Online and mobile slots fans with a taste for fairy-tale themes are the primary market for Piggy Fortunes, online slots game from digital games developer Microgaming. Piggy Fortunes plays on 5 reels displaying 3 rows each, with 25 pay lines and bets per line ranging from 1 to 20 coins.
The game uses only seven regular symbols, with two special icons, all rendered in bright, children’s-story colours and bold animations against a leafy woodland background. A lazy, looping country tune accompanies standard play, switching to a triumphant banjo riff on wins and during special features.
A minimum of 3 matching icons are needed on a pay line, in unbroken sequence beginning at Reel 1, to trigger a win, each of which is celebrated by animations individual to the various icons.
Poker Symbols and Piggy Houses
Piggy Fortunes employs just 4 of the standard poker symbols as low-value icons: J, Q, K and A. They’re displayed in a metallic font, each one bearing a different card suit and a symbol of rank: a coat of arms, a sceptre, a crown and a champion’s medal. Js and Qs have the same value: 5X the line bet for 3 of a kind, 15X for 4 matches and 100X for 5. Ks and As are also equally ranked, paying 10X, 30X and 150X the bet for 3, 4 or 5 matches, respectively.
There are only 3 higher-value icons: the Straw, Wood and Brick Houses built by the Three Little Pigs in the tale. Their win values range from 20X for 3 Straw Houses to 900X for 5 Brick Houses. The Scatter symbol, the Three Little Pigs in a family photo, also scores in its own right for valid combinations of 3 or more on a pay line: 125X, 500X and 2,500X for 3, 4 or 5 matches.
Big Bad Wolf is Wild
The villain of the story, the Big Bad Wolf himself is the Piggy Fortunes Wild icon, and in standard play can substitute for any symbol except the Three Little Pigs Scatter. The bonus round, called the Big Bad Wolf Feature, is triggered by 3, 4 or 5 Scatter icons, which gives the online or mobile pokies for real money player an unspecified number of free spins. The 3 House icons appear at the top of the screen, and the free spins commence.
Every time a Big Bad Wolf icon lands adjacent to a House icon, the Wolf blows the house down, with the icons at the top of the screen reflecting his progress. When all 3 house icons are reduced to rubble, the free spins round ends.
Free spins cannot be retriggered; however, if a free spin produces 3 or more Scatter icons, the pigs will rebuild 1 of the houses at random, extending the free spins. In addition, every time the wolf blows a house down, the multiplier for winning spins containing a Big Bad Wolf on a pay line increases. This additional multiplier is 2X for the Straw House, 3X for the Wood House and 4X for the Brick House. It is in this phase of the game, therefore, that players can profit from the biggest potential wins.
