The Cheshire Cat Pokie
Everyone knows the story of Alice In Wonderland, where a young girl falls down the rabbit hole into a magical kingdom ruled by the Red Queen and populated by strange characters like the Mad Hatter and a talking mouse. One of the most popular characters that she meets along her journey is The Cheshire Cat, who hands out wise advice while slowly disappearing until only his grin is left, and WMS Gaming have taken this fabled feline and given him his very own pokie game.
Originally designed just for land-based casinos, it’s now one of the newest games at online casinos, and while it isn’t yet available in a mobile-optimised format, hopefully it soon will be, giving players across the world access to a unique pokie across all platforms.
It initially looks like a classic pokie where 5 reels contain 3 rows of symbols, and running from the left side, there’s a total of 40 paylines, but like everything in Wonderland, all is not as it first appears. Trigger the bonus games and multiple sets of reels can come into play, where stacked wilds help to land some major prizes, and coins rain down onto the screen when symbols line up in the right places.
Playing The Cheshire Cat
A review of the pay table will show prospective players what they can expect when spinning these colourful reels. Everything is in a nice cartoon style that will be familiar to those who have seen the animated Alice in Wonderland film from the 1950’s, and along with the lower-value playing card symbols, we have Alice, the White Rabbit and naturally our magical moggie, who is the highest-paying of the standard symbols. Winning lines are created by 3, 4 or 5 of the same symbol type stopping across any of the 40 paylines, but they must be on adjacent reels and the line will need to start on reel 1 on the left side.
A control panel below them is used to set bet sizes, which start at a low limit of 0.40, and players can increase the value of their wagers to suit their bankrolls, although free The Cheshire Cat video pokie games can be tried at many casinos, which is a good way to learn the game before making any real cash bets. Like all pokies from WMS, this is a fair game, with a good return to player percentage, so it can be played for longer with minimal risk to the budgets.
Although standard gameplay can be quite rewarding, the real highlights of The Cheshire Cat video pokie come when the bonus features are triggered.
The Cheshire Cat
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Bonus Features
The game logo is a wild symbol that can act as all others, apart from a colourful wheel of fortune, to help players get more winning lines. It does this by filling in any gap in lines of matching symbols, and because it can be stacked, this becomes relatively easy to do.
The main feature however, is a free spins game that gets triggered by any 3 or more wheel scatters appearing anywhere across the reels. These open up another big wheel, where the Cheshire Cat is staring out from the centre, and around him are inner and outer segments that award additional sets of reels and wild reels. The inner and outer rings of the big wheel spin independently, with the inner stopping on 1, 2, 3 or 4, which reveals the number of reel sets that will be in play throughout the bonus games, while the outer reel awards 1, 2, 3 or 4 fully wild reels.
Once these have been determined, the screen fills with however many sets of reels have been spun up, and although reel 1 on the left of each set will be filled with standard symbols, the wild reels will run from the right side towards the left, so anyone who has been lucky enough to get 4 wild reels will be guaranteed multiple wins on each spin, possibly across 4 sets of reels, which is going to lead to some massive rewards.
The Verdict
The Cheshire Cat is a classic online pokie with some truly unique features. While there’s nothing special about the normal run of play, apart from the fun characters on the reels, once the bonus games have been triggered, players are in for some big real cash awards.
It's one of the newest titles in the WMS Gaming online range, and is sure to be a big success, especially once players find out about the potential to get 4 sets of reels covered in 4 fully wild reels on each.