At the time of writing, Pragmatic Play's production spigot had been well and truly wrenched wide open to let slot after slot pour off the line. Cranking up the prolificacy setting means there is a chance one or two reskins might well sneak in there to keep the cogs turning over. Here's one. It's titled Old Gold Miner Megaways and veterans will instantly notice it's built off the fortune-telling slot Madame Destiny Megaways, which in turn was a makeover of an earlier game titled Madame Destiny.
Old Gold Miner Megaways delivers a double whammy of being a clone that has been dressed up in a commonplace theme. Mining slots abound, as you are no doubt aware of, and show no signs of easing up. Ever wondered why? Is it the allusions to striking it rich underground, which draws a parallel with attempting to hit paydirt while gambling, or is there more to it? A game displaying more imagination might have prompted us to dig a bit deeper for more profound meanings. As it is, Old Gold Miner Megaways is pretty standard in most regards. Players find themselves underground in a mine shaft, surrounded by a bunch of mining paraphernalia - carts, lanterns, and the like. It does look quite good, and the two animal character symbols add personality to what is essentially rather conventional mining-flavoured entertainment.
Madame Destiny Megaways' larger-than-normal game board is back, meaning 6 main reels holding up to 7 symbols each, plus a 4 symbol horizontal bonus reel sitting at the top of the grid. Powered by the Megaways engine, on each spin, this setup can produce up to 200,704 ways to win. It does so in a highly volatile manner (5 out of 5) in a number of possible RTP models. The highest comes in at 96.56%, rising to 96.67% when activating the Ante Bet or buying free spins. Regular stakes vary from 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin – increasing by 25% when the Ante Bet is activated, which doubles the chance of triggering free spins.
After winning combinations are paid, the symbols comprising them are removed from the grid. The remaining symbols fall down as far as they can, while new symbols appear above to plug any gaps. If a winning way is created after the symbols drop, the tumble feature triggers again, coming to an end when no new win hits. For symbols, Old Gold Miner Megaways has 10 regular pays, divided into rope-lashed 10-A royals, then come mining instruments, lamps, carts, dogs, and moles. Hitting a six-of-a-kind winning way pays out 1-1.25x the bet when made up of card ranks, or 1.25 to 20x the bet for six of the non-royal tiles. An archetypical beardy mining chap appears on the wild symbol, which lands on all but the leftmost reel. The wild substitutes anything except the scatter, and when used in a win, the value is doubled – in the base or bonus game.
While virtually tunnelling through the earth in Old Gold Miner Megaways, players are accompanied by features such as tumbles and free spins with a win multiplier.
Gold nugget scatters are present on all reels, and landing 3, 4, 5, or 6 of them triggers the bonus round and awards a payout of 5x, 10x, 20x, or 100x the bet, respectively. Before free spins begin, a Wheel of Fortune with two rings spins. The first ring awards the number of free spins, and the second ring awards a persistent win multiplier. During the round, the multiplier applies to the total win of each free spin but does not grow following tumbles as you may be used to from playing other Megaways slots. Landing 3 or more scatter retriggers the feature. Each retrigger spins the Wheel of Fortune again, where a number of random free spins and a random multiplier is added to the current values. There is no limit to the number of retriggers.
Finally, if possible, players may buy the free spins bonus round for the cost of 100x the bet base bet. Free spins cannot be bought while the Ante Bet is switched on.
What to say? Old Gold Miner Megaways was aight. Even if you didn't get the chance to try Madame Destiny Megaways, what's here has a strong ring of predictability about it. The inclusion of a trusty pooch and a mole in a mining hat doesn't really change that. Oh sure, the build quality is steady as a rock, Pragmatic Play rarely misses a beat when it comes to visual presentation and this one in particular is ace. Although, how many mining slots are there now? Studios have had a ton of practice getting the subterranean vibe just right, but there is nothing overly special going on in Old Gold Miner Megaways.
In some ways, picking a theme like mining kind of gives studios the chance to use an environment that players are comfortably familiar with to lead them on a unique journey in terms of gameplay. Again, this is an area where Old Gold Miner Megaways comes up short, however, to be fair, it had little chance of being explosively avant-garde, being a clone and all. As it is, the features are okay - tumbles in the base game, tumbles and a multiplier in the free spins bonus game. Nothing breathtakingly exciting, though technically effective enough when things are going well. Madame Destiny Megaways came out during a phase where everything from Pragmatic Play's seemed to pack 5,000x the bet potential, which is the same win cap governing Old Gold Miner Megaways payout capabilities as well. Not a terrible figure by any means, but a little on the low side for a Megaways game.
Let's sum up by saying Old Gold Miner Megaways is what it is. A remake of a game with a commonplace theme. It doesn't, or can't, do anything exciting from a novelty perspective, but what it can do is supply reliable, predictable, familiar gaming for those into this sort of thing.
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