IGT has been making Wheel of Fortune slots for 25 years now, and the series tends to be popular regardless of the version. But while the bread and butter of the series has generally been mechanical 3-reel slots, more and more ambitious video reel slot variations have found their way to casino floors over the years.
The most recent debuted in the past few months, and is called Wheel of Fortune Mystery Link. For me, it’s certainly a mystery because despite multiple lengthy sessions on the game, I didn’t get a single bonus or feature, and line hits were just OK – the game has lines like many link games based on your choice of denomination, and goes down in line count as the denomination goes up.
Like many games in this style, there are a variety of progressives and jackpots you can win, in this case five. Increasing your overall bet increases your chances at the Grand jackpot. Increasing your bet multiplier within a denomination increases your chances of the other four.
The game has a Free Games bonus if you trigger the symbol on reels 1, 3, and 5; this is similar to other Wheel of Fortune video reel variations such as the recent Cash Link versions. In this game you get 8 free spins, which can be retriggered if the symbols come out again in the bonus. You can retrigger up to a total of 80 free games in this bonus.
It also has a Mystery Link feature where you collect six or more pointers to initiate a hold and respin mechanic. The color arrows correspond to spaces on the wheel, and you spin the wheel each time you land more.
The arrows you land will inherit where which wheel space aligns with it, and if you already have that color on the board, it will add the newly spun value to what’s been collected before. Each time you land at least one arrow, you get three more spins, a familiar setup for Link-style game players.
The Mystery Link feature can be triggered in the Free Games bonus.
There are two ways to win the jackpots. Mini, Minor, Major and Mega can land on the reels and be won instantly as part of the Mystery Link feature. Or you can trigger the Jackpot Wheel with a full screen of pointers during the link feature, and have access to a chance to win any of the five jackpots.
With that sort of potential, clearly it’s going to be a bit more difficult to get than an average link, but although I’ve seen slot channels do well on this game, I’ve yet to have a winning session under my belt. I find the Cash Link ones a bit more comfortable, and I’ll write something up on those pretty soon.
Watch and Learn
Brian Christopher debuted the game when it first came out at Aria:
TheBigPayback had a handpay on the game:
The Slot Cats also had an early session on the game:
