Play Fortune Castle for Free

The Skywind Group is one of the newer casino software developers on the market. Skywind may have only been operating since 2012 but they already have an impressive back catalog of online slots in their arsenal.

While many of the latest releases from Skywind have been Oriental-themed, the occasional game does emerge with a unique theme. The free Fortune Castle slot machine is one of Skywind's few Medieval slots, and one of the only ones that features a Win Both Ways function.

Fortune Castle is played on a set of 3x5 reels and allows the player to bet five paylines. In reality, there are 10 paylines as wins are awarded both left to right and right to left.

Coins in the game start at just 0.01 but the max coin of 60.00 gives the high limit gamblers something to cheer about. As in most Skywind slots, you can set an Autoplay button to run games automatically without hitting the Spin button. The Turbo mode also allows for faster gameplay.

While there are possibilities in Fortune Castle to introduce players to a raft of medieval characters, in reality we only find two on the reels: the king and queen. They are the top paying symbols and will award real cash prizes worth up to 800x the line bet.

In fact, for ALL symbols in the game you merely have to match two symbols on a payline L-R or R-L in order to win.

The king and queen both pay 5x line bet if you match two of either one on a win line. The horse icon pays 3x for two of a kind but as much as 250x for the five-of-a-kind jackpot.

Then come the low limit symbols. The Ace pays 2-200x and the King 2-150x. The Queen pays 2-100x, while the Jack pays the worst prizes of 2-50x.

There's quite a wide spread in the range of payouts overall in Fortune Castle, and even though paylines run both ways we found most of our regular wins came from hitting three of a kind.

Look out for the golden palace icon in the game. It acts wild and will substitute for the top-paying king and queen symbols only. If you are lucky enough to land a wild, you'll earn a pretty handsome reward: two wilds pay 25x the line bet, while three wilds pays 100x. Four wilds on a single win line earns you a 500x payout, and five wilds a mammoth 8,000x jackpot.

If you enjoy slots with pick 'em bonus rounds, Fortune Castle is definitely the game for you. Three or more bejeweled rings will set off the bonus.

There are three to look out for: the ruby ring, the sapphire ring, and the green emerald ring. However, it's worth noting that you will have to hit three or more IDENTICAL rings in order to activate the feature.

The bonus game takes you to a second screen featuring eight caskets. Hidden within are various cash prizes - simply select three caskets to reveal a prize. At the end of the round you bank the total cash revealed.

However, you will also earn a multiplier on top of your win that differs depending on how many scatters you triggered the round with. Three scatters will earn you a 1x multiplier, four scatters a 3x multiplier, and five scatters a 10x multiplier.

The best online slots in the world might not always feature a win-both-ways function. But some of the most popular internet slots certainly do.

NetEnt's smash hit slot, Starburst, certainly falls into that category. This simple game has been copied a dozen times but remains one of the discerning gambler's favorites.

Played on a standard set of 3x5 reels, Starburst makes full use of the win both ways format with lots of stacked reels. There are 10 paylines in total (five running left to right and five running the other way). But special 'Starburst Wilds' help bump up the regular wins.

If the wild appears on reel 2, 3, or 4, it will expand over the whole reel and activate a respin. The expanded wild will also hold in place. It's possible to get three consecutive respins with multiple stacked wilds in play.

There are plenty of win both ways slots available to play online. They offer the gambler a good way of covering a lot of options, and you don't always have to play dozens of paylines.

Fortune Castle isn't the best example we have found. However, it has a generous bonus feature that we managed to trigger a few times when testing the game. For high volatility gaming, it's really hard to beat, especially with so few paylines running. Give the game a play for free and see for yourself.