Rainbow Queen Pokie
Anyone who has played EGT’s Rainbow Dice video pokie machine can skip this review, as Rainbow Queen has simply replaced the dice symbols with pictures of cartoon insects and kept the format, bonuses and payouts. But that doesn’t make it a bad game, it just means that there are 2 similar pokies, both featuring an interesting bonus round and the potential for some high payouts.
Like all games from this developer, the Rainbow Queen video pokie gives players the option to gamble their wins, and there’s the Jackpot Cards 4-level progressive round that can be triggered at any time.
A nice picture of a field sits behind the reels, there’s the current jackpot levels displayed above them, and a series of control buttons underneath. Players can activate between 1 and all 30 paylines, although the low limit to activate all of them is 0.30. Free Rainbow Queen video pokies are available at most casinos if players want to test it before playing for real.
Playing Rainbow Queen
The smallest wins are paid out by the playing card symbols 10, J, Q and K, with 5x the line bet being awarded when matching ones land on reels 1, 2 and 3 across an active payline. Extending this run across reel 4 sees wins of 20x the line bet and a full run of 5, right across the reels is worth 100x. The A symbol pays out 10, 30 or 125x for the same combinations, but it’s the insect characters that add visual appeal and create the higher-value wins.
Each of these is in a well-designed cartoon style and starts with a caterpillar in a jesters’ hat who pays out 20, 100 or 300x the line bet, while a bee with a lamp is worth 30, 125 or 400x. Another caterpillar is smoking a suspicious-looking pipe and pays 40, 200 and 750x, while the smoking theme continues with a pipe-smoking cricket who returns wins of 50, 300 or the top award of 1000x the line bet.
The wild symbol is the picture of a cartoon princess and her castle, and even though she won’t appear on reel 1, so can’t create winning combinations on her own, this symbol is able to act as any other apart from the scatter, which will help to complete extra lines of matching symbols, or extend wins across further reels.
Rainbow Queen
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Free Spins
A multicoloured Rainbow Queen logo is the scatter symbol, which is worth 60 coins when 3 or more are scattered in reels 2, 3 and 4 at once. It then takes players to a unique free spins round, or at least one only shared with Rainbow Dice anyway. Below the reels. There’s a grid of symbols, while a special clover symbol can land on reel 5 and start to fill this grid in, until 3 have appeared and the cricket becomes an extra wild. If 3 more clover symbols appear, the smoking caterpillar becomes another wild, and so on, until all the insects are wild symbols.
Fortunate players will get enough clover symbols before the 20 bonus games are finished, but even having 1 or 2 additional wilds on the reels should be enough to ensure multiple winning spins. The round can be retriggered to a thoretical maximum of 300 spins in total, but this figure is going to be pretty hard to reach.
Other Features
There’s the option to gamble any win of less than 1050 coins. Players double the triggering prize by correctly picking red or black as a playing card flashes between the colours, and while a correct pick gives the option to go again or collect the doubled win, a wrong pick ends the round and loses the initial prize.
If the Jackpot Cards round begins, which is possible after any random spin, there’s a guarantee that either the Club, Heart, Diamond or Spade jackpot will be awarded. Before this however, players will need to pick from 12 playing cards, revealing the suits and winning whichever jackpot is linked to the first found on 3 of the cards.
The Verdict
Cartoon insects are a theme found in a surprising number of pokies, and as it gives scope for the designers to create cute characters, why not? The Rainbow Queen game isn’t just nice to look at however, as there’s some interesting features, particularly the extra wilds created by the lucky clover in the free spins round.
Like all EGT games, it’s fair, reliable and has a good return to player ratio, while the fact that it’s also mobile-optimised should extend the appeal of this fun pokie even wider.