Beach Pokie Machine
The developers at online casino games company Net Ent are quite possibly the most creative lot in the business as they keep coming up with unique ways for players to spin the reels of their pokies. The Beach video pokie doesn’t actually spin conventional reels however, instead we see a wave washing new sets of symbols up onto the sand, so this review, like the pay table of the game, will replace the word ‘spin’ with ‘wave’.
Even once the symbols have landed on the beach, there’s a couple of interesting features, headed by an octopus who can re-arrange them for the best winning combinations, while a message in a bottle will activate up to 24 free spins - waves, sorry- and a treasure chest can pay out up to 2000x the line bet.
Nice animations accompany each wave in this cartoon style game and the Beach video pokie is certainly making waves at the many online casinos that feature the games and software from Net Ent.
Beach
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Playing Beach
A 5 reel, 20 payline layout has symbols arranged in 3 rows, on a beach surrounded by rocks and palm trees. A control panel gives players the option to bet from a low limit of just 0.20 to a maximum of 200.00 per spin, although there’s usually a free Beach video pokie version to try out at most casinos. The attention to design details extends to the usual arrows on the spin button being replaced with waves.
The pay table lists how much each winning combination is worth and wins occur in the conventional pattern of 3 or more matching symbols stopping across a line on adjacent reels from the left side. Pebbles with the playing card symbols on them will create the smaller value winlines, starting with the 10 which is worth 5, 20 or 50x the line bet if it appears on 3, 4 or 5 reels after a wave. These values rise through the J, Q, and K pebbles until we reach the A, and this will return prizes of 5, 40 or 125x for the same combinations.
More valuable items will also get washed up, starting with a seashell that’s worth 20, 60 or 350x the line bet, a starfish, purple conch shell and an oyster, complete with pearl in its mouth. If the treasure chest stops across a payline, players win 40, 200 or the top prize of 2000x the amount staked per line.
Bonus Features
A piece of wood is a wild symbol that’s able to replace all of those listed above and create extra winning lines, although it’s not worth anything on its own. A highlight of this game occurs when an octopus is sitting on the wild, and while he only turns up on the middle reel, there can be a nice animated sequence where this merry mollusc reaches out and swaps surrounding symbols around to create a winning line. When this happens, the base value of the win is doubled.
The message in a bottle is a scatter symbol, so it doesn’t matter where on the beach it turns up, and any 3 or more will start a free waves bonus round. Just 3 bottles will trigger 8 extra waves, 4 of them sees 16 waves washing the shore and if 5 bottles land at once, then player get an additional 24 waves hitting the beach.
If the bottle appears in any 3 or more spots in a free wave, then the whole round gets retriggered, with any new waves added on to the end of the current games.
The Verdict
A unique twist on the conventional reel spins is just one of the many appealing aspects that can be found down on the Beach. Although the free waves bonus round isn’t anything particularly special, especially as there are no richer symbols on the reels, getting up to 24 waves with the possibility of retriggering them should be more than enough to end the feature with a few wins.
The octopus wild feature is perhaps more interesting, as he’s always able to change a couple of symbols around to get a nice win, and the multiplier attached to them is a further treat. Add the calming sounds of breaking waves into the mix and we have an excellent online pokie, where the main issue is the fact that it’s not mobile-optimised, so players will need to find this game at desktop casinos.