Fortune Pays Slot Machine
If the wild cat on Fortune Pays who dominates all the visuals, seems familiar, it’s likely because he appears to be a design amalgamation between the crazy Astro Cat slot and the older, but still very popular Fortune 8 Cat slot character. The same could largely be said for Fortune Pays as a game too, it shares the modern visuals and animations with Astro Cat but, thanks to a fixed pay-line format, plays like the more traditional Fortune game.
None of this explains the cat preference of Lightning Box Games, although when you do some research, the cat is actually the perfect slot companion for this provider. In Japan there is a famous expression known as the Maneki Neko. Directly translated to English – the ‘good fortune’ cat, hence all the Cat / Fortune games LBG have in their range, clearly a well cultured gambler or two on the design team!
This in depth knowledge is shown off in their slots in the form of Easter Eggs, for instance on the Fortune Pays slot the cat waves his hand and gives forth gold coins when he completes a win as the wild symbol. In Japan – the cat figurines are often programmed to wave hands at customers in stores as there is a legend that a cat waved a paw at a Japanese landlord, who was intrigued by this gesture and went towards it. A few seconds later a lightning bolt struck where the landlord had been previously standing.
Lightning & fortune cats / I think we can all figure out where these themes are coming from now!
Theme
As usual with Lightning box games there is quite a lot going on with the theme, the main style is a classical Asian themed slot with all the music and symbols you would expect. There’s an animated dragon, delicately painted maidens, lotus flowers and the like all over the reels. The reel frame itself has a very traditional oriental wooden design and the backdrops of day and night could easily be attributed to the many beautiful jungle landscapes of south east Asia.
The audio is far from bespoke, it’s good, but it’s also pretty much in line with every Asian slot you have ever played, though some of the sound effects are novel and it’s all well produced. With the legendary Maneki Neko in play as the game wild, who stacks in the free spins round and doubles all wins everywhere in the game, it’s clear that this is a great looking slot with the gameplay to back up the visuals, the music was hardly ever supposed to be the selling point.
Gameplay & Features
Fortune pays is a fixed 50 pay-line game, unlike many of the modern ways win format slots which form the backbone of a modern slots range. Given you can’t choose the lines, all there is to select is your initial bet, which carries a decent range and makes bankroll management nice and easy. Veterans and newcomers to slots play should have no problem with the controls and despite all the intricate details this plays very well on the small screen as a mobile slot.
Whilst the Wild symbol mentioned earlier doubles all wins it forms a part of, it’s the stacked function which really adds zap to the gameplay with so many lines in play. In the free spins round the multiplier actually becomes irrelevant as part of the spins feature is a 3x multiplier on all wins! Also in the spins round, the highest pay symbol on the slot, the dragon, joins the wild as a stacked symbol, offering the tantalising prospect of full screen wins.
Summary
With only 10 free spins on offer as a bonus, despite a re-trigger and the stacked symbols, this is one of few modern games where the base game play can frequently outshine the bonus. The triple multiplier does add spice but with the low volatility of this slot, it’s highly likely to be much more played by hobby players or as a free slot than as a cash game.
That doesn’t mean you can’t hit big on Fortune Pays – a full screen win is clearly written into the game mechanics by the use of the stacked symbols, whether you do or not is all down to whether the fortune cat decides to bestow his luck upon you.
