| Online Slot Machine | Scrooge |
| Slot Provider | Microgaming Casino Software |
| Jackpot Slot | No |
| Reels | 5 |
| Win Lines | 50 |
| RTP | 96% |
Scrooge is one of those slots that is perfect for the winter holidays and the Christmas spirit that’s haunting all of us that time of year, and yet it’s not a classic slot, instead being about a story written by Charles Dickens, called A Christmas Carol. Microgaming is the developer behind this game, which is inspired by the main character from the aforementioned novel, the cold-hearted Ebenezer Scrooge. You’re going to get a total of 50 paylines from this game, and they will be arranged on the usual 5 reels. As its features, the game presents you with free spins which trigger in the most unusual way, with multipliers, scatter symbols and wilds.
Top rewards of up to $120,000 are possible, but in exchange you will have to use wagers as high as $500 per spin. The game’s unofficial RTP is at 96%, which is not very high, but not the lowest one ever either.
Theme & Design
The game does a decent job at showing off the Scrooge character and manages to even make him slightly unpleasant thanks to all the frowning that is going on. Other than that, you are being given some of the major characters from the novel, including Timmy, the business partner and the three ghosts, of Christmas past, present and future. All the other symbols you will find along the way are also related to the same theme, and thankfully we’re not getting any playing cards in this case.
There is a rather cheerful soundtrack in the game, which I wouldn’t have expected normally given the story and the main character, but for the Christmas period and the fun mood that people are in then, I guess it’s understandable.
Betting Options & Prizes
A wager in Scrooge will have three components. Going from left to right, you will first have the option to modify the coin value, which will start at $0.01 and can go up to $1. Next, the number of Lines is modifiable, though I would recommend you stick with the maximum number of 50 paylines. The Coins section allows you to change how many coins are used for each active payline, the maximum being 10. With line bets of up to $10, the total bet of the slot can’t go higher than $500 per spin.
Top rewards of 6,000x are offered, the game requiring a combo of five wild symbols in order to pay that much. The actual maximum value would be 60,000 coins in the base game, with a $60,000 value. While in free spins mode, it’s going to be $120,000 thanks to their 2x multiplier.
Features Explained
One of the features that are important to this game is the one which brings you the free spins, but the way you get there is something that you need to be aware of, as the slot requires some interaction on your part, and will not trigger the free spins for you otherwise. If you look at the top of the reels area, you will notice a calendar with the current date and a number of free spins that you’ve accumulated. You advance those numbers yourself, by clicking on one of the symbols which were part of winning combinations that round. You get either one additional spin collected, or you advance the date by one day. If you don’t click on one of the winning symbols, you don’t get anything.
You trigger the free spins you’ve accumulated by advancing from December 5th to December 25th, Christmas Day. At that point, the free spins will start and the wins will all be doubled for that particular feature.
The Xmas Dinner Bonus is a feature which has its own symbol to trigger it, with the image of a Scrooge shaped door knocker on it. Three to five scatter symbols of this type will bring you a bonus game where you have to match the five meals to the five characters from the story which are waiting at the table. Prizes of 6x to 20x the bet are offered for each correct match you make.
It wouldn’t be a complete game without a wild symbol, and you get this particular feature with a multiplier as well, doubling rewards for wins it helps form. The image used for this symbol is the one with the Scrooge Logo, surrounded by silver coins.
What Makes It Special
The feature which lets you advance towards the free spins by clicking on symbols yourself is something I haven’t seen in other slots, which generally don’t require that you do something in order not to miss an opportunity. Most games only need you to click on a Spin button, no matter how complicated the paytable might look like.
This feature does bring some opportunities with it as well though, and some players have figured out how to make the most of it. They would play this game using bonus money, for which you generally have to meet certain wager requirements in order to be able to withdraw winnings. They would advance towards the free spins mode with that money, getting up to December 24th. At that point they would stop playing this slot, coming back to it once they got rid of the wager requirements by completing them, or when they spent all the bonus money (thus getting rid of those requirements). The free spins would be played with the player’s own money, and so any rewards obtained at that point would be theirs to keep and withdraw immediately.
Conclusion
It’s a game with a fairly high variance, which has some unusual features that ask you to get involved, and with the top payouts of $120,000 you could even call its prizes impressive. It’s not your typical Christmas themed slot machine design wise, but the story is very well known.
