3 Lucky Witches

Time to generalise, and where some studios get wildly experimental, others prefer to stick to the script and roll out stuff we’ve seen before. Better put, there’s a scale, and one studio leaning toward the more experimental side of the spectrum is software provider 4ThePlayer. However, as well as beating to the sound of its own drum, the studio isn’t above taking feedback and funnelling it into future projects. Here is a prime example going by the name of 3 Lucky Witches; a follow-along from 3 Lucky Leprechauns, which didn’t come out a heck of a long time before this one did, and both share one or two similarities. They also share a good number of differences as well, time to see what they are.

One obvious optical difference is that we are now dealing with witches rather than leprechauns. While both have magical connotations, the two diverse themes let game makers inject very different imagery into their slots. In 3 Lucky Witches, this means a grumpy-looking cat, a spooky Hansel & Gretal-type house, a huge moon-filled night, bats, and a sprinkling of witchy magic. Another big visual shift is that the distinctive prize ladder from 3 Lucky Leprechauns has been replaced with a more conventional prize wheel, rotating next to the gaming grid. As before, triggering the prize wheel is 3 Lucky Witches’ main objective, more specifically, travelling to the middle of the Wheel to scoop its top prize.

To experience 3 Lucky Witches’ features, players pick a base bet of 10 p/c to £/€30 and make use of the feature buys or try their luck wagering on individual spins. While the prize wheel might be the main event, most of the time (when not paying to activate it), the majority of the action takes place on a 5-reel, 3-row gaming panel. With 243 ways on the gaming grid, a regular win occurs when matching symbols land from the leftmost side of the panel on adjacent reels. Powered by a highly volatile math model, the theoretical return to player value in 3 Lucky Witches is 96%.

Scrolling to the bottom of the paytable, we come across 3 Lucky Witches’ pay symbols. They begin with 10 to A card ranks, paying 3 to 5 times the bet for a 5 OAK hit, then candles, a potion bottle, an ornately covered book, a bird, and the aforementioned kitty as the 5 high pays. On second thought, the kitty doesn’t look as grumpy as first suspected. Anyway, hitting a 5 OAK premium symbol win pays 8 to 30 times the bet. As before, and this is a minor detail in some ways, but a fun one nonetheless, players can pick their favourite witch to appear on the wild symbol. The selection is purely cosmetic and has no bearing on the gameplay, where the options are Scarlett, Ivy, and Celeste. Wilds substitute for all symbols except scatters.

3 Lucky Witches: Slot Features

The wand or the regents or whatever you’d like to call it in 3 Lucky Witches are the bonus scatter symbols. Getting 3, 4, or 5 scatters triggers the 5-level Witches’ Wheel, starting you on levels 1, 3, and 5, respectively. On each level of the Wheel, you win either a prize or a level-up. The level-up takes you to the next level of the Witches’ Wheel. When a prize is awarded, it will be a cash prize, Win Spins, or Mega Picks. If you win Win Spins, Mega Picks, or the ‘?’, players can choose to play the bonus that is awarded or receive a cash prize. The cash prize is equal to the average win value of the particular bonus and is shown on the Wheel. In the case of ‘?’, players pick Win Spins or Mega Picks.

Win Spins

Depending on the ladder position when this feature is triggered, 3 to 20 Win Spins are awarded. When won from the Wheel in the normal game, Win Spins are played with an x3 win multiplier. When won from a ‘?’ prize in the normal game, the win multiplier is x6 to x10. When Win Spins are triggered from the buy feature, the win multiplier is x5. During Win Spins, each spin will result in a win. Win Spins cannot be retriggered.

Mega Picks

Depending on the ladder position when this feature triggers, 1 to 5 picks in the Pick-A-Win bonus are awarded. Players pick to reveal cash prizes until all of the picks run out, then the total value is paid.

Buy Feature

3 Lucky Witches’ feature buy menu offers these three options:

• Witches Trail – 35x the bet to land 3 to 5 scatters to spin the Witches’ Wheel.
• Win Spins – 100x the bet to buy 4 to 15 Win Spins.
• Pick-A-Win – 250x the bet to buy 1 to 5 picks for cash prizes.

3 Lucky Witches: Slot Verdict

Eyeballing 4ThePlayer’s back catalogue turned up a mix of one-off games and follow-ups, with a greater number of the former than the latter, it seems. However, when the studio does revisit older games, the results haven’t been half bad. The transition from 9K Yeti to 90K Yeti is probably the most dramatic, whereas the shift between 3 Lucky Leprechauns and 3 Lucky Witches isn’t quite as pronounced, by comparison. Things like the max win of 5,000x the bet have stayed the same, and the main objective, as stated, is getting the Wheel to spin. As before, this occurs pretty frequently when you consider feature triggers in the grand scheme of things, as the Wheel activates every 75 spins on average. Not every wheel spin will end up with a massive payout, but you just never know, right?

As well as the similarities, there are changes, and as the studio puts it, ‘A lot of player feedback has gone into this sequel!’ Aside from the obvious theme change, and it’s players’ choice whether they find the witches easier on the eye than leprechauns or vice versa, the shift from prize ladder to Wheel is one of the biggest. Where before, the ladder had 15 levels to power through, the Wheel has 5, which may (or may not) get players to the bigger prizes quicker. The studio also mentions tweaking the pace of the bonus to make it swifter, though the base game felt a little on the slow side, perhaps because it doesn’t have its own features or modifiers to break things up. So much so that 3 Lucky Witches did at times feel better suited to players partial to bonus buys, despite the relatively low bonus hit frequency.

It’s always nice to see studios not only take on feedback but use it in future releases, and those who liked 3 Lucky Leprechauns will probably be happy with the changes 4ThePlayer has implemented. In saying that, it’ll be interesting to see if players prefer the more original approach shown in 3 Lucky Leprechauns or, the more streamlined conventional approach of 3 Lucky Witches, but either way, having options is usually a positive.