Spotting the difference between different pokies

LA lot goes into the creation of pokies. From the graphics to the theme music, special features, symbols, paytables and right down to the reels and paylines. Although sometimes it is not easy to tell, all games are in fact created different given their individual features. Even when two or more pokies are based on the very same theme and even have the same name, they can still be differentiated by at least one of the characteristics below.

 

Theme, sounds and graphics

The visual appeal of a pokie is perhaps the most important characteristic of the machine as this is often the first thing that will either attract or repel a player. When it comes to themes based on material that is not the original creation of the software company such as books and/or movies for example, licences need to be signed in order to grant permission to create pokies based on that item. Through this, players know for sure that there is only one software company producing pokies of a certain movies or book and therefore are assured of the uniqueness of that machine. On common topic such as Christmas, many different pokies may be created based on that topic; however, they will all be differentiated by execution through graphics and sounds.

 

Reels and paylines

With the exception of a very small minority, most pokies have either 3 or 5 reels on them. The number of paylines is very important on a slot machine. Pokies can have any number of paylines, the most common of which being 1 (classic pokies), 3 (classic pokies), 9, 15, 20 and 50 for the really generous machines. In its efforts to remain the leader of invention in the online gaming industry, Microgaming created a number of 243-ways-to-win machines and most recently 1024-ways-to-win. These machines basically do not have any set paylines but instead simply pay whenever 3 or more matching symbols appear consecutively from left to right on the reels.

 

Betting and jackpots

The betting options of any game are a very important characteristic of the machine. They made up of a number of things including the minimum and maximum coin value; maximum and minimum number of coins each payline can take; and the overall minimum and maximum number of coins the machine can take per spin.

 

Special features and bonus rounds

For entertainment purposes, pokies will normally have some kind of special features and/or bonus rounds because otherwise there would be very little advancement from the earliest pokies and the pokies today. Special features include free spins, different kinds of wilds, different kinds of scatter symbols, multipliers, autoplay feature and many others.

 

Software

The base of every single online casino game is the software from which the game is built. The game creators from software companies such as Microgaming, Cryptologic, WagerWorks, RealTime Gaming and etc. are the ones who decide on the overall look and playability of the game. Although it is not always as easy as just looking at the game in order to see which software company developed it, it is sometimes possible because each software company is known for different things. Microgaming for example is the inventor of the Cinematic Spins feature in pokies; Rival Gaming is the only software producer of iSlots while Betsoft is known best for its 3D graphics. So, where 10 pokies are placed side by side with the exact same theme, it might be possible to differentiate between them given the overall appearance presented by the software company of each machine.