The Australian developer, Big Time Gaming, is perhaps most famous for their Megaways engine, and it comes to good use in this Chinese New Year release as well. Gifts of Fortune will hardly be seen as a seasonal release in the West, and it’s based around the Red Envelope cash gift concept that’s so popular in the far East. These red envelope cash gifts are used for pretty much any occasion though, and not only for the Holiday season.
Basically, you need Red Envelope/Packet Wilds on the top reel to collect Fortune Cash Prizes that are revealed from Reaction wins. The collected prize is then boosted by a random multiplier up to x10 in the base game. The multiplier increases per red packet wild in view in both bonus round tiers, and the Enhanced version gives you at least one red packet wild per spin. The13,960x potentialis above average, and this is a pretty solid game if you don’t mind the asian theme.
The premium symbols pay between 1 and 50 x your stake for 6 of a kind wins, and winning symbols are removed via theReactions mechanic. New and/or existing symbols drop down to fill the gaps, and this repeats as long as you keep winning. The Reaction mechanic is also key to the prize collection feature this game is built around.
When winning symbols are removed via the Reactions mechanic, at least 1Fortune Prizewill come into view.Red Envelope/Packet Wildsappear on the top horizontal reel only, and each Wild in view collects all present fortune prizes onto themselves.
The Wild Red Packet is also a wild symbol that steps in for pay symbols to help complete wins. The Fortune Prizes end up in theTreasure Potafter being collected by a wild, and arandom multiplier up to x10will then be applied to the total prize win.
You trigger theBonus Roundfrom3+ scattersin view, and this gives you10 free spinsplus2 additional spins per additional triggering scatter. You get theEnhanced Bonus Roundif one of the triggering scatters is aMegascatter. The Enhanced Bonus Round comes with aguarantee of at least one Red Packet Wild per spin.
TheTreasure Pot Multiplierstarts at x1 for the bonus round, and it increases by+1 per Red Packet Wildyou land. The multiplier will only boost Fortune Prizes, however, and you win+4 extra spinswhen3 scattersappear in the same Reaction sequence. You also get+2 spinson top of thatper every additional scatterabove the minimum of 3.
In certain jurisdictions you can benefit from theWin Exchange feature. If you land a win of at least80x your stake, you can exchange 80x your stake to get10 free spins. Winbetween 25 and 80x your stake, and youcan gamble to win 10 free spinson a wheel. Non-UK players can alsobuy the bonus roundfor70x the stake, or pay200x the stakefor the Enhanced version.
You get a relatively brief glimpse of the base game, before we purchase the Enhanced Bonus Round at 0:40 into the 3:50-minute highlights video. You can see for yourself how our 10 free spins played out by hitting the play button below.
We like how the red envelope/packet concept has been seamlessly integrated into the gameplay. That being said, most westerners will probably just see yet another asian-themed slot unless they read up on the Chinese tradition in this review. The feature gives you a similar thrill that we can imagine receiving such a money gift does in real life, and it triggers on a regular basis also in the base game.
The pace could have been better though, for example by allowing double clicks to speed things up or including a regular turbo mode. The increasing fortune prize multiplier takes everything up a notch in the bonus round, and not least when you’re guaranteed a multiplier increasing packet per spin in the enhanced version. The13,960x potentialis above average for the Megaways engine, and this is a pretty solid installment that may be held back by the oriental theme.
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