Anyone with passing interest in hoisting beer steins is probably aware of Oktoberfest, held each year in Munich. Known locally as d'Wiesn, Oktoberfest is famous for its celebration of beer, where millions of litres are served to domestic and international visitors during the course of the 16 to 18-day festival. For those who can't wait for the month of October to roll around to enjoy some beer-infused festivities while having a punt, here comes Octobeer Fortunes from developer Pragmatic Play.
As is quite often the case with these annual celebration slots (e.g., Christmas), Pragmatic Play has reskinned an older game rather than come up with something new. The original release was Treasure Wild, and since it wasn't a game that blew us away, Octobeer Fortunes started off on shaky footing. Obviously, the two games look completely different, though, and Pragmatic Play has pulled out all the stops to craft a very 'Bavarian' game with strong Great Goes Wild vibes. This means a warm environment full of sturdy wooden structures, bottles, a friendly barmaid, oodles of in-theme symbols, and a banging oompah band to add cheer. You don't have to wear a dirndl or lederhosen to enjoy Octobeer Fortunes, but it might help get you into the mood.
>Played on a 5-reel, 3-row matrix, Octobeer Fortunes supplies 20 fixed paylines for landing wins across. Like the previous slot, Octobeer Fortunes is highly volatile and produces a default return to player value of 96.53% - whether playing the game normally or buying free spins. Betting on regular spins ranges from the usual 20 p/c to $/€100.
Regular symbols in Octobeer Fortunes pay left to right on adjacent reels, and winning lines must start from the leftmost side. First up are diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades as the low pays before launching into pretzels, accordions, hats, steins, and kegs as the premiums. Landing a five of a kind win line pays 1.5-1.8x the bet for the card suits, or 3-15x the bet for five high pays. Wild symbols land on any reel to substitute for all of the regular pay symbols and have the same value as the highest paying keg when making wins of themselves.
>The wild symbol is also the key to the Money Collection feature. Money symbols appear on all reels, and they land with a random value of 0.5-50x the bet. Whenever wild symbols land at the same time as Money symbols, each wild in view collects the value of each Money symbol.
Landing 5 or more Money symbols triggers 9 free spins. Before free spins begin, the value of each triggering Money symbol is added together and collected in a tube next to the reels. While free spins are active, when new Money symbols hit, their values are also added to the collected amount. Whenever a wild symbol hits, the value of the collected Money symbol amount is awarded to the player. The collected value never resets, and free spins cannot be retriggered.
If the opportunity is there, players have the choice of buying free spins. There are a lot of options. All come with 9 free spins, triggered by 5-15 Money symbols for the cost of 100-200x the bet. Or paying 150x the bet buys 9 free spins with a random number of starting Money symbols.
>There was something a bit cold and soulless about Treasure Wild, but it must have appealed to a good number of players because since then, we've had Black Bull and now Octobeer Fortunes. Black Bull was a bit different, but it was based around a collection of Money symbols by wilds, with a progressive feature in free spins. It was a more enticing game than the original, despite packing in a bunch of generic slot elements. Octobeer Fortunes is essentially a straight clone – with a bonus buy tacked on. If anything, it packs even more cliches than Black Bull, though, it's based on Oktoberfest, so it's easy to kick back with a virtual (or real) stein and just go along for the oompah-led ride.
The gameplay experience remains the same as before, which pretty much boils down to focusing on collecting Money symbols in the main and bonus game. Free spins are a lot more absorbing due to the progressive feature, and allowing players to buy 5-15 triggering money symbols (or the random option) is a nice touch. After all, the more triggering Money symbols, the more chances of building up a bigger prize pot. It doesn't mean you'll necessarily win it, though, since you need wilds to hit as well to actually collect the dough, which, when the steins are overflowing, can pour wins of up to 4,500x the bet. As before, the frequency of this happening is 1 in 5,908,813.
To wrap things up, Octobeer Fortunes was a more enjoyable game to play than its predecessor, Treasure Wilds, though that's not saying a huge amount. It is packed to the rafters with beer hall clichés, and practically the entire game engine has been lifted from elsewhere. Never mind, those who get a kick out of the progressive Money symbol collect feature and like the idea of doing so at Oktoberfest should appreciate the sort of entertainment Octobeer Fortunes has on tap.
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