The Red Queen (Pragmatic Play) Slot Demo & Review

Drum roll please…! The Red Queen is a character from Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She shares several characteristics with the Queen of Hearts from the first story, but their personalities differ. There must be at least a dozen Wonderland-themed online slots out there already– the most recent examples in our review library are In the Rabbit Hole and Alice in Adventureland. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s about time that Looking Glass got… well, a look in – Let’s find out if Pragmatic Play has done this hugely popular children’s tale the justice it deserves!

There’s quite a bit to unpack concerning the paytable. The eponymous Red Queen takes pride of place at the top of the table, but her payout of just 2.5x the total bet for a full payway of five of a kind isn’t exactly earth-shattering. A higher payout of 5x the bet is available if you manage to hit six of a kind, but that’s only possible during free spins or on the rare occasions that the sixth reel is unlocked. The White Rabbit can pay 2x or 3.75x the bet for five or six symbols, respectively, followed by the Cheshire Cat at 1.5x/3x, the Wicked Witch at 1.25x/2x, and the Youngster with payouts of 1x/1.5x! As for the royals, their payouts range between 0.3x/0.5x for the tens and 0.5x/1.25x for the aces. These numbers sure aren’t going to impress anyone on their own, so it’s worth pointing out that the symbols are stacked on the reels as well. Theoretically, this should help you to win on a large number of payways simultaneously.

You probably know the drill with Pragmatic Play’s wagering setup by now – they are one of the few developers who still give players total freedom to choose how much they want to bet. As for the minimum/maximum betting limits, those have been set at €0.20 and €100.00, respectively.

The default configuration of The Red Queen is five reels of three rows each, along with 243 payways. However, this setup is not set in stone, as every mystery symbol that lands on the reels can be divided into one to four instances of the same paying symbol. A single symbol divided into four will increase the payway count from 243 to 729, and this effect gets exponentially larger with every additional mystery symbol.

Extra Reel

During the base game, a sixth reel is always visible to the right of the main playfield. The sixth reel will be unlocked whenever two or three bonus symbols land. The sixth reel only contains the highest-paying queen symbol and the bonus scatter during the base game, so this is effectively a second-chance feature to increase your odds of triggering a bonus round. If you are unsuccessful, you can at least hope to score some six of a kind payways of the highest-paying symbol!

Queens Respins

Whenever one or more queen symbols land on the sixth reel, the queen’s re-spin feature is activated. When this occurs, the bonus scatter symbols that activate the extra reel will transform into multiplier wilds and become locked in place. The remaining positions will then be re-spun, creating an opportunity to hit a large number of winning payways with a multiplier of up to 16x.

Bonus scatter symbols only appear on reels two, three, and four. You’ll need to hit all three of these to trigger the free spins bonus round, although you do get a second chance by means of the extra reel (see above) if you manage to hit two of the three available symbols.

Free Spins

Immediately after the free spins are triggered, a clock will reveal the number of free spins you have been awarded for the current bonus round. Each time the clock hand stops on an hour, the corresponding number of free spins will be added to your current total. The clock’s background is divided into coloured sections – if the hand stops on a green area, the clock will spin again; if it stops on a white area, the bonus round will begin.

The sixth reel is always active during free spins and contains normal paying symbols instead of the limited set that appears during the base game. Three booster modifiers can also activate in this area of the game, potentially increasing the number of payways, adding new multiplier wilds to the reels, or adding an extra spin to your remaining total.