Jan Slot Machine
With possibly the shortest title of any slot machine we can think of, the Jan video slot is a game that takes players on a trek through the wilderness, where they will find wooden carvings, mountains, four-wheel drive vehicles and peaches. These symbols land across 5 reels and 10 paylines to deliver the wins. It’s helped by a wild symbol that substitutes for others and even acts to trigger some free spins with special expanding symbols in play throughout them.
Those reels stand out against a mountainous background where a river runs through the center, perhaps taking us on a journey to the town that’s just about visible in the distance. Although this is a fairly plain image, it sets the scene for the adventure and contrasts with the crisp images on the reels.
A simple set of control buttons sits beneath all of this. Players can adjust their bet sizes, choose how many paylines to activate, (all 10 are recommended if you want to claim all winning combinations that appear), and open up the paytable to review how it all works.
Trekking with Jan
As the language used in the Jan online slot features a different lettering system to English, some of the lower value symbols are not familiar to players from outside of the region. However, they work in just the same way, by creating winning combinations when 3 or more of the same type stop across an active payline from the left side without a break. Three of these, including the 10 symbol, are worth 10x, 50x and 200x the line stake when landing on 3, 4, or 5 reels, while the other 2 symbols pay up to 300x.
We can move on to the higher-paying picture symbols now, starting with an old four-wheel drive car that we think is a Lada, and which pays out 10x the line stake just for rumbling onto reels 1 and 2. A full line of 5 cars will be worth 1,500x, while the wooden carvings return the same wins when they stop across an active line.
Peaches may not be relevant to the theme, but these pay out some juicy wins, so who minds? You claim 10x the line stake when they land on the first 2 reels, but the rewards for full lines are a peachy 4,000x. The top prizes however, are collected when the symbol of a mountain appears, with prizes of between 20x and a peak win of 10,000x the line stake.
Wild Symbol Features
The wild symbol is another valuable icon and in more ways than one. It’s the word ‘Toto’ written against a yellow and red background. We initially wondered if it was referring to Dorothy’s dog from The Wizard of Oz, or the American prog rock band, but whatever it means, it can lead to some great prizes.
Payouts from this symbol vary from 40x to 4,000x the line bet, but because it’s able to act as any other, if you see it filling in any gaps in a continuous run of another symbol, you will still win a prize. It’s also able to stretch winning lines further across to the right side of the game, which will result in higher-value payouts.
Once you have collected rewards from the wild, you are treated to 10 free spins. Before these start, a symbol gets randomly selected by the game to become an expanding symbol that will stretch across all 3 places on any reel it lands on. It won’t need to be in any particular places, won’t need to land on consecutive reels and will pay out on all lines that have been activated.
It’s only going to expand if a win-line can then be completed, so don’t be surprised if this special symbol appears and doesn’t stretch out, as it just means that it’s not able to complete a combination.
Guess a card Color
If you land a winning line the Gamble button will start to flash, and a click will open up a side game where you need to correctly time a click on the red or black buttons while a playing card flashes between the 2 colors. If you have timed it right, you double the value of the initial prize and can either collect the win or can try to double it again.
It’s a 50/50 gamble that can turn a small win into a huge prize, although a wrong choice at any point loses the round along with the original win.
Other Slots in the Wilderness
Among the multitude of Western themed online slot machines, we have such classics as Pistoleras, from Microgaming and the mountainous backdrop features prominently in Genesis Gaming’s Arizona Treasure game.
Pistoleras sees some beautiful Western belles in the saloon, who pay out some of the top prizes when they stop across any of the 25 paylines, plus we see several bonus symbols that trigger extra rounds. A coach will pay up to 25,000 coins and take you for a ride along to free spins where any winnings are tripled in value, while a bag of cash opens up to reveal instant wins. In the Saloon Bonus feature, you get to fire at targets to find the Pistoleras hiding behind them. Any 3 matching ladies will be worth some big rewards.
The Arizona Treasure slot game is set in a similar landscape to Jan, but instead of a hike through the wilderness, players have grizzled cowboys, a steam train, bottles of bourbon and white horses to contend with. There’s a unique Showdown free spins feature where players pick 1 of 2 wild symbols. If their chosen wild appears more often in the feature, the free games are retriggered, over and over. If the correct wild is picked each time this can go to a maximum of 350 free games.
Do we like Jan?
We’re not sure who or what ‘Jan’ is, but we really like him, her, or it, as the rewards from taking these wilderness themed reels for a spin can be fairly substantial. It’s a mobile optimized game that can be played on Windows or Android powered devices, as well as iPhones, iPads and desktop PC’s. The control buttons get shifted around a bit when you are on a smartphone and some of the background detail is lost.
It’s not a big issue however, as the gameplay is unaffected, and you can still win just as much from the game across any device.
While standards winnings can be worth up to 10,000x the line bet, this perfect combination is going to be pretty rare. That valuable wild symbol completes extra winning lines for you and then launches the main bonus feature. It’s up to the game software to randomly decide which symbol will become an expanding icon. You’ll be hoping for a high value mountain or the peaches to be chosen, but no matter which is selected, you should be able to collect a few wins before the free games are done.
You can practice on free Jan video slots, or place real wagers from just 0.10 per spin, raising the stakes to suit your bankroll in this rewarding game.
