Greedy Goblins Slot Machine

Betsoft announced the “Greedy Goblins” slot game in 2013. The game is a sequel to Betsoft’s “Once Upon A Time” slot, which also features the goblins.  The design features used in “GreedyGoblins” represent an evolutionary step up in Betsoft’s game mechanics. The pay lines are fixed and an animated character stands beside the playing reels. Other animated characters appear fromtime to time for special purposes. The graphics quality is also superior to the older game’s graphics.

“Greedy Goblins” incorporates five special features that enhance game play: the Coin Drop, the Sticky Expanding Wild, the Double Up feature, the Free Spins bonus game, and the Pick bonus game.All of these options provide sufficient variety to keep the game feeling fresh and interesting.

“Greedy Goblins” is a high variance game, though. Because you can win so much on a single spin you are less likely to win prizes on a per-spin basis.

Betsoft’s “Greedy Goblins” is a 5 reel, 3 row 3-D video slot game using 30 pay lines. The pays all prizes from left to right and prizes are computed as Credits times Bet Per Line times CoinValue. The game also features a special Jackpot condition when Max Bet is played.

The Wild symbol is a small shack. This symbol is a Sticky Expanding Wild that initiates up to 3 respins. Two Wild Shacks may appear together, trigging up to 6 respins.  When the Wild symbolinitiates the respins feature it expands to fill all three rows and counts down the number of free spins. If another Wild Shack appears during the respin game it also expands to fill all threeslots but does not award any additional spins. The Wild symbol substitutes for all other symbols except the Jackpot symbol.

The Scatter symbol is the Gold Coin. When two or more of these coins appear anywhere in the playing reels area Goblins rush out to collect them, removing the symbols from the playing reels andtriggering a cascade of tiles dropping down to replace them. The new tile positions may award additional prize combinations, including more Scatter symbols. The Gold Coin pays 750 times Total betfor five of a kind, 360 times Total Bet for four of a kind, 180 times Total Bet for three of a kind, and 60 times Total Bet for two of a kind.

The “Welcome To Elfania: Home of the Brilliant Minds” symbol triggers the Free Spins bonus round. See below for details. The symbol pays 1500 times Total Bet for five of a kind, 300 times TotalBet for four of a kind, and 60 times Total Bet for three of a kind.

The Book of Secrets symbol triggers a special bonus round two of the books appear on any active pay line. See below for details.

There are eight remaining symbols in the game. All of the symbols have an associated in-tile animation that plays when the symbols form winning combinations.

The Elf pay 12,500 times Bet Per Line for five of a kind, except when Max Bet is paid. For five of a kind on a Max Bet you win the Progressive Jackpot. The Elf pays 240 times Bet Per Line forfour of a kind and 30 times Bet Per Line for three of a kind.

• The Goblin pays 1200 times Bet Per Line for five of a kind, 90 times Bet Per Line for four of a kind, and 20 times Bet Per Line for three of a kind.
• The Mushroom and the Stolen Crown both pay 240 times Bet Per Line for five of a kind, 45 times Bet Per Line for four of a kind, and 15 times Bet Per Line for three of a kind.
• The Chalice and the Diamond both pay 150 times Bet Per Line for five of a kind, 30 times Bet Per Line for four of a kind, and 10 times Bet Per Line for three of a kind.
• The Goblin Moon and the Wanted Goblin poster pay 75 times Bet Per Line for five of a kind, 15 times Bet Per Line for four of a kind, and 5 times Bet Per Line for three of a kind.

There are two sets of controls for Greedy Goblins. The “View Pays” and “Options” buttons are positioned in the upper right hand corner of the screen. These have no effect upon game payouts. Theprogressive Greedy Jackpot total is displayed in a marquee in the upper left hand corner of the screen.

There fifteen knobs on either side of the playing reels area. These are anchor points for animated vines that highlight the 30 pay lines. You can hold the mouse cursor over any knob to activateits corresponding vine. The vines also appear when a pay line awards a prize to highlight the combination. The knobs serve no other purpose.

A marquee dashboard is positioned immediately below the playing reels. This dashboard holds five marquee widgets that display information about the progress of the game. These are, from left toright:

The Balance widget shows how much money you have available to play with.

The Bet widget shows how many credits you are wagering per spin. This is also the amount used to calculate prizes for the free spins.

The central marquee displays messages in-between spins and describes the prizes you win after each spin, cycling through all the pay lines that had winning combinations.

The Win widget shows the sum total of all the prizes from the last spin.

The Credits widget shows how many credits you have available to play with.   Each credit is worth the current active coin value and your credits are recomputed when you change the coinvalue.

The betting controls dashboard runs along the very bottom of the screen.  The widgets on this dashboard from left to right are:

• The Choose Coin widget

  Use the Minus and Plus buttons to select the coin value you want to use per credit. Available values are 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, 0.25, and 0.50. When you change the coin value upon starting thegame your available balance is recomputed to show how much money you have left after the next spin. After the first spin changing the coin value has no effect on your balance.

• The Bet Per Line widget

  Use the Minus and Plus buttons to set how many coins you will wager per line on each spin. Available values are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Changing the number of coins per line adjusts your availableBalance and Credits up or down.

• The Total Bet widget

  This displays how many credits you are wagering per spin. This represents number of coins per line times base wager of 30 credits per spin.

• The Spin Button

  initiates 1 paid spin. After the reels start spinning this button changes to a Stop button that interrupts the animation of the spinning reels. Clicking on Stop has no effect upon the outcomeof the game.

• The Max Bet Button

  sets the Bet Per Line to 5 and adjusts Total Bet and Bet to show 150 coins per spin. You must still click on the Spin button to commit to making this wager.

• The Double Up Button

  becomes active after any paid spin pays a prize. Click on this button to initiate the special feature described below.

• The Auto Play Button

  activates a dialog screen where you set your betting options and choose how many spins the game will play for you. Options include Coin Value and Bet Per Line. The automatic spins continueuntil you exit the game, interrupt the spins by clicking on Stop Auto, the preset number of spins complete, you win a bonus game, or your available Credits drop below the Total Bet amount. Asmall red indicator counts down the number of automatic spins remaining for you. You can use Cancel to exit the dialog if you change your mind about setting up automatic spins.

After any paid spin awards a prize the Double Up button becomes active. Click on this button and you will be taken to a separate screen where the Workshop Elf stands in front of his desk holdinga coin. The coin has an Elf side and a Goblin side.

You choose either Goblin or Elf and he tosses the coin. If the coin lands with the side you chose facing up your prize is doubled. Otherwise you lose your credits and the game automatically ends.You can double up as many as five times in a row, assuming you win the first four tosses.

The coin tosses are completely random and previous results do not affect future results. You could get five Goblin sides in a row, five Elf sides in a row, or some random variation.

When three or more of the “Welcome to Elfania: Home of the Brilliant Minds” symbols appear anywhere in the playing reels the Free Spins bonus game is initiated.

You win 25 free spins for five Elfania signs, 15 free for four Elfania signs, and 10 free spins for three Elfania signs. As noted above each combination awards a prize of 1500, 300, or 60 creditstimes Total Bet respectively.

As the game begins the Goblin says “here they come” and he hides as two Elves come running down a path. They stop in front of the playing reels board and start picking flowers.

During the free spins some of the icons appear with multipliers ranging up to X10 (this is randomly determined). If those icons contribute to winning combinations the multipliers included in thecombination are added together and used to enhance the prize value. There is no guarantee you will win a prize or a prize with a multiplier.

It is possible to win more free spins if three or more Elfania signs appear on any spin.

If the Coin Drop feature is activated by two or more Gold Coins the goblins rush out to collect them as usual but the elves do not see them.

The Sticky Wilds feature can also be activated during the Free Spins.

The Book of Secrets (see below) bonus can also be won during the Free Spins game.

The Double Up game is not available during the Free Spins game.

The Book of Secrets symbol only appears on reels 2 and 4. When two symbols appear on any active pay line the bonus game is initiated.

You are taken to the Elf Workshop screen where an elf sits at his desk.  As he is called away by an offscreen elf two goblins creep in to the workshop. Various items such as drawers incabinets, papers, and the drawing on the elf’s table are highlighted.

The object of the game is to collect as many items as possible before you uncover “Collect”. Every object you choose reveals a prize amount or a multiplier applied to all prizes.

You can scroll the screen left or right to find more objects to choose from.

Depending on which object you choose to steal either goblin may collect the prize for you.

This is a very playable game and quite entertaining. Betsoft paid a lot of attention to the details and added minutiae that escape the new player’s first notice. For example, the main goblinspeaks English, although his dialog is clipped and his sentences tend to drift into mumbling. The elves, on the other hand, seem to speak an unintelligible or fantasy language. This cleverdistinction has no impact on game play and really does not contribute anything to the value of the game itself, but it’s an interesting quality.

The artful goblins are very good at stealing things from the elves, just as they were good at stealing things from the humans in the “Once Upon A Time” game. But their antics are almostpredictable after you have seen everything two or three times. If Betsoft could have made their actions a little more random the game would have been just slightly more interesting.

The soundtrack is cinematic or fully orchestrated. It sounds very good and does not become too wearying as some game soundtracks do. Gone are the days of tin can style synthetic slot game songsthat make you wince. The ambient sounds, in addition to the various chuckles, cackles, and near-comments of the goblins, are very well done. This effect is called Foley in film making(named for sound effects engineer Jack Donovan Foley, who pioneered the technique). You hear doors opening and closing, footsteps as characters go running along, and other incidental noises thatall add to the quality of the playing experience.

That a slot game would go to so much effort to generate believable sounds is pretty amazing. The game’s animations are designed to entertain and amuse players. You could put the game into AutoSpin mode with the lowest bet setting and just watch the antics unfold for a good 10-20 minutes without being aware of how much time is passing. This is a major plus for any 3-D slot game thatenters the cinematic presentation level of competitiveness among slot games. In fact, it is these 3-D features that makes online slots so competitive with the latest land-based casino games.

Despite the high variance nature of the game the betting limits are manageable.  At a maximum coin value of 50 cents per credit and a maximum of 5 credits per pay line, the most you canwager per spin is $75. While this is still a very hefty bet for most players it’s not likely to appeal to high rollers who prefer the games that allow you to wager hundreds of dollars per spin.Nonetheless, players who like to increase their risk from time to time will find plenty of options for doing just that in “Greedy Goblins”.

All things considered, this is a fun game to play and well worth spending some time and money on. A good strategy for beginners is to start out with low wagers until you can double your moneythrough normal prizes before attempting any of the Double Up or higher coin/bet per line settings. That way if you win big you can drop back to your original strategy and keep playing.

The theoretical return to player for “Greedy Goblins” is 97.2%. While that may seem high compared to how often the game pays prizes, it does reflect the highest value prize amounts.  Ofcourse, theoretical RTP guarantees you nothing. Just as you could go through an entire free spins game without a single winning combination you could easily burn through your balance in a singlesession. In that respect this is a good game for conservative strategies unless you have a lot of money to gamble with.