Dolphin Treasure Slot Machine

Last Updated
November 17, 2022 6:14 pm PST

Affiliate Disclosure

Aristocrat Leisure Limited has been designing slot machine games since the 1950s so you don’t really expect to see a lot of the older games in their online inventory. But one game that made thecut is Dolphin Treasure, which was originally released to land-based casinos in the company’s MKV Series 1 cabinet.

At the time a 5 reel video slot game would still be considered a novelty. The three reel mechanical arm machines were still dominating the casino market. Anything that wasn’t branded “DoubleSomething” was relegated to the back rows of the casino with the 25 cent machines.

There were two variations of the Dolphin Treasure game, one featuring 20 pay lines and one featuring 9 pay lines. These boxes accepted real coins.

Aristocrat released the online version of the game at the end of November 2011, which makes it one of the earliest titles the company introduced to its online markets. The game’s long appeal toslot players is surprising in some ways but people would probably play a 2-toed sloth machine if they thought it paid a lot of money. A dolphin-themed slot game at least evokes memories ofsummer days spent at the beach.

Of course, 1996 was the year that the unremarkable movie “Flipper” came out. Starring Paul “Crocodile Dundee” Hogan and a then not-so-well-known Elijah wood, the movie grossed about $20 millionat the box office and fortunately spawned no sequels. The movie was no doubt inspired by the television show starring Jessica Alba, which began in 1995 and ended in 1997. Of course, DolphinTreasure bears no resemblance to either the movie or the show whatsoever. It’s just a dolphin-themed slot game.

The animations would have been state-of-the-art for 1996 and the music would have been a nice alternative to the crunch, grind, ka-ching, ding-ding-ding cacophony that flooded the airs in mostcasinos of the day (at least where slot machines made up the majority of the games). Gaming regulations were not quite as player-friendly then as they are now, and it is possible that DolphinTreasure held back a little bit more money than the online game does now. But competition also plays into the field. The gaming market has heated up since 1996 with more companies jumping intothe industry to get a slice of the growing pie.

Given the stampede of three reel, 7 and bar, stars and stripes, bells and whistles slot games that dominated the market in 1996 Dolphin Treasure was probably like a breath of fresh sea air toanyone who happened to wander by it. It would have stood out from the field just for daring to break away from all the clacky, clattery noise of traditional three-armed bandits.

The rest of this article reviews the online version of the slot game.

Rules of Dolphin Treasure Slot Game

Aristocrat’s Dolphin Treasure is a 5 reel, 3 row video slot game using 20 pay lines. All prizes are paid from left to right and in multiples of Bet Per Line except for Scatters, which pay fromany position and in multiples of Total Bet. Only the highest possible win for any active pay line combination is paid per line. All prizes are added together.

Wild Symbol

The Dolphin Sunset is the game’s Wild symbol, substituting for all other symbols except the Scatter. All winning combinations containing one or more Dolphin Sunset symbols pay double the normalprize, except for combinations consisting only of the Dolphin Sunset. The Wild symbol pays 9000 times Bet Per Line for 5 of a kind, 2000 times Bet Per Line for 4 of a kind, 200 times Bet Per Linefor 3 of a kind, and 10 times Bet Per Line for 2 of a Kind. When this symbol contributes to a winning prize a dolphin leaps out of the water.

Scatter Symbol

The Treasure Chest is the game’s Scatter symbol. When three or more Treasure Chests appear in any position on the playing reels they trigger the Free Spins bonus game, which is described below.The Scatter symbol pays 400 times Total Bet for 5 of a kind, 20 times Total Bet for 4 of a kind, 5 times Total Bet for 3 of a kind, and 2 times Total Bet for 2 of a kind. The Treasure Chestbursts open when it pays a prize.

Other Symbols in Dolphin Treasure Slot Game

The Sea Turtle and the Sea Horse are the game’s highest paying normal symbols. They both pay 750 times Bet Per Line for 5 of a kind, 100 times Bet Per Line for 4 of a kind, 25 times Bet Per Linefor 3 of a kind, and 2 times Bet Per Line for 2 of a kind.

The Starfish symbol
pays 400 times Bet Per Line for 5 of a kind, 100 times Bet Per Line for 4 of a kind, and 15 times Bet Per Line for 3 of a kind.
The Octopus symbol
and the School of Fish symbol pay 250 times Bet Per Line for 5 of a kind, 75 times Bet Per Line for 4 of a kind, and 10 times Bet Per Line for 3 of a kind.

The remaining symbols in the game are the standard Ace through 9 playing card symbols you find in many slot games.

The Ace
is a red “A” with a green gemstone. This symbol pays 125 times Bet Per Line for 5 of a kind, 50 times Bet Per Line for 4 of a kind, and 10 times Bet Per Line for 3 of a kind.
The King
is an orange “K” with a large golden crown. This symbol pays 100 times Bet Per Line for 5 of a kind, 50 times Bet Per Line for 4 of a kind, and 5 times Bet Per Line for 3 of a kind.
The Queen
is a yellow “Q” with a slim red and gold crown. This symbol pays 100 times Bet Per Line for 5 of a kind, 25 times Bet Per Line for 4 of a kind, and 5 times Bet Per Line for 3 of a kind.
The Jack
is a blue “J” bearing a red and gold shield. This symbol pays 100 times Bet Per Line for 5 of a kind, 25 time Bet Per line for 4 of a kind, and 5 times Bet Per Line for 3 of a kind.
The red “10”
pays 100 times Bet Per Line for 5 of a kind, 25 times Bet Per Line for 4 of a kind, and 5 times Bet Per Line for 3 of a kind.
The green “9”
pays 100 times Bet Per Line for 5 of a kind, 25 times Bet Per Line for 4 of a kind, 5 times Bet Per Line for 3 of a kind, and 2 times Bet Per Line for 2 of a kind.

How to Play Dolphin Treasure Slot Game

A transparent message marquee is positioned above the playing reels area. The game summarizes line wins here and provides other incidental messages.

There are 10 colored, numbered tabs lining each side of the playing reels area. These tabs indicate which pay lines are active when they are bright and which pay lines are inactive when they aredim. The tabs also anchor colored dotted lines that highlight the winning combinations when prizes are paid and the tabs flash in conjunction with the highlight lines.

There are five control and information widget positioned below the playing reels area. From left to right they are Lines, Bet Per Line, Total Bet, Win, and Play.

The Lines widget uses a green Minus button and a green Plus button to scroll up or down through the number of active pay lines. Selecting 10, for example, will activate pay lines 1 through 10 andeactivate pay lines 11 through 20.

The Bet Per Line widget uses a similar set of green Minus and Plus buttons to adjust the per line coin value. The possible values are 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 is informational only. It displays the total of active Lines times Bet Per Line.

The Win widget is informational only and it displays the total amount won on the last spin, if any prizes were won.

The green Play button initiates one paid spin but the attached “Auto” widget allows you to set up automatic spins. Use the Minus and Plus buttons to set the number of spins you want the game toplay automatically for you and then click on “Play”. The amount of the Total Bet is deducted from your balance for each spin. You cannot adjust Lines and Bet Per Line while the game is in automode.

The auto spinning stops when you close the game window, click the orange “Stop” button, win a Free Spins bonus, or your available balance drops below the amount of the Total Bet. The widgetcounts down the number of automatic spins remaining.

A utility bar below the screen displays your current available balance on the left and two buttons on the far right. The Gear button activates a short menu dialog in which you can disable themusic and the sound effects or toggle using the space bar as a spin button.

The question mark button brings up the pay table screens, which you navigate by clicking on the screen names at the top. Click on the yellow “ok” button at the bottom of any screen to return tothe game.

How the Dolphin Treasure Bonus Game Works

When three or more Scatter (Treasure Chest) symbols appear anywhere on the screen, the Free Spins bonus game is triggered. You win 15 free games and it is possible to win 15 more during the freespins.

All prizes are tripled during the Free Spins games.

Conclusion

There are a few things that set this game apart, one being its utter simplicity which is not surprising given how old the game is. The Free Spin game is so basic as to be almost not worth thetrouble of describing. However, the triple prize bonus makes up for a lot as does the multiple times Total Bet. At 50 cents Bet Per Line you would have to win four Sea Turtles or Seahorses toequal a three Scatter win.

The soundtrack consists of an ever-repeating electronic instrumental piece that sounds like “aquarium music”. If it doesn’t put you to sleep you can toggle it off via the gear control atthe bottom of the screen. What is amazing is that a game this old actually features a full soundtrack.

The original game came with Aristocrat’s “Gamble” feature but the online version of the game lacks that. While “Gamble” features are usually just quick ways for casinos to increase their profitsthey do make games more interesting. If you’re having a good session why not try to make it a little better by occasionally betting on what the playing card will be?

The background screen is a somnolent deep sea blue. It could almost be a cell from an old Disney film, and one expect a crotchety old man to come swimming by at any more.

Fans of Flipper who hope to swim with the King of the Sea will be disappointed, though, in that there isn’t much animation action going on. The tiles are drawn in sophisticated cartoon style.They could be used in a Disneyesque flick or they could be used as illustrations in a children’s book about sea creatures. Nor are there are any pretty girls, which is a rarity in video slotsnow. Someone did some market research after this game was designed and the industry moved away from benign, unemotional relaxing slot games.

The synthetic sound effects are standard for the era but they really lead one to ask if the online versions of old games cannot be upgraded in some ways. Instead Aristocrat opted to limit thequality on this one.

The theoretical return to player is 94.88%, which is about average for an Aristocrat game. When playing modest bets you should be able to keep the reels spinning for a good long time. This is infact classified a low variance game by most reviewers because the prizes are not extravagant and you can usually win something within a few spins. But if you want to roll up your stake lowvariance games require a lot of patience.

Our Thoughts:

Play this game for the novelty of the experience but don’t be surprised if you find yourself thinking about the latest pop video games instead. A good update to Dolphin Treasure would bring inthe Incredible Mr. Limpet to solve a mystery, or feature some video clips of bikini-clad women swimming with the kings of the sea. In that respect, maybe you are lucky to have this game to fallback on.