Bush Telegraph Pokies
The term ‘bush telegraph’ refers to communications in remote areas of jungle, usually using drums, and now there’s a Poker machine loosely themed around this traditional form of messaging.
With 5 reels and 15 paylines, Bush Telegraph features a straightforward layout and design, with a pleasing collection of cute creatures and decent bonuses giving it a popular appeal. Developed by Microgaming, it can be found across mobile and desktop platforms at a wide range of online casinos that carry software from this trusted supplier.
It’s presented in the bright cartoon style that’s somewhat synonymous with Microgaming pokies, which isn’t a criticism, as it makes the reels crisp and clear, without too many distractions as they spin around.
Beating a Path to the Jungle Drums
Opening up the game reveals a pokie that shouldn’t hold any surprises. Symbols include the ubiquitous 10, J, Q, K and A, in bright bold designs, plus some African wildlife such as a Bush Baby, Warthog and Parrot.
With a bet range that starts with just 0.01 and goes all the way up to 250.00 just about everyone will be able to find a stake that suits their bankroll, although wagering on anything less than all 15 lines, for a measly 0.15 per spin, is a bit of a waste of time unless you like to watch winning combinations land on paylines that you haven’t activated.
A quick look at the paytable reveals how much players can expect to receive when the symbols land in their favour, and to get a win, at least 3 identical ones will have to land on a line, running from left to right, with progressively bigger rewards if 4 or 5 of the reels end up with the same symbol across an active line.
As standard with Poker machines, the card symbols make up the lower-paying end of the scale, so getting the 10 across a line for example will result in a win of 3, 15 or 75 coins should 3, 4 or 5 appear, while the A is worth 10, 50 or 125 for the same patterns.
Moving on up the scale we find the animal symbols are worth up to 500 coins, so they not only look cute, they pay out some sweet wins as well.
Bush Telegraph
Unable to connect to MySQL: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory
Bush Bonuses
Some reasonable, if fairly standard, bonuses enhance Bush Telegraph, with the one most likely to be encountered being the wild symbol that substitutes for others except the scatter and bonus ones, to help make up winning lines of symbols. It can also result in the biggest payouts, with just 2 of them on a line being worth 5 coins and should a whole payline be filled right across the reels then the prize is a substantial 7,500.
Scatter symbols pay out without having to be on a payline, and here a bright red seedpod takes on scatter duties, with prizes of 2x, 4x, 50x or 500x the total bet per spin amount being paid for getting between 2 and 5 of them at once.
Any more than 2 of them will also kick off 10 free spins and during these, any wins will be tripled in value for some potentially lucrative payouts. It’s possible to retrigger the free games by getting more scatters on the reels.
The other extra round is where the game gets its name from, with the Bongo Bonus starting when 3 or more bonus symbols appear on an active line. Players get taken to a second screen where 11 drums are lined up for them, and they get to click away on them revealing prize amounts until 3 identical amounts are uncovered, or a drum comes up ‘Collect’.
Like many Microgaming pokies, Bush Telegraph features an optional Gamble game that players can enter after any winning spin. To double the amount just won, players need to guess if a face down playing card will be red or black, and while a correct guess means that they can try to double up again, a wrong pick loses the prize and returns them to the reels.
Bongo Brilliance or Can’t Drum up Interest?
Bush Telegraph is a no-nonsense pokie that looks pleasing enough and has some decent bonus payouts and side games. It’s very typical of Microgaming in both style and content, meaning that it looks good without being too flashy, and has solid extras without being overly complicated.
Minor criticisms are that the high card symbols dominate, and while the gamble round is optional, it’s usually a good way to lose a bet rather than build a small win into a bigger one, so players shouldn’t risk any prizes that they really want to keep.