It’s a Mystery is the name of a game developed by RTG, with a crime mystery theme. They’ve included Sherlock Holmes among the characters that are part of this story, but they made him one of the symbols that has average pays, so it doesn’t look like he’s that important to the storyline. The mystery theme should be enough to get a lot of people to try it out, but it also comes with a beautiful design, so there is an even better chance of this being a fun game.
The 5 reels offer you 25 paylines and they are populated with a bunch of interesting features, among which you will find the wild and scatter symbols, plus their free spins and the feature guarantee. The $37,500 top prize gives you a good reason to give it a go, plus you have two progressive payouts as well (worth either a couple of hundred or a few thousand dollars).
Features of It’s A Mystery
The “?” symbol is placed inside a green orb with golden decorations all around, a good choice for a mystery themed slot where there are a lot of questions and hard to get answers. Its role is that of the wild symbol, capable of taking over for regular icons in the game. When you get multiple wilds on the same line, the same as any other symbol, it will have good payouts to offer, in the range of 10 to 7500 coins. A wild will not be capable of substituting for a scatter.
Speaking of the scatter, its symbol is an image of a magnifier glass which enhances the words “It’s a Mystery!”, with tiny footprints also visible underneath. During the base game, the presence of at least three of these images will result in some decent payouts, going as high as 200 times the value you used in your wager. During the feature, it requires a minimum of two symbols and the payouts go from 1x to 200x.
Portrait Puzzle Feature
The game’s only feature round can be activated through the presence of a minimum of three scatter symbols in the base game. The resulting feature is called “Portrait Puzzle”. The first screen you are taken to gives you a portrait puzzle, made out of 9 pieces.
Once you click on the Start button, those 9 pieces will be shuffled. If one of the pieces of the portrait appears in the correct position after the shuffle, then it will remain locked in that place. The game keeps shuffling the pieces and each time it will keep locked the ones that appear in the correct position. You get as many shuffles as the number of triggering scatter symbols (3 to 5). The outcome of the game can be one of two, as you either complete that portrait or you have no more shuffles to use on it.
Free Spins – Even if you don’t get all the pieces in place, you will still get a number of free spins from it. The maximum number is 50 free games, plus a cash prize worth 500 times the bet. While the free spins are used, you can retrigger them with 3+ scatters and you get an additional 10 spins.
Betting options and jackpots
The game asks of its players to place wagers on all the available paylines, so there is a fixed number of 25 coins which have to be used. You do have complete control over the coin value, within the $0.01 to $5 range available. The full betting range is between $0.25 and $125.
You will find that there is a satisfactory prize offered, 7500 coins that will turn into $37,500 cash as long as the maximum bet was used. The two progressive jackpots make for decent secondary prizes, but they don’t come near the big one.
Design and symbols
One of the strong suits of this game is its design. Using high quality images, characters with lots of details in them and with the action placed inside a mansion, the game has a lot to offer in this area. The only negative would be the presence of 6 playing card symbols, which is more than half the number of regular icons.
Symbols: Question Mark (wild, 7,500x), Magnifier Glass (scatter, 200x), Man with Monocle (2,500x), Woman (1,250x), Man in Blue (1,000x), Sherlock Holmes (500x), Mansion (500x), Ace/King/Queen (250x), Jack/Ten/Nine (150x).
Is It Worth Playing?
It’s a Mystery will give you great graphics, a good puzzle feature and payouts that are above average for RTG. If you enjoy a good mystery novel once in a while, try this slot out.
The It’s A Mystery slot machine is offered through the RTG platform, so if you want to play it for real or just to practice, look out for casinos that use it.
