Cupid and Psyche Slot Machine

Cupid and Psyche is a 5 reel, 40 pay line slot machine that was developed by Bally Technologies. The game is based on a Roman tale from Apuleius’ novel Metamorphoses, involving the obstacles thatPsyche must overcome to marry Cupid.

The story begins with love goddess Venus becoming enraged that people neglect to worship her, instead praising the beautiful Psyche.

Venus sends her son, Cupid, to exact revenge for her. But he instead scratches himself with his own arrow and falls in love with Psyche. She latter pricks herself with one of Cupid’s arrows andfalls madly in love with him too.

Even more enraged, Venus puts Psyche through near impossible tasks, including sorting an enormous amount of crops, fetching wool from violent sheep, and retrieving special water from dragons.Through the help of various creatures / gods, Psyche accomplishes the tasks and marries Cupid.

Portraying a long and detailed story like this through an older slot machine is hard. But is Bally’s Cupid and Psyche up to the task?

Find out as we cover this game’s betting options, graphics, pay table, bonuses, and comparisons to other Cupid themed slot machines.

Overview

Cupid and Psyche looks like many older video slots, with its simple background and design.

The background consists of Roman columns and statues, although these are mostly covered by the reels. The title is also presented with roses on it, which is the best indication that the gameoffers on Cupid and Psyche’s love.

You won’t hear any music or sound effects until you spin the reels. When performing a spin, you’ll hear a tune that sounds like it could come from any random slot machine, rather than anythingreminiscent of ancient mythology.

The gameplay is simple, and most players will quickly acclimate themselves to Cupid and Psyche. Those who are new to 5 reel slot machines can read the game’s rules by accessing the informationmenu.

Betting Options

The 40 pay lines are fixed, but you can change your coin size from $0.01 to $10.00. This makes for a minimum bet of $0.01 and a max wager of $400.00.

Cupid and Psyche isn’t the best game for low rollers since you must bet $0.40 to play. In comparison to other online slots, this is a high minimum spin cost.

Once you’ve selected your betting options, you can auto spin the reels from 5 25 spins. This is the only way that you can speed up play, given that there’s no option to speed up the reels like inmodern games.

The only other available option is the ability to turn sound on and off.

Graphics and Animations

Falling in line with the rest of this slot, the graphics are basic and typical for an older game.

Cupid looks like a baby, the detail in Psyche isn’t overly impressive, and the other symbols look like they could be in any generic 5 reel slot machine.

The only animation happens when you get the Psyche wild symbol in a winning pay line. Psyche looks to the right before moving out of the picture to reveal that the symbol is wild. You’ll also seeone of Cupid’s arrows hit the symbol right after Psyche moves.

If you’re looking for a game that uses animations and stellar graphics to recreate Greek mythology, Cupid and Psyche isn’t it.

Cupid and Psyche Pay Table

The symbols and payouts in Cupid and Psyche are as follows:

  • Psyche wild

    Cupid’s love interest substitutes for any symbol, except the blue and red bulls-eye scatters, to form a winning combination. Psyche pays 1,000 credits for 5 symbols, 200 for 4, and 60 for 3.

  • Cupid and Psyche icon

    The game icon pays 500 coins for 5 symbols, 150 for 5, and 50 for 3.

  • CupidThe god of desire and attraction pays 300 credits for 5 symbols, 100 for 4, and 40 for 3.
  • Harp

    The harp pays 250 credits for 5 symbols, 75 for 4, and 25 for 3.

  • A

    Pays 200 credits for 5 symbols, 50 for 4, and 20 for 3.

  • K

    Pays 150 credits for 5 symbols, 40 for 4, and 15 for 3.

  • Q

    Pays 100 credits for 5 symbols, 20 for 4, and 10 for 3.

  • J

    Pays 100 credits for 5 symbols, 20 for 4, and 10 for 3.

  • 10 and 9

    Both of the numbers pay 75 credits for 5 symbols, 15 for 4, and 5 for 3.

  • Blue Bulls Eye

    You trigger the bonus round by landing 3 or more blue bulls eye symbols anywhere on the reels.

  • Red Bulls Eye

    Red bulls eyes only appear during the bonus round, and they can turn an entire reel wild when you accumulate enough bulls eyes.

Cupid and Psyche Slot Bonus Features

When you trigger the bonus round by landing 3 or more blue bulls eyes, a sign appears on the screen showing that you’ve won 12 free spins.

The reel color turns from tan to blue during free spins, and the music changes to something that sounds like a 1970s game show. Symbols largely look the same, except that the color in Cupid,Psyche, and the game icon change.

The multiplier that you receive on your triggering stake depends upon how many blue bulls eyes you land on the reels, which you can see below:

  • 5 blue bulls eyes = 12 free spins with 25x total stake win.
  • 4 blue bulls eyes = 12 free spins with 10x total stake win.
  • 3 blue bulls eyes = 12 free spins with 3x total stake win.

The big benefit to these free spins, besides the triggering stake multiplier, is that you can form stacked wild reels with red bulls eyes.

When the free spins start, you’ll see blank spaces above each reel, which track how many red bulls eyes that you accumulate during free spins. These bulls eyes can land anywhere on the reels,and below you can see how many bulls eyes are needed to turn each reel into a stacked wild:

  • 4 red bulls eyes = Reel 5 becomes stacked for remainder of free spins.
  • 8 red bulls eyes = Reel 4 becomes stacked for remainder of free spins.
  • 12 red bulls eyes = Reel 3 becomes stacked for remainder of free spins.
  • 16 red bulls eyes = Reel 2 becomes stacked for remainder of free spins.

Once you’ve earned 16 red bulls eyes, you cannot accumulate any more to unlock the first reel.

For how simplistic Cupid and Psyche is, the free spins are more complex than we expected. Normally, you expect generic free spins from a game like this, with no special features like the redbulls eyes that you accumulate.

Comparison to Other Cupid Themed Slot Machines

Given that Cupid is one of the most popular mythological figures, especially on Valentine’s Day, it’s no surprise that other slots have been produced about this love bearing god. Below you cansee how Cupid and Psyche compares to these games.

Novomatic's Cupid's Arrow Slot Machine

Novomatic

Cupid’s Arrow is a 5 reel, 20 pay line game that doesn’t have anything to do with the god. Instead, it revolves around the modern world of dating and some lovely people.

Symbols include a Cupid’s Arrow icon (wild), pink card (scatter), two young ladies, three young men, perfume, wine, flowers, and a candle. The icon substitutes for everything except the scattersymbol, while the scatter triggers free spins when it appears 3 or more times on the reels.

Unfortunately, these free spins don’t offer any extra frills like multipliers or special symbols. On the bright side, this game does have a gamble feature that allows you to double or quadruplewins.

The graphics are above average and reminiscent of a PlayStation 3 or Xbox game. We also like how all of the symbols are original, with no generic letters/numbers involved.

In summary, Novomatic’s Cupid’s Arrow has some nice aspects, like its graphics, symbols, and unique angle on the Cupid genre. But its simplistic bonus round puts it at the same level as Cupidand Psyche.

Rival Gaming's For the Love of Money Slot Machine

Rival Gaming

For Love and Money is a 5 reel, 15 pay line online slot that focuses on love through both attraction and money. This game opens with a fun introduction, where a writer pens a story about adashing hero beating up two thugs and saving a beautiful woman.

The writer serves as the wild symbol, and Cupid is the scatter/bonus symbol. If Cupid appears 3 or more times anywhere on the reels, he triggers free spins and multiplies your triggering bet.

While these free spins are nice, the downside is that they represent the game’s only bonus.

Other symbols include the hero, beautiful woman, pen and paper, rich couple, two thugs, rose, two love birds, candle, and a box of chocolates.

This slot is loaded with animations, including the rose petals falling to the ground, birds nuzzling, candle burning, chocolates popping out of their box, thug laughing, hero smiling, andwriter winking.

The graphics are another good point to this game since they perfectly fit the theme that Rival is pushing.

Based on the many animations, quality graphics, and fun introduction, we like For Love and Money better than Cupid and Psyche. The only downside, though, is that the lone bonus feature is freespins.

Wager Gaming's Cupid's Arrow Slot Machine

Wager Gaming

Wager Gaming’s version of Cupid’s Arrow is a 5 reel, 25 pay line slot that focuses on Valentine’s Day.

Much like Cupid and Psyche, this is a simple game that any slots novice can figure out in a few minutes. Betting options consist of changing your coin denomination from $0.01 to $10.00, and paylines from 1 20.

Symbols include a heart bonus, present scatter, Cupid wild, roses, lips, box of chocolates, Valentine’s Day card, rose petals, silhouette of a couple, ring, calendar Feb. 14th, and love symbol.

Cupid substitutes for every symbol except the scatter and bonus, and he pays 10,000 coins when appearing 5 times in a pay line. The scatter symbol triggers 15 free spins when appearing three ormore times, and it multipliers your triggering bet by 500x or 5 symbols, 20x for 4 symbols, 5x for 3 symbols, and 2x for 2 symbols.

When the bonus heart appears on reels 2 and 4 simultaneously, you’re taken to a second screen with gift boxes forming a pyramid. The goal is to keep choosing credit prizes and advancing up thepyramid rows by unwrapping the big red heart. Once you select a broken heart, the bonus ends and your credits are awarded.

Cupid’s Arrow’s graphics are better than Cupid and Psyche, and we also like how this game doesn’t use generic letters/numbers for any symbols. Another good point is that there are both freespins and a second screen bonus round.

The main downside is to Cupid’s Arrow is that it feels generic due to the Valentine’s Day angle. Cupid and Psyche, meanwhile, is based on a mythological tale.

But overall, Cupid’s Arrow has more depth and is a better game due to its second screen bonus and superior graphics.

Conclusion

Cupid and Psyche does the bare minimum to live up to the tale that it’s inspired by.

Cupid and Psyche are used as the two special symbols, and the background is decorated like ancient Rome. But beyond this, it’s a generic 5 reel slot machine that doesn’t differ much from otherolder games.

The one thing that we do like about this slot, though, is its bonus round. It’s exciting to accumulate the red bulls eyes in hopes of unlocking more stacked wild reels.

Another positive aspect is that new players won’t have much trouble figuring out how to play this game. The betting options are easy to use, and the payouts/bonuses aren’t overly complicated.

Unfortunately, there are a number of things that we don’t like about Cupid and Psyche. First off, this seems like it should be a low roller game, but you have to bet at least $0.40 per spin.

Another downside is that there are only four unique symbols in this slot, Cupid, Psyche, icon, harp, against six generic letters / numbers. Bally could have included a few more unique symbolsbased on the story, but they didn’t.

One more negative aspect is the graphics and animations. The graphics offer mediocre detail while there are very few animations to speak of.

Our Thoughts:

Overall, the negatives outweigh the positives with Cupid and Psyche, meaning you shouldn’t go out of your way to try this game.