The Oracle should actually be called the fortune teller, since that’s the more widely used term for what that girl is doing. The gypsy girl that is the star of The Oracle uses a crystal ball to tell people their fortunes, and on top of that she also seems to dabble a bit in Tarot cards and other activities of the same kind. It’s not a new theme, the fortune teller gypsy girl being present in more than a few slot machines already, but its use of the term “oracle” I haven’t notice anywhere else before. Regardless of how some people regard fortune telling, there are a lot of other people that believe it to be true, so I’m sure that The Oracle will do just fine, especially since its graphics look quite good.
The 5 reels of The Oracle get a limited number of paylines, the upper limit being 9. It’s a slot machine from Cryptologic, a developer that has a lot of these slot machines, where you get a lot of features but not that many chances to win them during each round. The payouts of The Oracle include a $20,000 top jackpot.
Features of The Oracle
A bonus feature that provides the player with both free spins and a multiplier is one of the things you can expect from The Oracle, along with the triggering scatter symbols and wilds.
The Oracle symbol is the image of a gypsy girl, with black hair, blue skin and wearing a green headband with a gem in the middle. Used as a wild feature, it can only make an appearance on the reels 2, 3 and 4. Since it’s limited in the number of times you can get it on a payline, it doesn’t have prizes of its own to award. It also doesn’t multiply any winnings, but its use as a substitute for other symbols should still be a useful feature and you will find yourself taking advantage of it on more than one occasion.
The Crystal Ball image gets you both prizes and the bonus feature, depending on how many of them are present. With just two of them scattered on the reels, you can expect a small prize awarded, worth the equivalent of the round’s wager. With each additional Crystal Ball that appears, you get a bigger prize, going to 5x, 20x and 150x the wager, for 3, 4 or 5 scatters, respectively.
Free Games Feature
In addition to prizes that can mean the difference between a profitable game and a losing one, The Oracle also has free spins to offer for 3 to 5 Crystal Balls present. These scatter symbols can’t just appear anywhere they like though, as they have to appear starting either from the 1st or the 5th reel, and going towards the other end on reels in consecutive order. There are either 5, 10 or 15 free spins offered, all of them with a 3x multiplier present.
Betting options and jackpots
I’d say this is a mid-range game as far as betting is concerned. You don’t get a huge wager requirement from it, but you still have to bet $45 for a single spin, if you want to maximize what it can offer you. There are 9 lines inside, and each one gets a single coin when it’s active. These coins go from $0.05 to $5 in value and they influence the ultimate cash value of the prizes you win.
First on the paytable would be the 4,000 coins of the jackpot, potentially valued at $20,000 with the right coin denomination in place.
Design and symbols
The design fits the theme rather well, though the background image and its curtains remind me more of a magician’s show, than of the wagon of a fortune teller. Guessing the future is what this game tries to suggest that is possible, either through the crystal ball of the gypsy girl, or through the tarot cards. The presence of playing cards and of a few other items that would simply be in the room of the oracle, doesn’t help with the game experience that much. Mainly thanks to the outer area design, this seems like a dark game, which fits the theme and the main character.
Symbols: The Oracle (wild symbol), Crystal Ball (scatter, 150x the wager), Candles (4,000x), Tarot Cards (1,000x), Book (500x), Emerald Necklace (500x), Ace (300x), King (300x), Queen (200x), Jack (200x), 10 (100x) and 9 (100x).
Is It Worth Playing?
With the wild symbol being limited to only a couple of reels, and with the scatter symbol having to appear in consecutive order in order to award its prizes, the game doesn’t look like it’s much of a deal, and I for one will stay far away from it (it has nothing to do with the witch, I swear!).
This The Oracle slot is offered by all online casinos with Cryptologic software, playable either in practice or in real money mode.
