The Golden Era that the title mentions is connected with the golden era of cinema, which for Hollywood means the time between the moment when silent cinema era started its decline, meaning at the end of the 20s, and up to the early 60s. This era started with a movie called The Jazz Singer, in 1927, the first one to offer sound. The graphics that were used in this Microgaming slot machine are appropriate for that era, before and immediately after World War 2.
A modern looking game, despite the retro theme, Golden Era has 5 reels with only 15 lines arranged on them, enough to give you access from time to time to free spins with embracing wilds, to scatter symbols or to regular wilds. The $20,000 jackpot isn’t bad either, a good target to have in a game that does everything else quite well.
Features of Golden Era
The game does well feature wise, offering its players wild symbols, scatters, plus some bonus games that will make you choose between free spins with embracing wilds and a double feature bonus.
The wild symbol is an often used feature in modern slot machines, and I’m glad to see it every time I encounter it in a game. The reason would be that it often is capable of two things, the first one being obviously the substitution for other symbols bit. The second would be its ability to award the top jackpot of the slot it is offered in, though it doesn’t always have this role. The Clapper scatter is the only symbol that it can’t substitute for. For combinations made out of wilds, a minimum of three symbols are needed.
Next, we have the Clapper, the scatter symbol of Golden Era. You need only two symbols, to start getting paid by the scatter symbol, and best of all, they don’t have to be arranged in any specific order. They only have to be present on the reels, and in exchange for the two to five Clappers that you can get, the prizes you receive will be worth between 1x and 100x the amount you used in your bet that round.
The bonus game of Golden Era is triggered by the same scatter symbol, and you need between three and five Clappers to get it. You have a choice between two different features, both of them mentioned below. The first one is Free Spins, the second one is Double Feature.
Free Spins With Embracing Wilds
The first of the two options available to you is called the Free Spins round. You get 12 free games from it, with embracing wild reels. What this means is that there are two wild reels to start with, the actor and the actress. The actor is initially on the 1st reel, the actress on the 5th. He moves to the 2nd reel in the next round, while she moves to the 4th. In the third round, they meet and embrace on the 3rd reel. They keep doing this move across the reels and embracing every three spins, until all the free spins are done.
If you get a combo in the round where the two wilds embrace, then the win will be worth twice as much. The other rounds have basic 1x multipliers.
Double Feature Bonus
The second bonus game available to you is the Double Feature. You get a screen filled with posters from classic movies, 10 of them total. You continue to make picks from among the posters until you discover the one that ends the feature. You can get prizes, or you can find multipliers of 2x, which will double the value of all bonus wins from that feature.
Betting options and jackpots
The complete betting range of Golden Era goes from $0.15 to $60, the slot asking the player to cover the 15 lines at all times, with individual bets that are between $0.01 and $4. The line wager uses coins of up to $0.20, with a maximum of 20 being used in each case.
While the reward that is used as the top jackpot is the equivalent of 5,000 times the line bet, it sounds like it’s much bigger, since it can mean up to 100,000 coins for you. The cash value only goes up to $20,000 though.
Design and symbols
You will have no trouble figuring out that Golden Era is a movie themed slot machine. It’s visible in pretty much all the symbols that were used for it, and the background picture shows you a beautiful theater room, where the movies would be played. The red decorated velvet of the walls is visible and beautiful, and there are red curtains that are pulled to reveal the stage. All the symbols show you beautiful vintage images of actors, paparazzi, movie reels and ticket stubs, to name just a few.
Symbols: Golden Era Logo (5,000x, wild), Clapper (scatter, 100x bet), Couple (1,000x), Blonde Actress (800x), Actor (700x), Old Lady (600x), Paparazzi (500x), Car (200x), Award Statue (200x), Camera (150x), Movie Reel (150x), Palm Prints (100x) and Tickets (100x).
Is It Worth Playing?
I very much enjoyed the game and everything it offers its players. It’s got a great design, its features include some things that I haven’t found anywhere else, and even the prizes are at least decent.
You will find Golden Era at any online casino which chooses to use software from Microgaming, playable either for free or for real money.
