DaVinci Diamonds Slot Machines – IGT Leonardo Da Vinci Slots Online

Leonardo da Vinci really had nothing to do with diamonds and gemstones but there is a connection to da Vinci (other than his name) in the name of this slot game.

In 2006 Israeli diamond designer Bobak Nasrollahi Moghadam was inspired by da Vinci’s illustrations for Luca Pacioli’s De divina proportione, a book on mathematics that Pacioli wrote at the end of the 15th century and published in the early 16th century.

The book was divided into three sections. The first section devoted 71 chapters to discussing applications of the Golden Ratio to the arts (and some related topics).

The Golden Ratio is a famous mathematical concept that is easily demonstrated. You take a line and divide it into two parts of unequal length. The longer part, call that a, is equal to about 61.8% of the total line’s length and the shorter part, call that b, is equal to about 38.2% of the whole line’s length.

And so why do they call this equation the Golden Ratio? Because when you divide the length of the entire line (a+b) by a you produce the same result as when you divide a by b: approximately 1.618. The rectangle that is formed by sides a+b and a is considered by many artists (including da Vinci himself) to form the perfect shape in which to frame the objects of their attention.

Another interesting fact about the Golden Ratio is that it is an irrational number which cannot be translated into a simple fraction. You will most often see it denoted as a+b over a or a over b. And like the number Pi, the Golden Ratio has an endless trail of decimal digits that do not form any recognizable repeating pattern.

Moghadam introduced the Da Vinci Cut diamond to the world later that year, and in 2007 International Gaming Technology (IGT) released their famous slot machine game Davinci Diamonds.

Da Vinci himself is regarded to have been a polymath of the Renaissance period. A polymath is someone with considerable expertise in multiple topics. Leonardo da Vinci, the son of a peasant girl and an Italian notary, was a master of art, engineering, mathematics, science, music, and many other topics.

The Davinci Diamonds slot game combines images of paintings by the artist and gemstones in a brilliant color-coordinated scheme. The game also introduced IGT’s Tumbling Reelstm feature, in which winning combinations of tiles are removed from the screen and replaced by other tiles that fall down onto the remaining tiles, pushing intervening tiles down. The tumbling feature has also been called avalanche and cascading tiles by other game designers.

It would have been perfect had they designed the screen to match the dimensions of the Golden Ratio but they didn’t go that far. Nor does the Davinci Diamonds logo match the exquisite and intricate faceted surface of a true Da Vinci cut Diamond, but the game is still a nice tribute to the old polymath and his admirers in the jewelry industry.

Davinci Diamonds is a 5-reel, 3-row video slot game that pays all prizes from left to right on 20 selectable pay lines. The theoretical return to the player is 94.94%, which means that if you make wagers of the same amount every time you click the Spin button and play for a long time you should be able to walk away with almost 95% of your original stake. Of course, getting to that theoretical point may take you close to 0 and could take up to the maximum number of credits. Every spin produces a random, unpredictable result and there is no mechanism in the game for paying more because of how much you have lost or paying less because of how much you have won. You are equally likely to win a random jackpot on each of five consecutive spins even if you win jackpots on the first four. In practice this is highly unlikely to happen.

All the symbols that contribute to winning combinations vanish from the screen. Any symbols that were sitting above them on the screen fall down into their rows to take their places. New symbols drop down to fill the gaps in the top row. This process continues until no more winning combinations are formed. Although the game rules say this can happen continuously it would be rare for more than two or three tumbles to occur.

Any malfunction voids the game and you will not be paid for that prize. The game should keep a record of your last available credits balance if there is indeed a malfunction. You may have to contact the casino to get a refund.

Prizes are paid in credits per winning combination times bet per line.

All winning combinations are combined to award you a total prize but don’t look for the screen to fill up with fifteen Davinci Diamond logos on every spin. It could happen but it’s very unlikely.

The game has nine symbols. There are two special symbols, a Wild and a Bonus symbol.

The Wild symbol substitutes for all other symbols except the Bonus symbol.

The Bonus symbol only appears on reels 1, 2, and 3. You must get a winning combination of 3 in a row on a played line.

You won’t always win a prize even if you see five of the same symbol on the screen.

You win 6 free spins, not including tumbles for winning combinations. You may win additional free spins during the bonus game. The cool thing about the additional free spins is that the Bonus symbol can now appear on all five reels.

If you get 5 Bonus symbols you win any of 6, 8, 10, 12, or 15 additional spins (the amount is randomly determined).

If you get 4 Bonus symbols you win any of 4, 6, 8, or 10 additional spins.

If you get 3 Bonus symbols you win any of 2, 3, or 4 additional spins.

You can win a maximum of 300 free spins, which is really a lot of spins. The free spins game uses a different set of reels from the regular game but you do still benefit from the Tumbling Reels feature. In a best-case (but highly unlikely) scenario you could get up to 1,000 winning combinations or more in a very good free spins bonus.

The remaining symbols are usually divided into high value and low value symbols based on their maximum prizes. The game distinguishes between the two categories via tile design and the way they vanish from the screen when they form winning combinations.

The four high value symbols are the game logo, the Mona Lisa, the Portrait of a Musician, and the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani (Lady with an Ermine, although you cannot see it in the portion used by the game).

The game logo pays a maximum of 5000 credits time bet per line for five of a kind, 500 credits time bet per line for four of a kind, and 100 credits time bet per line for three of a kind.

Art history buffs may know that the Mona Lisa (aka Monna Lisa in Italian) is believed to depict Monna (madam or lady) Lisa Gherardini, wife of Italian nobleman Francesco del Giocondo. The painting is also known in Italian as La Gioconda and in French as La Joconde, both meaning “the happy (jocund or jovial) one”. Hence, the alternate names for the painting are puns on Lady Giocondo’s married name. According to a note written by one of Leonardo’s friends, Agostino Vespucci, Leonardo began painting the masterpiece in 1503 but he never delivered it. He probably finished the work during his last three years when he was living in France and eventually passed it to his student and companion Salai, who kept the painting until his own death.

The Mona Lisa symbol pays a maximum of 1000 credits time bet per line for five of a kind. Lower prizes are 200 times bet per line for four of a kind and 50 times bet per line for three of a kind.

Leonardo painted the Portrait of a Musician sometime around 1490. Scholars disagree on who the man is, although many now accept it was probably Franchino Gaffurio. The Musician pays a maximum of 500 credits times bet per line for five of a kind, 80 times bet per line for four of a kind, and 30 times bet per line for three of a kind.

Lady with an Ermine is also from the period of 1489 to 1490. She was at the time the mistress of Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza. History does not record the ermine’s name. Cecilia pays 300 times bet per line for five of a kind, 60 times bet per kind for four of a kind, and 20 times bet per line for three of a kind.

The remaining symbols in the game are a Ruby, Emerald, and Topaz (the diamond is in the game logo). These prizes top out at 100, 100, and 80 credits times bet per line for five of a kind respectively.

The game controls are standardized across IGT’s slot machine games. When you master one you can pretty much play them all. The button to bring up the pay table is in the upper right corner and says “Pays”. Click on that and a new screen loads. You can navigate through several screens by clicking on the right and left arrows at the bottom.

The game screen is lined on both sides by ten colorful jewel emblems. These denote the 20 pay lines. When a winning combination appears in the playing area a line of the same color connects from that jewel on the side to the symbols that form the combination. The symbols are outlined in the color of the line.

An information window just below the playing area displays messages from the game such as “Good Luck” and how much you just won on your last spin or “Play Again”.

There are two information windows below that one. The window on the left displays your total win so you see this number in two places. It’s not a separate prize but the same prize as reported in the window above.

The longer marquis window to the right of the WIN box displays random tips that explain the game.

The bottom most panel contains a row of widgets for controlling various game functions. The Lines box is redundant since you cannot change how many pay lines are active. This is a holdover from older game designs where you could change the number of active pay lines.

The Line Bet widget is the one that controls how much you wager on each game (spin). Use the left and right arrows (marked with a hyphen and plus character respectively) to select a value from the range of 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20, 25, and 30. Do the math before you click Spin or look at the Total Bet window between the Line Bet widget and the Spin button. You could be betting $600 per spin. That could wipe you out on one spin. The game will only allow you to bet as much money as you have available in your account.

The round Spin button only does that: initiates one game.

To the right of the Spin button is another “Win” display box. This is another redundant display which shows you the total win amount from your last game played.

The Balance display box tells you how much money you have left in your account.

Click on the Auto Spin button to bring up a micro menu with options 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50. The game will play however many spins you select, automatically deducting the amount of the current wager from your balance at the beginning of each spin. The game stops the auto spins if you leave the game, interrupt the Auto Spins, or run out of money to wager at the current bet per line setting.

The Wrench icon on the far right brings up an “Options” box where you can change the quality of the graphics display.

Davinci Diamonds was one of IGT’s most popular games for several years and it remains popular despite the advent of more sophisticated game design concepts including 3-D and interactive graphics animations. The in-tile animations were very cool for their times. The high value symbols sparkle or glow and then twirl before vanishing as if they were sucked into another dimension. The low value symbols sparkle and then shatter to make way for new tiles.

The game has broad appeal to people who like to make high stakes wagers because the difference between the maximum prizes and the lower-paying prizes is very alluring.