The Amulet And The Charm Slots

Gameplay Features and Mechanics

The Amulet and the Charm is a 5-reel, 3-row video slot game with 40 pay lines. Prizes are awarded from left to right and when 2 possible prizes occur on the same pay line only the higher-value prize is paid. There are three ways to win in this game: random combinations of icons pay prizes, random Scatter Wilds pay prizes, and the Free Games bonus gives you more opportunities to win prizes.

The game has three special symbols:

• The Wild
• The Free Games Scatter symbol
• The Scatter Bucks symbol

The Wild symbol substitutes for all other symbols in the game except the Free Games. In regular game play when the Scatter Bucks feature becomes active some of the Wild tiles appear with a credit value that is instantly awarded to you.

The Free Games Scatter symbol only appears on reels 2, 3, and 4.

After the Wild symbol the highest value symbol in the game is the King, followed by the Queen, then by the Witch, then by the Warrior.

The King and Queen both pay 25 times your bet per line for 3 adjacent tiles on any pay line, 100 times your bet per line for 4 adjacent tiles, and 400 times your bet per line for 5 adjacent tiles. White eagles fly out from the fortress city behind the King and Queen when either of them pays a prize for you.

The Witch and the Warrior both pay 20 to 250 times your bet per line for 3, 4, or 5 adjacent tiles on any pay line. The Witch's amulet glows bright red when she pays a prize to you. The Warrior's background flashes when he pays a prize. It's almost like they are angry and resent having to share the wealth with you.

The mid-value symbols are the Blue amulet and the Red amulet. Each pays a maximum of 150 times your bet per line.

The low-value symbols are the "A", "K", White eagle, and Golden dragon. They all pay a maximum of 100 times your bet per line for 5-of-a-kind.

The game controls are all standard for a High 5 Games production. They line the bottom of the screen for easy reference. You don't have to go hunting in all corners for them.

Use the up and down arrows beside the Lines control to scroll through choices of 1, 10, 20, 30, or 40 active pay lines. Note that when you choose anything less than 40 pay lines you disable the Scatter Bucks feature.

Use the up and down arrows beside the Per Line control to scroll through values of 0.01, 0.05, 0.10, 0.25, 1.00, 2.00, 5.00, and 10.00 to set your active bet per line. This value is multiplied by the number of active pay lines and the total displayed to the right above the word "BET". That is the total bet you make each time you click SPIN.

When you play the game in a land-based casino you need to look at what the last person to play the game had set as betting options so that you don't accidentally wager all your money on one spin.

The Win / Credits window in the middle of the controls shows you how much the last spin paid you and what your available balance is.

Use the Replay button to have the game cycle through your last spin. It will replay the entire Free Games bonus for you if you want to take pictures or record a video.

The Question mark brings up the help screen interface where you can scroll horizontally through all the pages of information. There are only 19 pages.

The Speaker icon toggles the game sound on and off.

Auto Play allows you to choose from 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25 spins. The amount of your wager is deducted automatically from your balance at the beginning of each spin. You can stop the auto playing games at any time by clicking on the button again. The normal Spin button counts down the number of spins left to go.

And finally the Spin button on the far right doubles as a Stop button for the animations if you don't want to watch the game scroll through all the winning pay lines.

Triggering the Bonus Round

The Free Games Bonus is activated when three of the Scatter symbols appear anywhere on reels 2, 3, and 4. Although the Bonus Round uses a different set of reels you can still trigger a new Free Games Bonus.

The color theme is a little darker during the bonus game, and the Wild symbol can appear anywhere on the screen. If it has a credit value on it you win that prize. If it does not have a credit value then it must form part of a winning combination on a valid pay line in order to award a prize.

The Wild symbol substitutes for all other symbols except the Free Games Scatter and the Wild-with-Credit Scatter.

In both regular game play and the Free Games the Wild Scatter credit values all start at 25 times your bet per line. Their maximum value depends on which reel they appear on.

• Reel 1 Wild Scatters pay a max of 100 credits times bet per line.
• Reel 2 Wild Scatters pay a max of 500 credits time bet per line.
• Reels 3 and 4 pay a max of 2000 credits times bet per line.
• Reel 5 pays a max of 10,000 credits times bet per line.

Conclusion

This is an interesting game. To have a Wild symbol that doubles as a Scatter symbol is unusual. When you are in doubt about how it works, just wait for one of the Wild Scatters to appear at the beginning of a winning combination (on Reel 1). You'll see you win both the Scatter prize and the combination prize.

The Scatter Bucks and Wild symbols can appear in stacks. You may have an entire screen filled with Wilds, Scatter Bucks, Kings, and Queens ringing bells and flashing at you. The big wins shower you with golden coins.

Of course, the stacks don't always pay off. Be careful not to confuse this game with a game that uses Super Stacks. Only the Wild symbol is stacked in this game and if the stack appears too far left or too far right you don't win a prize. You need at least three adjacent tiles to win a prize.

The Amulet and the Charm keeps you spinning by awarding those random Scatter Bucks prizes. The Free Games bonus may come along more often than you anticipate. It may not retrigger as often as you would like it to.

The game will tell you when you disable the Scatter Bucks feature but if you normally play fewer than 40 pay lines you'll never see the Scatter Bucks. Because of the random nature of these games it's impossible to say how the math should work out but most people argue that it's always better to play the maximum number of pay lines. As far as the Amulet and the Charm is concerned, that probably is the best option for most players.