When video game manufacturer Williams decided to move in to the development of slot machines, they brought with them an understanding of video games, the graphical efforts that go into them, and a level of detail that was unusual for slot machines at the time.
That heritage continues to be borne out in the quality of games made by the WMS division of Scientific Games to this day. One of the more recent games to come out with a very strong visual touch is Little Dragons.
The game is a 5×4 reel set with 30 lines in play. You can bet in 50 credit increments for the regular bet, or you can have the More Features bet for 75 credit increments.
The game features a series of upgrades that can happen on any given spin:
- Flaming Reels Feature: certain reels are upgraded and poker symbols are removed, increasing the chance of higher symbol pays.
- Jackpot Feature: The reels can be upgraded with wilds replaced with eggs, which can lead to progressive chances. This is a further upgrade of the Flaming Reels feature.
- Dragons Feature: The three Little Dragons perform various actions to lead to a payout.
That is largely the interesting part of the game, like many WMS games with reel upgrades that drive payouts, and bumping to the 75 credit will bring these out with common frequency.
The features don’t often payout a ton, but the charm of the game is it’s an active, low volatility game that drives regular features. Here’s a rundown of the features in more detail, along with the free spins.
Flaming Reels Feature
In the Flaming Reels feature, multiple reels are upgraded. Within the base game, 4 or more reels will switch. In this feature the poker symbols are removed, increasing the chances for a sizable win if things line up successfully.
Jackpot Feature
If a Flaming Reels feature is awarded outside the Dragons Feature, wilds can be turned to eggs (although they remain wild). If eight or more eggs appear on screen, they will then be cracked open.
Each egg will open to reveal a diamond or a wild symbol. (Like the eggs, diamonds also act as a wild.) If you collect 5 or more diamonds, you win a progressive as follows:
- 5 Diamonds: Mini
- 6 Diamonds: Minor
- 7 Diamonds: Major
- 7 Diamonds: Maxi
Your chances of winning a progressive increases with higher bets, like many games nowadays regarding progressives, but that means progressives are available at any bet.
Dragons Feature
The Dragons Feature can be awarded on any spin. Each dragon has a function:
- The green dragon stretches the reels 1-3 times, adding 6, 10 or 12 rows with additional paylines accordingly.
- The yellow dragon upgrades reels. One guaranteed upgrade will be to combine two reels into one double wide reel that has 2×2 symbols that act as a 2-wide clump of identical symbols and poker symbols removed, just like any other Flaming Reels (it can do this more than once). It can upgrade additional reels either to a standard Flaming Reels upgrade (poker symbols removed) or to an all-wild reel. After the reels come to a stop the yellow dragon will also replace 2-5 symbols with wilds (if you pay for more features it’s 2-6 symbols).
- The pink dragon can issue either a credit prize or multiplier. The multiplier is 2-5x your line pay; the credit prize is 3x your bet on a standard wager, or 3-10x on the more features bet.
The game will pre-announce better Dragon Features with a rainbow, for instance, letting you know the feature will be better. And finally, the Dragon Feature is more likely to occur on the More Features bet.
Free Spins
The treasure chests serve as your bonus symbol, and getting three or more will trigger a bonus. The award escalates with more symbols:
- 3 chests: 7 free spins
- 4 chests: 10 free spins and 5x your wager
- 5 chests: 15 free spins and 20x your wager
- 6 chests: 25 free spins and 100x your wager
In the free spins bonus, one Dragons Feature is guaranteed, but tends to occur more often. The credit prize from the pink dragon in the Dragons Feature is reduced to a minimum 2x in the bonus, with the standard wager given a 2x-3x range, and the More Features bet given a 2x-10x range for it. It will still trigger a credit prize automatically if a 2x win on the reels is not achieved.
Flaming reels and the Jackpot Feature are also possible in the bonus, and work similarly to the base game, except standard credit wagers are only guaranteed three Flaming Reels in the bonus, while the More Features bet is still guaranteed four.
The bonus does feature a wager saver of 5x your wager, paid if you don’t achieve this. This only really helps with the three chests, since the initial payout for triggering the bonus on 4+ bonus symbols counts towards your total win for the bonus. Jackpot wins, however, are not counted in the bonus guarantee win.
The game tends to offer a lot of action, and the Dragons Feature plays out like many WMS games where upgrades are slowly rolled out. This helps slow down gameplay for those trying to get a lot of play out of a smaller budget. It’s not unusual for me to play for a significant amount of time on the 75 credit bet with $20 because of how this game works.
If you’re looking for lower volatility games, this is one to watch for at the casino.
Watch and Learn
Check out RandomSlots‘ video on the game, which features the pay tables:
Here is Neily 777 with the game as part of his Cash Me Out series (Little Dragons starts at 14:12):
