Gold Slots goes for gold in the Facebook slot machine genre

Gold Slots is a new Facebook-based slot machine sim, developed by iEvoGames and published by 6waves. The game showed up as the 11th fastest-growing Facebook game by daily active users in our roundup earlier this week. Gold Slots follows the model of most other Facebook slot machine simulations. Beginning with a single available machine, players may bet on up to 25 different "win lines" in the hopes of spinning a winning combination of symbols. As players spin the reels, they gain experience points and level up, which in turn allows them to place larger bets at once and unlock different machines. All of the machines work the same, they simply have a different audio-visual aesthetic. Gold Slots puts a couple of spins -- no pun intended -- on the conventions of the genre that give it a slightly greater feeling of interactivity than its numerous competitors. The first of these twists is that the player may take on a gambling minigame in order to increase the payout from a winning spin. This minigame is very straightforward: players must simply guess whether the next playing card drawn from a stack will be a member of a red or black suit, with successful guesses increasing the pot of winnings and then offering a chance to increase it still further. Despite its simplicity, the inclusion of this feature adds a welcome sense of doing something beyond simply clicking the "Spin" button over and over again. Based on our testing, however, it appears the odds are stacked significantly in favor of the house -- although there's always the possibility it could just be our bad luck. The second twist is that every few experience levels players may choose which machine they would like to try next, rather than unlocking new machines in a linear order at set levels like most other slots sims on Facebook. Since all machines play almost identically barring their irregularly-occurring "bonus" game, this decision is largely a matter of aesthetics rather than mechanics. Again, though, it gives players a feeling of interaction with the game rather than simply going through the motions. At the time of writing, there are nine different machines available, catering to a wide variety of tastes. The game's interface suggests that at least seven more are on the way, too. Despite the couple of new things it offers on what is usually seen in the genre, it's mostly business as usual elsewhere in Gold Slots. Players may send gifts of either free spins or packages of coins to friends, and a community jackpot builds up as players continue to place bets. Like most of its competitors, Gold Slots also doesn't do a great job of explaining exactly how to play this type of slot machine, though unlike many of its peers, it does at least include a half-hearted, rushed tutorial that points out where the "paylines" and "spin" buttons are. Gold Slots is a perfectly competent example of a Facebook-based slot machine sim. The couple of interactive twists it adds on the otherwise rather stale formula are welcome, but ultimately it remains to be seen if these features coupled with 6waves' marketing clout will be enough to attract players away from more popular takes on the genre such as Playtika's Slotomania in the long term. As such, Gold Slots' recent strong growth makes it one to keep an eye on for now, but it's far from being a must-play title. Gold Slots currently has 150,000 monthly active users and 40,000 daily active users. Follow its progress with AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers. Wait Some good ideas here, but it remains to be seen if they're enough to distinguish Gold Slots from its more well-established rivals.

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Gold Slots goes for gold in the Facebook slot machine genre

Pete Davison

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Pete Davison