Happy New Year Pokie Machine
Oriental themed pokies are hugely successful at online casinos around the world, and taking advantage of this, Microgaming have released Happy New Year which combines the popular Chinese culture with the celebrations that mark this time of year.
New Year is a huge event in China, so this pokie will appeal to the local market thanks to the subject matter, but there’s lots to make it attractive to players across the world.
It’s a classic 3-reel game that has 5 paylines, wild multipliers and a jackpot payout when the right symbols land in the right places. It’s also laid out in a classic style, with one side of the game given over to a payout table, and the other side having the reels above the game logo. In this case, it’s written in Chinese, (and it presumably says Happy New Year, as that’s the translation beneath it.)
It’s all set against a colourful background of red fireworks and dazzling orange and yellow explosions, making this quite an eye-catching pokie that should bring in some cracking wins thanks to a small number of symbols that only need to land in rows of 3 to trigger a win.
Under everything is the standard Microgaming control panel that gives players a few options about bet size and gameplay. First they can set the value placed on each of the 5 lines, with the minimum being 1.00 and the maximum being 50.00, and then they can choose to have a bet on just a single line or go up to all 5 of them for a top wager of 250.00.
Betting on anything less than the 5 lines however, means that the they won’t qualify for the game jackpot or all winning combinations that appear on the reels, so perhaps it’s best to have even just a small stake on all of them and adjust upwards to suit the bankroll.
Happy New Year
Unable to connect to MySQL: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory
Looking at the payout table, players will see what can be won, and Microgaming have gone all-out on the Chinese theme with none of the usual cherries, bars and 7’s that seem to fill most similar pokies.
Instead, we have exploding fireworks of various colours, with any mix of the green, red and yellow ones stopping across a line being worth a prize equal to 5x the bet per line. In practice, this is by far the most common winning combination as it has by far the smallest payout.
The next step up the pay table takes us to the green fireworks which pay 10x the per line bet when landing right across an active line, while yellows are valued at 40x and reds at 80x.
A nice paper lantern is the highest valued of the regular symbols, paying out 160x the line bet when it lands right across an active payline.
But what players are really looking for is the Happy New Year logo symbol, as it has a couple of unique attributes that will boost bankrolls whenever it appears. It works as a wild symbol, acting as any other to help make up winning lines, and if just a single example is enough to finish one, the amount paid out will be doubled, while 2 wilds and a regular symbol will pay out quadruple the basic amount.
It’s also the jackpot symbol, bringing players the biggest wins whenever it fills a line on its own. Should it stop on the first payline, running through the centre of the reels, players will win 1000x the line bet, while the second line is worth 1200x while the third is 1400x and the fourth 1600x.
Carry on this pattern to the fifth line and you would think a win of 1800x is due, but this is where the enhanced jackpot, and an incentive to play all lines comes in. The actual prize is 2400x which at maximum bet translates as 120,000.00, enough to give someone a very happy New Year indeed.
Does it Go with a Bang or Just Fizzle out?
Happy New Year has many of the popular gameplay features that Microgaming are so well known for, all wrapped up in a colourful game with a great theme. It’s nice to see a game where all the symbols are unique to the theme, and having the logo being in Chinese is a novelty.
One downside however, is the fairly high minimum bet. Players will need to stake 1.00 per line, so to cover them all they will need to gamble 5.00 per spin, which won’t suit lots of people who have more limited budgets, although a maximum wager of 250.00 a spin should suit higher stakes gamblers.