Water Dragons Pokie Machine
Developed by IGT, one of the world’s biggest names in casino gaming, Water Dragons is a 5 reel pokie that’s themed around a Japanese garden, with decorative sculptures, koi carp and bonsai trees all designed to take players to a relaxing environment where they can spin up some decent wins and enjoy a bonus round that’s filled with extra symbols for higher rewards.
Any game that has anything to do with Asian culture is going to be popular, and Water Dragons has to find an audience in a very competitive market, but there’s a couple of things that should help it rise above many of the others and ensure success.
The basic design of this game is pleasing and there’s plenty of colour to attract the attention of potential players. Although the background is simply an abstract pattern, it’s what’s on the reels that counts and with everything directly related to the theme, those who like Oriental games will enjoy seeing the richly-decorated reels of Water Dragons spinning up wins for them.
Playing Water Dragons
A total of 30 paylines run from the left reel to the right and players need 3, 4 or 5 of the same type of symbol across an active line on sequential reels to get a win. Those on small budgets can choose to activate just a few lines, with the minimum stake set at 0.01, while placing the maximum bet across all of the game will equal a wager of 90.00 per spin. Wins are calculated as the number of times the stake per line is paid out, and at the lower end of the payscale we see the pagoda sculpture, bonsai, dragonfly and white flower all being worth 5x, 20x or 100x the line bet when landing on 3, 4 or 5 reels.
To get the bigger prizes, the various types of ornamental fish will need to flop across active lines and these beautifully drawn creatures are what gives this pokie its name. All of these highly-prized fish symbols are drawn in a typically oriental style, and each is seen splashing around in a pond, which looks very effective and adds a bit more colour and movement to the overall game.
A blue fish will return wins of 20x, 100x or 300x when it appears, while the yellow one is valued at 30x, 125x and 400x, and a red and white koi will pay 40x, 200x or 750x the line bet.The top rewards come from a red and grey fish which is worth 50x the line bet when landing on the first 3 reels, 300x when 4 of them appear and 1000x for a full line of 5.
Water Dragons
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Bonus Features
The Water Dragons logo doubles up as a wild symbol, acting as any of the icons above to complete additional winning combinations, although it will only turn up on reels 2 through to 5, so isn’t worth anything on its own. There’s no special multipliers for lines created by the wild, although it can appear quite often, so players should see the frequency of winning spins boosted by this symbol.
The highlight of Water Dragons has got to be the free spins round and this starts whenever 3, 4 or 5 scatter symbols stop in any positions on the middle 3 reels at once. This image of an oyster, stuffed full of pearls, will pay 3x the total bet, then the 15 free games will begin and there are some extra features in play throughout them that should ensure that players get a few wins.
Below the reels, the 4 fish symbols will be lined up across a bonus bar. Any time the pearl symbol appears on the right side reel, it will be collected next to each fish in turn, starting with the red and grey one. Once 3 pearls have been landed, this fish will become an extra wild for any remaining games and the pearls will start to build up next to the red and white fish in the bonus bar. This continues until all fish have been transformed into extra wilds, or until the free spins round is over.Because the spins can be retriggered by more scatters, players may get far more than the initial 15 free games.
The Verdict
This pokie has some real charm, with nicely designed symbols and some potentially rewarding bonuses. Any game based on this topic will attract an audience, and Water Dragons certainly has the right looks, but also some pretty decent bonuses.
The outstanding feature is the extra wilds in the free spins, although players will be hoping to land those pearls quite quickly, as they may only get 15 extra games and miss out on having all the fish symbols acting as wilds.