Golden Harvest Slot
It could be time to gather in some nice wins as the farming-inspired symbols of the Golden Harvest video slot land across the reels, awarding wild symbol multipliers, bonus spins and even the chance to land a progressive jackpot.
Like most slot games from GamingSoft, there’s a definite Oriental influence to the design, where we see a farmgirl in a traditional straw hat and lucky koi, lotus blossoms and playing card symbols. Another GamingSoft signature is the nicely presented background image and again, this has the steep mountains that are such a well-known landmark of the region towering up behind the reels. Little ears of corn and wheat are dotted around the place, even extending to the control buttons, which are set in a wood-effect backing, draped with ivy.
Falling leaves complete the picture, drifting across the 5 reels, where instead of paylines, there’s a 243 ways pays system, which means that any time 3 or more of the same symbol lands on adjacent reels from the left side, you get a win, without any need for them to be in a defined path.
Reaping the Golden Harvest
This 243 ways to win format also means that there is no way to activate just a line or so to play for very low stakes, with the low limit wager being set at 1.00. Free Golden Harvest video slots are provided, but clearly, there’s no real cash wins possible in this mode.
High-paying symbols are unique to the game, and the farm worker returns the best prizes when she’s across the reels, paying out 200 coins for lines of 3, 400 when she’s on 4 connected reels and a massive reward of 4,000 cons is yours when she appears on all 5 reels. The flowers, a beautiful bird, a scarecrow and the fish are all worth some more high-value prizes, while smaller wins come from the classic playing card icons.
These colourful symbols are decorated with flowers, corn and so on, and return wins ranging from 400 coins when the 9 is right across the game, to 800 when the A appears. A golden grain of wheat is the wild symbol, and although it isn’t worth anything on its own, it will act as the high-card or picture symbols above to help complete combinations.
Fields of Scattered Wheat
A nice view of rolling fields, with wheat growing in them is a scatter symbol and when this turns up in any 3 places, 10 free spins are awarded, while 4 scatters at once triggers 15 spins and the top bonus of 20 free games begins when any 5 or more scatters land.
During this round, the wild symbol takes on some special qualities, as whenever it participates in a winning combination, the base value of the prize will be randomly multiplied by either 3x, 5x or 8x. The bonus spin can’t be retriggered, so once completed, the game will cash out any accumulated prizes and return to the base round.
Jackpot Features to Gather In
Above the reels, you will notice 4 progressive jackpots, with the Mini, Minor, Major and Grand prizes slowly increasing in value as a percentage of all wagers across the GamingSoft range is put aside. If the symbol of a river and mountains appears on reels 1, 2, or 3 in any places, the jackpot side-game is launched and players will see 12 golden peaches hanging from a tree, or in a basket.
Each time a peach is clicked on, one of the jackpots will be revealed, and once 3 of the same have been found, the respective prize is claimed. The amount won ranges from just 10% of the jackpot at the lowest bet levels, to 100% for players at the maximum stakes.
Planting the Seeds of Farm-Based Slots
Farming is a surprisingly popular theme for online slot machines to follow, although we can’t think of any more that plough quite the same furrow as the Golden Harvest video slot. If you have a particular fondness for farming, then how about spinning the reels of Farm of Fun by Spinomenal, where a scarecrow triggers free spins with multipliers, or you could try Money Farm, from GameArt, which has cartoon animals awarding free spins and wild substitutions.
A Better Life in the Countryside?
The Golden Harvest video slot has some golden opportunities to spin up wins, especially as it has the 243 ways to win system in effect, which makes it relatively easy to land matching symbols across the game.
Of course, this is helped by the wild symbol and players will be reaping the benefits when this shiny icon appears, especially in the free spins round when multipliers are applied to any wins in which it’s featured.
As usual with GamingSoft slot machines, the way the progressive jackpot is divided up based on the amount staked seems a bit unfair and encourages players to use higher bets. But even a small percentage of the Major or Grand jackpots can be pretty substantial, and any progressive prize is very welcome, so just use stakes that you are comfortable with and this should be an enjoyable slot to play.
