World of Wizard Slot Machine
World of Wizard is, you guessed it, a wizard themed slot! This is another fairly traditional style slot from Merkur, who are foremost a land based slot machine provider, which shows in their online offerings. This game is less traditional in style than some of their other releases such as Kangaroo Island and El Terero, mainly because it includes a free spin round as an extra feature.
This is a 5 reel, 10 payline game featuring just a Scatter symbol, which triggers the free spin rounds regularly throughout the game. Besides that, this is a traditional format with average graphics and some small pieces of animation of the symbols and bonus free spins game. We’d go so far as to call it modern traditional.
See if You’re a Wizard on These Reels
The theme here is wizardry, but we can’t help noticing that one of the other symbols is an elf, one a ring, another a sword and the background includes a volcano and walled city.
There’s definitely a hint of Lord of the Rings about this theme but it’s not too overdone. The background is quite dark, with a view of a landscape and blue crystals bordering the reels. This is not a traditional style slot; while it is quite static, the design and buttons are 100% modern, if a little bland and unsophisticated.
There are only 9 symbols, 4 of which are the traditional letter characters and 5 of which are theme related, including a girl elf, a sword, a ring, a spellbook and the wizard himself, who is a Scatter. When you the Wizard Scatter, you’re transported to a free spins game, where a symbol is randomly selected and a corresponding number of free spins awarded. This free spins round can also retrigger if you land the selected symbol on the reels, adding more free spins to your total. This is a feature which triggers regularly, making this game entertaining to play.
We’ve criticized other Merkur games in the past for taking a long time to trigger their bonus games and free spin rounds so we’re pleased to see this isn’t a universal issue. The sounds of the game are a modern music clip which plays each time you spin and doesn’t tie in at all with the theme. The music of the free spins ‘Wizard Feature’ is a bit more fitting, sounding a little dark and mystical. Overall, we find the theme a bit mediocre and uninspiring. It’s a theme which has so much potential but feels a bit like a rush job in this case, with low quality graphics.
Will These Features Have You Spellbound?
This is a 5 reel, 10 payline game with a top prize of 1000 coins. Bet amounts range from 0.01 to 2.0 per line bet, making this a very affordable game to play, albeit with fairly low rewards of a maximum of $/£/€20,000.
Fortunately, even the lower value symbols carry decent rewards of 20-80 for landing just 3 symbols, so you should receive regular small wins. The only real feature here is the Wizard Scatter symbol, which can trigger the ‘Wizard Feature’ free spins round, and does so quite frequently. During this round the wizard appears and randomly selects which symbol will act as the Wild during the free spins and how many free spins you will receive.
During the round, the Scatter also remains active, so you can retrigger the round even several times. As with any win during the game, you will have the option to gamble your winnings from the free spin round or collect them, either increasing or losing your winnings. The RTP of this game is 96.48%, which is a decent rate of return, some games are as low as 92%. The full value of all the game symbols are in the pay table below.
Magic or Missing the Mark?
Unfortunately our response to this game is a resounding ‘meh’, it just doesn’t have the high quality graphics or creative bonus games to make this a modern hit and neither is it traditional.
The graphics are of mediocre quality, the jackpot is nothing special and the execution of the theme is decidedly lacklustre. If you’re after a modern slot or a wizard themed game then there are simply much better, higher quality options out there. In our opinion Merkur ought to stick to their strengths; traditional style slot games!
