Crown Gems Online Slot

Crown Gems Overview

The background immediately sets you up for the simplicity of this game because it's just a nighttime scene with a few stars. We're not really sure what this has to do with gems, but at least the background doesn't take anything away from the game.

Symbols that you'll see on the reels include a golden crown, red ruby, blue sapphire, green emerald and generic letters.

The crown and gems all look very realistic, which adds some visual appeal to this slot. You might also appreciate the little tunes that play after you spin the reels and when you hit winning combinations.

The crown is the top paying symbol, delivering 5,000 credits if it lands five times in a pay line. The second highest paying symbol is the red ruby, which earns you 1,000 credits when it appears in a pay line five times.

Keeping up with Crown Gems' basic nature, this game doesn't have any wild or scatter symbols. This is certainly a downside when you consider that most other slots have at least one or the other.

On the bright side, the symbols sometimes come stacked to help you form big winning combinations. We won't say that this completely makes up for the absence of wilds and scatters, but it's at least something.

As an example of this, you can get a winning combination of three crowns going from reels 2, 3, and 4. This isn't completely unheard of in slots because Barcrest has made similar games. However, it's fairly unique when looking at most other slots, which normally start winning combinations at reel 1 from left to right.

More importantly, this feature helps you win more frequently than on most slots. Assuming you're playing with a limited bankroll, this is very appealing because it stretches your money further.

Betting Options

Crown Gems features very user friendly betting options through a simple layout.

This game has 10 pay lines, all of which must be played, and your bet per pay line ranges from $0.01 to $50.00. This makes for a minimum bet of $0.10 and a max wager of $500.00 per spin.

You can also use the auto spin features to keep the reels spinning with your selected betting options for 10 to 50 spins.

Crown Gems Bonus

As you might have guessed, Crown Gems doesn't offer a bonus round.

You'd think that even a basic video slot like this could at least offer free spins. But you can't even count on something as simple as this in Crown Gems.

Crown Gems Slot Machine

The land based version of Crown Gems is almost identical to the online game, with the same symbols, background and music.

However, one key difference is that you can use a gamble feature in the land based slot machines after hitting winning combinations.

This gamble feature sees you try to double your money by guessing whether a card will be red or black. Be prepared for an annoying spinning sound before you make your selection.

Obviously this gamble option isn't enough to make the Crown Gems slot machine far superior to the online version. After all, many slots feature the same exact red / black card model for their gamble feature too. But it's at least nice that one extra frill has been added to this slot machine.

Comparisons to other Barcrest Games

This isn't the first jewel themed slot by Barcrest since they also developed Crown Jewels and Jackpot Jewels. That said, let's take a quick look at how Crown Gems compares to these two games.

This slot features the same basic 5 reel setup as Crown Gems, only with a few notable twists.

First off, Crown Jewels has cascading reels, so when you form a winning combination these symbols disappear and more fall from the top. This is nice because it allows you to continue forming extra wins during the same turn.

Each time the cascading reels help you form a winning combo within the same turn; you'll continue getting a bigger and bigger multiplier. Once you hit a 10x multiplier, your winnings are added up and you move on to a new turn.

You'll also see a Crown Jewels Wild symbol, which substitutes for all other symbols to help you form wins. This wild is also the highest paying symbol, delivering 500 coins if you get five in a pay line.

Other than the addition of a wild symbol and cascading reels, Crown Jewels is very similar to Gems in terms of graphics and sound effects. But we have to say that the cascading symbols makes Crown Jewels a little more fun to play.

It's immediately clear that Jackpot Jewels is very different from Crown Gems when you look at its 4 row, 7 reel set up. It also has 50 pay lines, which gives you more chances to win per turn than Crown Gems offers.

Jackpot Jewels has two notable features since it allows you to win free spins and use a high roller option.

10 free spins are awarded when you get three or more purple gem broach symbols anywhere on the reels. These are just basic free spins, but this is already one more bonus feature than Crown Gems has.

The high roller option sees you bet between $20 and $500 for five spins. The motivation behind doing so is that you get stacked wilds that'll give you more opportunities to win and get free spins.

Obviously Jackpot Jewels has more to offer in terms of extra features than Crown Gems. However, the graphics are subpar, the reels spin very slowly and you have to bet $0.25 just to play.

So despite the additional features, we wouldn't say that Jackpot Jewels is automatically a better game.

Conclusion

A fan base still exists for really basic slots like Crown Gems because it doesn't force you to think too much, allowing you to just sit back and enjoy playing. This is also a game that slots beginners can jump right into without reading complicated help screens.

Beyond this, we think that Crown Gems offers two attractive qualities: 1) the gem / crown graphics are pretty good and 2) the hit frequency is really high.

But in an age where players are demanding more from their slots experience, Crown Gems doesn't have a whole lot to offer. You can't trigger a bonus round and there are no wilds or scatters either.