Overview of a Slot Machine
Turning down your phone’s brightness is recommended before playing Little Gem, a slot machine developed by Pragmatic Play and their partners at Reel Kingdom. I don’t mean to seem critical, but when a new game arrives with Reel Kingdom’s name on it, a certain amount of fatigue usually sets in. The company has a history of creating games that are as visually gaudy as they are unconventional to play. In terms of presentation, Little Gem was a triumph, but playing through it was a tedious ordeal.
Have you ever seen a fashion show and pondered who the hell would wear the increasingly bizarre outfits the models were strutting down the catwalk in? Once the visual onslaught began, Little Gem became a different person. A blue-purple aurora borealis-like effect shimmers in the backdrop while you spin the three reels of this game. While there are plenty of visually appealing elements, such as diamonds, stars, and bright lights, there is shockingly little in the way of auditory pleasure. If you like your vintage slot machine hits to come with a thumping soundtrack, you’ll have to crank up your favorite hard house playlist to compensate for Little Gem’s lack of sound.
With a hit frequency of 1 in 20 spins, the game is unlikely to produce many opportunities to hear the brief jingle that plays whenever a winning line connects. There is a maximum payout of 2,500 coins for a winning combination of 3, and the game has 5 fixed paylines. Although there is a less desired version of Little Gem with an RTP of 95.65%, the default RTP is rather high at 96.7%, so there is some balance here. The volatility rating is in the middle of the scale (4/5) and the betting range is large, from 5 pence per spin all the way up to £/€250.
The majority of the standard pay symbols are polished stones, with a few random slot icons tossed in for good measure. X’s, hearts, orange gems, blue gems, stars, pink gems, green bar symbols, BARS, and diamonds are the pay symbols that players may expect to see, in ascending order of value. A successful line might return anything from four times to fifty times the initial wager. The wild symbol is currently used as a replacement for standard pay symbols, and it grows to fill a whole reel when it contributes to a winning combination. Diamonds have the same value as wild victories.
Holding a Tiny Jewel and Spinning a Slot Machine
Little Gem’s Hold & Win bonus game is the game’s main attraction, as the name implies. Gold and silver Money symbols are only available on the middle reel, and they pay out anything from 1x to 20x the wager if they occur there. If you see three Money symbols anywhere on the reels, you’ll enter the Hold and Respin bonus round. All other symbols will fade away save for the three Money symbols that initiated the function.
If more Money symbols appear during this respin round, they will stick in place, and the respin counter will be reset to four. Diamond Money symbols can appear on reels 1 and 3 during respin rounds. These signs are worth between 100 and 500 times the wager. When the number of remaining respins reaches 0, the feature terminates and all Money symbol values are rewarded.
Judgment on the Slot Game “Little Gem Hold & Spin”
This isn’t the first time that Reel Kingdom has released an out-of-the-ordinary slot machine, but they’ve truly topped themselves this time. One of the flashiest “look at me” games we’ve seen in a while, it’s hilarious how hollow the actual gameplay is. Because of the low hit rate and the lack of music, there may be long stretches where nothing happens on the reels. Even when symbol values aren’t terrible, a win feels like finding an oasis in the desert as it emerges from the muck. However, the maximum return is satisfactory, suggesting some sort of balance. Will people wait in line to play Little Gem only to witness an unusual attempt at balancing the books?
Debatable, and you shouldn’t play Little Gem if you’re looking for a game that’ll give you a sensory overload while bucking like a crazy bronco. Once we got used to Little Gem’s bright color palette, we found it to be rather boring. The majority of the time, nothing happened; the time it took for symbols to appear appeared to increase; and the determination to keep watching in order to catch the best parts required more and more effort. Time passes quickly while you’re having fun, so what does it mean when it seems to be moving in reverse? To sum up, Little Gem isn’t the best choice if you’re looking for an engaging hold & win game with a lot of complexity, though to be fair, you don’t frequently see this kind of feature on a 3×3 grid.
Several of Little Gem’s most important statistics aren’t terrible. The default RTP is decent, and a maximum win of 2,460x the stake isn’t terrible. The player has to put in a lot of work to get anything out of Little Gem, and there are better hold ‘n wins and traditional slots only a click away, so what’s the point? However, a fascinating aspect of human beings is the diversity of our likes and dislikes. Some players may be so moved by what Pragmatic Play and Reel Kingdom have created that they will fall to their knees in appreciation, while others may run screaming from the sight of it.
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