Oktoberfest, a slot offered by Amaya, has as a theme a holiday that needs no presentation for most men. It’s an annual beer festival in Germany, where for a couple of weeks people gather from all over the world. They drink large amounts of beer, eat German sausages, gawk at the pretty barmaids and have a great time. It starts up in September (despite the October related name), and it ends a couple of weeks later. The action of the slot gives us the image with the bar and those working hard during the festival, not with those partying.
Oktoberfest’s 9 paylines are offered on 5 reels, while its impressive payouts of up to $125,000 should be more than enough to allow anyone to go see the festival for real. When it comes to features, the game is not as generous as it is with its beer, but you still get one type of wild and three of scatters.
Features of Oktoberfest
The game seems to rely mostly on the charm of its theme to attract people, so they seem to have neglected the features a bit. The wild symbol is underpowered, while the three Bonus scatters seem to be doing the same thing, triggering the “Beer Barrel” bonus game.
I’m not sure what the connection with the festival is, but the hero of the slot and the one used in the wild symbol is a horse. He’s going to give away the top jackpot as well, but more than that, it can be used to substitute for other symbols and that should result in additional combinations from time to time. It’s only allowed to replace two other symbols, the barmaid and the Bavarian gentleman.
Beer Barrel Bonus
This is a bonus game that can be triggered in three different ways. In each case, the requirement is for three matching symbols to be present in the game, but there are three different symbols that will achieve this for you. All of them are marked with the word Bonus, and they have on them images with a beer mug, a bottle and a glass with ice cubes in it. You need three identical symbols at the very least, but having four or five will get you some multipliers as well, at 2x and 3x, respectively.
Once you’ve gotten the minimum requirement out of the way, the game will start and you will be asked to make a pick. Click on one of the available barrels, which will reveal its interior and the prize you’ve gotten (expressed as multiples of the total bet, 1x to 5x). The picking continues until you get the Collect message. If Collect is in the first pick, you get the maximum bonus multiplier out of it. Prizes of up to 2,700 credits are offered by this bonus game.
Betting options and jackpots
Oktoberfest is not a cheap slot to play, not if you want to get the biggest payout possible from it. You can end up with a $225 bet per spin, if you use all 9 paylines, with the maximum of 5 coins for each one and with the $5 denomination. If that kind of bet is too big for you, go for a smaller one, with fewer coins per line or a denomination as small as $0.01.
The slot will give away up to 25,000 coins, more than generous when you consider the value of up to $125,000 that they would have. The bet per spin is not a small one, but it could be worth it.
Design and symbols
The design brings together many of the elements of Oktoberfest that make it such a great festival. From lovely barmaids, to beer, German wieners, pipe smoking and traditional Bavarian music, the game has it all. The design style is not that impressive, but we’ll forgive a lot of things when beer is at stake.
Symbols: Horse (wild, 5,000x), Beer Mug/Bottle/Glass (scatters), Barmaid (1,600x), Bavarian Man (800x), Bavarian Hat (500x), Beer Barrel (300x), Wieners (200x), Pipe (100x) and Accordion (60x).
Is It Worth Playing?
The game might disappoint when it comes to the features, but I think that the $125,000 jackpot and the Oktoberfest festival theme will convince you that it’s a slot worth pursuing.
Oktoberfest can be found at any Amaya casino, where you get a chance to play it for real money or in free mode.
