Glow Pokies
The unique theme of the Northern Lights is covered in Net Ent’s Glow video pokie that has a softly shimmering background and artistic symbols of wild animals floating against it over 5 reels and 15 paylines. Net Ent are a Scandinavian company, so maybe this game was inspired by the view out of their office window, or maybe it’s another pokie that has a Native American theme, but whatever the source, it looks pretty good in an abstract kind of way.
There’s a stylish series of animal masks making up the higher value symbols along with the usual playing card images filling out the lower end of the paytable, and while we have a wild symbol to help players complete extra winlines, there’s no separate bonus round, but any winning combination created by the masks will trigger some re-spins of the reels, during which the potential rewards are higher.
All 15 lines are always active meaning that players can’t test the game out with a stake of just 0,.01 on a single one, but free Glow video pokies are available and the low limit for a real cash wager is only 0.15 per spin anyway. The high limit is 150.00 which should be enough for all but the most dedicated gamblers. Wins are created in the standard format of landing 3, 4 or 5 of the same symbol across a payline on adjacent reels from the left side, although the wild symbol can help out if needed.
Playing Glow
The forested, starry background fills the screen and the floating symbols give it a slightly eerie appearance. The 10, J, Q, K and A symbols are common across many pokies but here they have been given a subtle makeover, with little dots down the sides to give the impression that local artists have written them.
The higher value symbols are all animal faces which again are made to look like some Northern peoples have drawn them, which to some extent is true if you can count Stockholm in Sweden. What looks like a rabbit mask pays 15x the line bet when stopping on reels 1, 2 and 3 across a payline, with 4 of them worth 75x and a 200x win being awarded when a 5 appear. Above this we have an owl, fox and wolf, with the top prizes paid by a moose that only needs to land on reels 1 and 2 to return a win of 5x.
Full paylines of the deer symbol, are worth a substantial 2000x, while a bear is a wild symbol who can act as any of the animals or playing cards, which helps to complete winning lines. Any time the wild becomes part of a winning combo, either by filling in any breaks in the sequence or by stretching a win over further reels, the base value of the prize will be doubled.
Glow
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Free Spins Bonus
Most pokies have a special scatter symbol to start their bonus games but in the case of the Glow video pokie, extra spins are awarded every time the animal symbols make up a winning line, with the number of spins dependent on how many reels the wins stretched across.
If the moose lands on reels 1 and 2, or any other symbol is on reels 1, 2 and 3 across a line, players are treated to a single free spin, while 4 of any symbol is worth 2 extra games and full lines of 5 will trigger 5 free spins. The best thing about these bonus spins is that any wins during them will be doubled in value, and the playing cards will also be able to create between 1 and 5 extra free spins.
This round can potentially go on and on until no free games are retriggered, although in practice we found that it rarely got triggered more than a couple of times in succession.
The Verdict
Glow is an unusual game, both in the theme, design and the way it plays out, but that’s a good thing as we don’t want all online casino pokies to work in the same way. It’s a fairly calming style anyway, with nice symbols and an ambient soundtrack to go with it, while everything gets a bit exciting when the reels respins are triggered, especially if they get repeated several times over.
Wild substitutions are nothing new, but it’s still nice to get some extra payouts, especially when there’s a coins multiplier attached to them, which all adds up to a distinctive pokie which we are happy to recommend.