White Orchid Pokie Machine
Set in a tropical paradise, White Orchid is a 5-reel pokie from IGT that’s covered in images of delicate plants, but that’s not all it has to offers as it has more than just pretty flowers on the reels. The orchid is joined by a leopard, male and female locals, frogs and butterflys, which along with the playing card symbols will line up to create winning lines, while wild and scatter symbols will trigger the bonus features.
Although it all looks very nice and calming, there’s an unusual format to this game, as players are able to activate up to 40 conventional paylines, or stake more for the Multiway system to be in effect. In this format, they only need to land matching symbols in any positions on adjacent reels to get a win and if the same symbol appears more than once on a reel, the payout is multiplied. The minimum amount that can be staked to get the reels spinning is just 0.10 and the most that can be wagered per spin is 10.00.
Another strange occurrence is seen during the free spins bonus game, when the so-called White Falls symbols replace some of those in the base game. There’s no apparent reason for this, but it adds a bit of colour and variety, while also reminding players that they are spinning the reels for free, just in case they have forgotten.
Playing White Orchid
This is an attractive game that has the reels surrounded by soft pink flowers and some sort of white, tropical-style building framing them. The symbols are presented against a nice green backing to the actual reels that contrasts nicely with everything else, and even the title and incidental wording is written in a flowing script that makes it all looks very tranquil. Fortunately, gameplay can be a little more exciting and the first thing players will need to do is decide if they want to activate the 40 paylines or have 1024 ways to line up symbols with Multiway wagers.
Once they have worked this detail out, they can take a look at the relevant paytable and see what prizes are up for grabs when landing the right combinations, and like many pokies before it, White Orchid fills the reels out with the J, Q, K and A playing card icons. Depending on which option is picked, either 3 or 4 matching symbols will be needed to get a win, although everything pretty much balances out overall, so while it may seem easier to get a Multiway award, the wins can be smaller or actually occur less often.
The picture symbols are more valuable, culminating in the girl, although the White Orchid logo symbol can help players land more wins by substituting for others if needed. This wildcard function can fill in the gaps between symbols or stretch winning lines further across the reels for bigger wins, but it won’t land on reel 1 on the left side and can’t substitute for the actual orchid.
White Orchid
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Free Spins Bonus
This is because the orchid works as a scatter icon, landing on reel 3 and launching a free spins bonus game when at least 2 appear. Any 2 orchids will trigger 10 free spins, while 3 of them will be worth 15 spins and if all of the middle reel is filled with 4 orchid symbols, players are awarded 20 extra games. New symbols of a colourful tropical fish, eagle and hummingbird will replace the frog, butterfly and leopard, while the man and woman will be in slightly different poses, but the actual payouts are exactly the same.
Landing 2, 3 or 4 more of this symbol at any point during the free spins will retrigger the bonus, but not until any still left to play out in the current round have finished. It’s possible to do this multiple times until a maximum of 130 free spins have been awarded, but in reality, that’s a fairly unlikely scenario. Still, any free games are better than none, so this shouldn’t be seen as a problem.
The Verdict
The main points of interest in this game are the overall design and the fact that different formats can be chosen. Other than this, it’s not really anything special, as the bonus round has standard returns, and there’s no multiplier for getting wild substitutions.
But anyone who like the theme and enjoys getting some free spins now and then, should find that White Orchidis a worthwhile game to try out, although it may have a bit too much in the way of pink and purple flowers for some.