Firelight Slot Game Review

Northwest Native American tribes seem to tell more stories about volcanoes than their South American counterparts. Of course, there are no volcanoes in the Great Plains or eastern forests of thenorth continent so you don’t find any stories about fire mountains in those regions. Firelight draws upon an eclectic group of traditions nonetheless, featuring a drum that could be found inalmost any Native American culture, a background image of a Mesoamerican culture temple, a fantasy priestess or shamaness, and a sapphire amulet. Turquois might seem more appropriate to mostcasual observers but if you dig deeper you’ll find that the game developers were right about some things that seem out of place.

Firelight is a 5 reel, 3 row video slot game using Aristocrat’s trademarked Reel Power betting system, where the player activates reels 2 through 5 by betting more coins per spin.  The betamounts are adjusted by setting the Bet Per Reel value. The more reels activated the more ways there are to win. All prizes pay from left to right and winning combinations are formed by three ormore adjacent tiles showing the same symbol on active reel positions. Reel 1 and the middle row are always active.

The prize amounts are adjusted upward based on how many reels are active. Hence, the game provides an incentive for playing all five reels even though that is more expensive than playing fewerreels.

The game’s Wild symbol is the Volcano. The Volcano substitutes for all other symbols in the game except for the Scatter. The Volcano only appears on reel 3 and when it contributes to a winningcombination a random multiplier of X2, X3, or X5 is applied to all combinations helped by the Volcano. The Volcano tile erupts to indicate that it is part of a winning combination.

The Firebird is the game’s Scatter symbol. When three or more of these symbols appear on the screen in adjacent positions starting on reel 1, they trigger the Free Spins bonus game. See below fordetails. The value of the Firebird is proportionate to the number of reels in play. Five of a kind on 5 active reels pays 1000 times Total Bet, whereas five of a kind on 1 active reel pays only30 times Total Bet. Four of a kind pays from 8 to 250 times Total Bet. Three of a kind pays from 3 to 100 times Total Bet.

The Priestess pays from 200 to 500 times Bet Per Reel for five of a kind, from 50 to 100 times Bet Per Reel for four of a kind, and from 10 to 20 times Bet Per Reel for three of a kind. She bowsher head and a brilliant light bursts from her unseen hands when she forms a winning combination.

• The Figurine

  Pays from 150 to 250 times Bet Per Reel for five of a kind, from 35 to 50 times Bet Per Reel for four of a kind, and from 5 to 15 times Bet Per Reel for three of a kind.

• The Drum

  Pays from 150 to 250 times Bet Per Reel for five of a kind, from 35 to 50 times Bet Per Reel for four of a kind, and from 5 to 15 times Bet Per Reel for three of a kind.

• The Gold Ring

  Pays from 100 to 200 times Bet Per Reel for five of a kind, from 25 to 35 times Bet Per Reel for four of a kind, and from 5 to 10 times Bet Per Reel for three of a kind.

• The Ceremonial Amulet

  Pays from 100 to 200 times Bet Per Reel for five of a kind, from 25 to 35 times Bet Per Reel for four of a kind, and from 5 to 10 times Bet Per Reel for three of a kind.

The remaining symbols in the game are culled from the usual playing card emblems of Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, and 9. The Ace, King, Queen, and Jack each have their respective adornments (greengem, large crown, small crown, and shield) per Aristocrat’s usual designs. All six symbols have the same prize values: they pay from 75 to 100 times Bet Per Reel for five of a kind, from 20 to 25times Bet Per Reel for four of a kind, and from 3 to 5 times Bet Per Reel for three of a kind.

An information marquee positioned above the playing reels displays random messages and compliments. Another marquee immediately below the playing reels recaps how much you win after each spin andalso shares tips about the game. All the game controls are placed below the second marquee for convenient management and minimal distraction.

The Reel Cost widget is on the far left side of the control dashboard. It holds green Minus and Plus buttons that you use to adjust the number of reels you are playing on. The cost for 1 reel isX1, for 2 reels is X5, for 3 reels is X10, for 4 reels is X20, and for all five reels is X30. In other words, you pay from 1 to 30 coins per spin depending on how many reels you activate.

The Bet Per Reel widget adjusts the coin value. This widget uses green Minus and Plus buttons to scroll up and down through the available coin values: 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75,1.00, 1.25, 1.50, 2.00, and 2.50.

The Total Bet widget merely displays the product of Reel Cost times Bet Per Reel. The maximum possible bet you can wager is 75.00.

The Win widget displays the sum of all prizes you won on the last spin.

The large green Play button initiates a single paid spin. It converts into an orange Stop button that you can use to interrupt the animations of the spinning reels. Clicking on this button doesnot alter the outcome of any spin.

The Auto (spins) widget is attached to the Play button. Use the Minus and Plus buttons to adjust the number of spins you want the game to play for you and then click on the Play button. The gamekeeps spinning, deducting the cost of the Total Bet from your balance, until one of five things happens: you leave the game session, you stop the automatic spins, the last automatic spin iscompleted, you win a Free Spins bonus game, or your available balance drops below the amount of the Total Bet.

There is a second dashboard below the game controls where your available balance is displayed on the left. The two buttons on the right are the Gear and the Question Mark. The Gear activates amini-dialog where you can adjust game sounds and toggle on or off use of the space bar on your keyboard as a Play button. The Question Mark activates the Pay Tables / Help screen system.

There are five tabs at the top of the Help screen. Click on any of these tabs to view the corresponding screen.

When you click on Pay Tables you’ll see five more tabs in a second row below the top. These tabs show you the various prize amounts for each variation on the active reels: 1 reel, 2 reels, 3reels, etc.

The Reel Power system has its own table where you can see which playing positions are active based on how many reels are active. Since there are only fifteen playing positions the 2^ndand 3^rd options would normally be the most economical choices but the graduated prize tables make it more worthwhile to pay for all five reels.

When three Firebird symbols appear on reels 1, 2, and 3 a Free Spins bonus round is triggered. Up to five Firebirds can trigger the game and the number of free spins you win is determined by howmany Scatters triggered the game: you get 6 free spins for 3 Scatters, 9 free spins for 4 Scatters, and 12 free spins for 5 Scatters.

Reels 1 and 2 become paired during the free spins, as do reels 4 and 5. Pairing means both reels show the exact same symbols. Hence, you only need to line up a symbol on reel 3 with any symbol onreel 2 to ensure you win a prize. This system does increase the chances of winning a three of a kind prize but really does not improve the chances of winning four of a kind or five of a kind.However, because the last two reels are paired you won’t ever win four of a kind; you’ll just win five of a kind if all five reels line up.

The paired reels are outlined by fire borders. All the reels spin and return random results but what this feature does is effectively make it a three reel game that pays for winning combinationsof 2 or 3 adjacent symbols, but the combinations have the values of 3 or 5 of a kind prizes.

From a statistical point of view while you are not guaranteed to win a prize during the Free Spins game it would be unusual if you did not win at least 1 prize from 6 free spins. It all dependson how well reel 3 lines up with reel 2 (and by extension reel 1).

Firelight is an unusual slot game in several ways:

• First

  The game appears to be mixing motifs from North and South American native cultures, although the majority of the symbols are highly stylized representations of Pacific Northwest myth andculture.

• Second

  The game’s Free Spin bonus rules are distinctive. There are not many games that pair reels the way this game does. The paired reel concept increases the chances of winning a prize,although the game developer can compensate for that improved payoff by favoring smaller prizes. It’s impossible to say if they are doing this.

• Third

  The uniformity of the prize amounts for all the low value symbols is unusual. It’s almost like the developers figured out lots of neat payoffs for the high value symbols and then realizedthey had to quickly tie off the low end symbols to keep the math simple. You can look at it as improving your chances of getting a decent low end pay off or as devaluing the low value symbolseven further but the prize amounts for the high value symbols are not substantially higher. This is a pretty tight if large prize distribution matrix.

Although the game lacks a lot of the exciting graphics of contemporary slots and uses the older, somewhat confusing Reel Power system (Aristocrat eventually made the 5 reels a permanent option),Firelight still plays well despite its age. The Free Spins bonus game is part of the enchantment but the third reel tends to favor stacked Wilds and stacked Priestess tiles. That is probablyintentional to build up your anticipation. However, the theoretical return to player is 94.99%, which is better than their older games.

You might be able to adjust that RTP upward slightly on less complicated games by playing only 3 reels, but in this game the increased prize values for reels 4 and 5 almost push you into playingall five reels. This is one of those rare games where it does make sense NOT to play the bare minimum wager.

The synthetic music is nothing to write home about, though, and the ambient soundtrack can be distracting. Aristocrat seemed to feel that you would feel like you were in a real (land based)casino if you could hear other people chatting and playing your game around you. This feature has been used on a number of their games but thankfully you can turn it off.