Mystery Date Slot
You might think that in today’s age, there wouldn’t be a lot of love for a board game that asks young girls to put together a matching outfit in order to be ready for a big date. But that hasn’t stopped Mystery Date from remaining one of the most beloved board games of its era. First released in 1965 by Milton Bradley, this simple game of luck and probability was created by Marvin Glass and has been popular throughout several rereleases, dating all the way up through the 21st century.
The game is more than just a relic of the past, however: it is a well-known piece of 1960s culture that is instantly recognizable to this day. With such a pedigree, it’s perhaps not so surprising that Aristocrat would go that far back to create a slot machine based on it. First shown off at the 2016 G2E trade show, this is a machine that truly captures the aesthetics of the original game, while offering enough modern gameplay features to keep slots aficionados interested.
Open the Door
Mystery Date is a five-reel, 50-line slot machine that uses an expanded 5x5 layout. The color scheme is perfect for a title that’s supposed to be lifted straight from the 1960s: lots of pastel colors and cute little visual touches like stars in the background. That’s not to say that it is an ugly or dated machine at all, however: the game is a video slot using a modern Aristocrat cabinet, of course, so the graphics are as sharp and easy on the eyes as anything else you’ll find on the casino floor today.
The object of the game is to match symbols from left to right across the reels. The basic icons are the ones you’ll find on so many other machines: the card rank symbols, starting from jacks and working their way up through aces. For bigger wins, you’ll want to match what appear to be various gifts your date might bring you: teddy bears, flowers, heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, and rings, for instance.
Avoid the Dud
Given the premise, the designers would have been making a major mistake if they didn’t include a bonus feature where you could traverse the board yourself. Sure enough, the Mystery Date Bonus allows you to do just that, moving around the track until you land on one of many potential prizes. There are instant credits, as well as the potential to win any of four progressive jackpots.
It’s also possible to land on a corner, where you’ll instantly win up to 8 free games. The main door will open, bringing you to one of the fabulous dates that were at the heart of this classic, such as a beach party. Your appropriate outfit will become an expanded symbol on the new set of reels, and the boy of your dreams will act not only as a wild, but also one that can turn a random symbol into wilds as well wherever they appear on the screen. These special appearances will also extend the reels, making the game have a 7x5 layout with 100 lines to win on.
Unboxing a Classic
Mystery Date may not have been everyone’s idea of a great time, but it was a classic all the same, one that has remained part of America’s cultural consciousness for over 50 years now. And while not everyone has memories of playing this game – for instance, it wasn’t exactly a title that was marketed towards young boys – there’s definitely a big built-in fan base for this machine.
We think that this will be enough to get people to try the machine. The real question is: can it manage to keep people playing time and time again? While there aren’t a ton of special features on this slot, we think that the ones that do appear should be sufficient to keep players interested. The special feature where you travel around the board is a lot of fun, and is connected to a potentially lucrative free spins feature as well, which is an added bonus.
The result is a game that is a solid addition to any casino floor. It may not be an instant classic, but like its namesake, we think that Mystery Date will provide plenty of fun memories for those who play it, especially if it helps bring back the nostalgia of opening that door to meet your date as a child.
