Black & White Slot
Classic images from China, including a cartoon panda bear can be seen across the 5-reels of the Black & White video slot from GamingSoft. With brightly coloured symbols and a couple of side games that can bring in bonus prizes or progressive jackpot awards, it’s a fun online casino game that can be played on desktop PC’s and mobile devices alike.
Mountains and bamboo forests are the natural habitat of pandas, even cartoon ones, so we have a nice landscape in view behind the reels. A tiled roof and columns surround the main part of the game, and to each side, there are red lanterns that reveal this is a 10 payline slot. But winning lines can start on either side of the reels in this win both ways format, with 3 or more of the same symbol running from the left or right in an unbroken sequence across a payline being all that’s needed to collect a coin win.
The amount won depends on the bet size, and although free Black & White video slots are available, you can play for real cash from a low limit of just 0.10 per spin. There’s an Autoplay option that means you won’t need to click each spin, although you can’t pre-set win or loss limits, so will still need to keep an eye on the bankroll, while a Fast button gets each spin over in a second or two.
Playing Black & White
There’s 8 standard symbols to create win-lines, all of which are nicely detailed. A bowl and chopsticks pays out 3x, 8x, or 20x the line bet when it stops on 3, 4, or 5 reels across a payline, and there’s a bowl filled with tasty-looking dumplings that’s worth the same. Moving up in value, we see colourful fireworks and a red fan, each of which returns wins of 5x, 15x and 40x, while the red and green hat or traditional guitar will each be worth 80x, 200x and 600x the line bet.
Another red paper lantern makes an appearance, returning wins of 100x, 500x, or 1,000x when it’s across a line, but the best wins from a standard symbol are claimed when the black and white Yin-Yang symbol lands in the right places, with prizes of 400x, 1,000x and a massive 8,000x the per line stake waiting to be collected.
The panda is a friendly creature, who helps players out as a wild symbol that substitutes for any other standard icon and completing win-lines if he lands on the right reels. Not only does he fill in any gaps, but he’s an expanding wild that fills the reel, making it easier to complete lines and showing us a fun animation where he’s balancing huge stacks of dumpling bowls. Once any wins from wild substitutions have been paid out, this symbol stays in place and all other reels spin once more for free, potentially leading to another wild symbol filling a second reel and awarding another reels re-spin.
Pick a Bun Bonus Round
The wild won’t be able to substitute for the mobile food cart bonus symbol, as this takes players to a side game when it stops on reels 2, 3 and 4 at once. This simple round prompts players to click on a bun from each of the 4 layers inside a wicker basket, with each being worth an instant bonus prize. The game continues until a bun has been selected from each layer, or a rotten one is found.
It may be a fairly straightforward bonus feature, but unless you get unlucky and the first choice is a rotten bun, there’s some guaranteed winnings to cash out.
Progressive Jackpots
GamingSoft runs a 4-level progressive jackpot feature across many of their online casino slot machines, with Mini, Minor, Major and Grand levels shown above the reels. When the picture of pandas and chillies appears on reels 2, 3 and 4 at once, spinners are taken to a second screen where they will see 10 fireworks ready to be launched.
Clicking on a firework reveals a jackpot level, and once 3 of a kind have been found, the corresponding prize is awarded. But it isn’t that simple, as in common with the other GamingSoft slots, the percentage of each jackpot paid out is directly related to the bet size that triggered the round and only high rollers at maximum stakes will get the full 100% of a prize.
The Verdict
The cartoon adventures of a panda have been covered in the movies, and it’s clear where some of the inspiration for this slot came from, but apart from the wild symbol and some bamboo behind the reels, there’s not much panda-based action in this game. Other slots, such as Fortune Panda from GameArt and Wild Panda by Aristocrat can also be played, so anyone who really likes these cute animals should give these games a look.
Black & White is still a good-looking slot nachine though, and comes with some interesting bonus features, with the expanding wild symbols and reel re-spins being quite easy to trigger. There’s no separate free spins round, although with (almost) guaranteed wins in the bun bonus game, this shouldn’t be an issue.
