Roller Derby Pokie
Set around the sport where teams skate around a track knocking each other’s teeth out as they try to lap the opposing team, and scoring points when they manage to get all the way around, the Roller Derby pokie from Genesis Gaming is a far less dangerous way to enjoy this activity.
The sport is popular in many countries around the world, typically with women participants, so the game features several girls alongside an umpire, while the whole thing plays out against a background designed to look like a scoreboard.
It’s got a classic 5-reel layout with 25 paylines and a couple of bonus features to add interest to the run of play, like wild substitutions, free spins with extra wilds and scatter wins.
Playing Roller Derby
Presented in a cartoon style, the scoreboard that the reels of Roller Derby are set against is in turn set against an image of the stadium, and the control buttons look like the actual scores on the board, making the whole thing into a good-looking pokie.
The game title is above the reels and looks lit up, while to the sides are the payline indicators that show where each line starts and finishes. Players win in the standard way, by getting 3 or more of the same type of symbol across an activated payline on adjacent reels running form the left side.
Wins are calculated as multiples of the amount staked per line, and to determine how much this is, players will need to head to the control buttons and place their bets. This can be adjusted from as little as 0.01 to as much as 10.00 per line, and with the maximum bet on all lines they will be wagering 250.00 per spin, giving Roller Derby a pretty good bet range suitable for casual players and serious gamblers alike.
A payout table lets players know what they will stand to win, with the lower value symbols all being variants of the playing card 9, 10, J, Q, K and A. They have been subtly re-designed to fit in with the theme, but the main symbols that players will want to see are the umpire and the Roller Girls. These pay out higher prizes, with the red girl being the most valuable, although there are also wild and scatter symbols that start off some bonus features.
Roller Derby
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Rolling out the Extras
To help players score more winning spins there’s a wild symbol, which is a purple pair of skates and some roses with a knuckle-duster thrown in to the picture for good measure. This will substitute all except the scatter symbol if it can create a win by doing so, while it’s also the most valuable symbol of the lot.
The other one that will bring a smile to any player, broken teeth or not, is the scatter, which is simply the black and white stripes of the umpire’s jersey. As it’s a scatter symbol, there’s no need for it to land in any particular places to create a win and payouts are calculated as multiples of the total bet, not just the per line bet.
Two scatters equals a 2x win, while landing 5 at once is worth 50x, plus any 3 or more will also start the a bonus game.
Although only 5 free spins are awarded in this round, the chances of getting at least 1 or 2 wins out of it are greatly enhanced as any time a Roller Girl lands she will turn into an extra wild symbol. This can easily lead to a win every time, and what’s more the spins can be retriggered if 3 or more scatters land during them.
The Verdict
Roller Derby is an increasingly popular sport and should lead to fans of the game giving this pokie a spin or two. It’s well designed, fitting in nicely with the theme, although maybe a little more animation and violence would have been welcomed.
Although the 5 free spins may initially seem a bit limited, the fact that players are pretty much guaranteed a win during them means they can be more valuable than those in other games where players can get 10, 15 or 20 spins with no definite payouts.
A wide and flexible bet range, the reliability of Genesis Gaming pokies and a good chance of scoring some decent prizes even in the base game, are all added attractions which make Roller Derby a good all-rounder from one of the top developers in the business.