Royal Joker Slot Machine
The joker (nothing to do with Batman) is one of the most well known symbols in casino games. It’s a trickster, used to either symbolise a win or a loss; never has an icon been able to move so many gamers simultaneously. In Royal Joker, you can bet your bottom dollar that the jester is a sign of good.
Framed inside a cartoony looking slot machine, a rather dated attempt at 3D realism, is where you’ll find the 5 reels and up to 30 paylines of this traditional game. We refer to it as traditional as the gameplay is very simplistic and basic, relying on retro images to fill the payable. Despite it being closer to the classics than many other activities out there, there are a couple of special extras to be triggered.
Players have a golden opportunity to work towards a €6,000 jackpot, and then increase the payout via a selection of lucky multiplier coins. All this, plus the whims of the winlines and combinations, makes Royal Joker a tough old school title to beat.
Rules of Play
This wouldn’t be a retro experience without a set of friendly controls to familiarise yourself with, the first of which are the minus and plus symbols (working from the left to right). These widgets control the coin value, allowing you to increase from 0.01 up to 1 coin. From there on you have the Bet Line option, which will take you through all the levels of paylines; the images of where they fall will light up as you increase the amount.
Arguably though, the most important part of the settings is the Bet One toggle, this is because it determines what level of stake you’re working with: are you using just one coin or three? By placing three on each of the lines, you end up with a wager worth €90. Talk about steep, us weak fools won’t be that brave when having a punt, we’ll stick to the base bet of €30 instead. At this point, whether the Max Bet will be of use to you will be clear, for you’ll either want to risk it all or quietly play it safe whilst someone else charges on in.
Then you spin. That’s all there is to it. Of course you can set the Autoplay rolling, but as that spins on indefinitely until you lose your money or stop it yourself, there isn’t much for us to say about the option. It does what it says on the label.
Levelling up
Due to the design and layout of Royal Joker, it feels like the paytable is levelling up – instead of showing you the value of each symbol all in one place, the images are split into three sections. These match the number of tiles needed to generate that win; basically making the paytable look fuller and more complex than what it really is. There are only eight tiles.
Out of them all, the BAR symbol is the one that brings in the money each time, regardless of whether it’s in a group of three, four or five, though obviously the latter is more impressive. Should you find three of the triple icons (three BAR tiles stacked on top of one another), you can hope to win yourself 250 credits, but get four and the total jumps to 1,000. The creme de la creme is the 6,000 coins payout, found with five of the triple BARs.
The joker himself isn’t just a logo upon a game title, he also acts as the scatter, giving users up to x10 of their bet if three of the symbols are found. Alongside him is the coin icon, multiplying your prizes when it appears; from what we’ve experienced, you seem to only need one for the feature to activate.
What a Royal Pain
Royal Joker is exactly how we thought it would be: a taxing game that gifts regular wins, but none that are big enough to break the bank. It feels like a chore to play all too soon, the entertainment value lost within mere minutes.
This is, sadly, not one of The Art of Games key titles, and so we’d suggest you move onto exploring other activities from them if you’re interested in longevity. Nonetheless, Royal Joker is a quality, albeit simple, experience.
