valuable, returning payouts equal to 10x when he’s on 2 reels, and the top prize of 5000x is paid when he fills all 5 spots across a payline.
A gold crest on a white dice is a special symbol here, paying up to 2500x when landing across a line, but also acting as the wild symbol, so it can substitute for any other if it’s able to complete a winning line. It can also extend a win across additional reels, which will lead to a bigger payout.
Royal Gardens
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Free Spins
As well as rewarding some big wins, this symbol is also the one to take players to the main bonus feature any time 3 or more appear in any positions on the screen, not just across a payline. 12 free spins will be awarded, but before they begin, any other symbols will be selected at random to become a special expanding symbol that will fill any reel it appears on.
This should in theory make it easier to get winning lines, so players will be hoping that a high-paying symbol is chosen, although the wild won’t be able to substitute for it throughout the round.
If the wild turns up in any 3 or more places at once during a bonus game, and extra 12 spins are added on to the total.
Other Features
An option to gamble wins is common to all EGT online casino games, and in the Royal Gardens pokie, any win of less than 350 coins will see this option given to players. It’s a straight 50/50 choice of whether a playing card will be from a red or black suit, and while a right decision doubles the win and gives players the further option to collect or go again, a wrong decision at any point will lose the gamble.
If the Jackpot Cards round is triggered, punters will see 12 playing cards and simply click on them to reveal the suits. Once 3 of a kind have been found, the corresponding jackpot is claimed, and these range in value from the fairly small Club prize to the much larger Spade award.
The Verdict
This is certainly an unusual online casino pokie, and while some people may like the artistic design of the symbols and the decorative background image, the washed-out dice colours and slightly mis-leading title left us feeling disappointed.
It’s a low volatility game that tends to pay out lots of smaller wins rather than a few bigger ones, and this pattern suits most players, while the bonus round with the expanding symbol is a reasonable feature, but even this isn’t particularly special.