Summer is knocking on the door, bringing good vibes, barbecues, and high temperatures. We felt this would be a good time to shed some old skin, so whilst you guys have been licking that dripping gelato off of your fingers, the Bigwinboard minions have been working around the clock to give the site a new look. Ok, so it’s not exactly a major facelift, some might not even notice, but it now looks exactly how we image a gaming site should look like.
Aside from the design upgrades, we’ve also decided to reactivate our forum. Sadly, it didn’t really get a chance to grow before we shut it down, which we did in order to focus on the comment section. Now it’s up and running again, so if you feel like showing off your big wins or sharing a story, just click the forum button in the menu and start typing. Speaking of comments by the way. The comment section has received an upgrade as well and now allows you to upload images, amongst other things.
So, with that out of the way, let’s have a look at some of the new games that’s arrived on the digital shelves during the past week.
Fruit Party (Pragmatic Play)
Fruit Party is a rather generic looking 7×7 grid slot from Pragmatic Play, a developer whose track record is as inconsistent as Manchester United’s. Although they’re nearly as active as Play’n GO in terms of churning out new games, they only seem to get it right every third or fourth game or so. And even then it’s rarely all that impressive.
Nevertheless, Pragmatic Play is a popular developer and recent titles such as Great Rhino Megaways, John Hunter & The Tomb of the Scarab Queen, and Hot To Burn (which we didn’t even bother to review because it was so dreadful), are all trending as some of the most played games on the market.
So what about Fruit Party? Well, think of it as Star Clusters Megaclusters, but more like Clark Griswold’s cousin Eddie from National Lampoon’s. It’s a grid slot, it’s bright and colourful, but instead of splitting symbols into smaller symbols, you get multipliers instead. A bit more primitive, but it works.
Play Fruit Party at Rizk Casino
Reel Keeper (Red Tiger)
Speaking of inconsistency, Red Tiger too have been suffering a bit from the same reduced reliability. To be fair, most Red Tiger slots seem to have been aimed more towards recreational players and they have persistently stuck to their low potential, medium variance format for week after week.
Then again, Red Tiger’s main target audience was never really the hardcore gamer group. But just as is the case with Pragmatic Play, Red Tiger slots are doing well and slots like Aztec Spins, Piggy Riches Megaways, and their recent super hero themed grid slot 4Squad, are all in the top 20 list of most popular games.
In spite of its simple premise, Reel Keeper is a surprisingly good slot well worth a try. A collaboration with partnering studio R7, Reel Keeper is a highly volatile 5-reel, 10-payline slot with a strong appeal to everyone who loves the though of landing a full screen stacked wild reels. Should you happen to do so, the result could be payouts of over 6,000 times your stake, which is a lot higher than we’re used to from these guys.
Arcane Gems (Quickspin)
Quickspin is one of those developers that knows how to craft incredibly beautiful games, yet struggles to charm its audience. We’ve gotten used to having them around, but they’re not really making much fuss. The games are not in any way train-wrecks, so it could simply just be a case of bad marketing strategy.
Their latest title, Arcane Gems, is a bit odd though we have to say. This 5-reel, 9-payline creation looks hurried and like it was sent off to the casinos before giving the designers a chance to fix the awful looking jagged edges and horrendous lighting effects. The game itself isn’t the most exciting either – if you ask us anyway. With no free spins and a symbol collection made up of a bunch of generic gems (a more fitting title perhaps?), the action quickly wears thin.
The objective is to land winning combinations which in turn triggers the Arcane Lock mechanic. This feature locks the highest paying symbol in position and awards a respin – it continues to do so as long as matching symbols appear on the reels. Get some multipliers involved and you could be looking at wins of over 5,000 times your stake.
Shield of Athena (Play’n GO)
Play’n GO are making the most out of their successful Rich Wilde brand (best known from Book of Dead) and has now even spawned a Cat Wilde spin off. Cat Wilde is his daughter and in Shield of Athena, we get to meet her for the first time. The slot itself isn’t as exciting as it sounds to be perfectly honest, but is a solid, well-built and highly playable slot nonetheless.
Bundled with Medusa Respins and Medusa’s Gaze Free Spins, Play’n GO have been careful not to deviate too far from the beaten track. That means a 5-reel, 10-payline format but with a significantly higher max win potential of 10,000 times your stake than we’re used to from the Swedes. There’s nothing much more to say about it really. It’s Play’n GO, so you sort of know what you’re in for and it’s usually not all that bad.
