EmotiCoins

In this modern day and age, facets of communication have changed somewhat: nobody is talking to each other anymore, we all just use emoticons to convey our messages. Well, ok, that’s a bit of a deliberately placed exaggeration to capture your attention, but there is certain truth in this. And as we are thinking of ways not to finish this paragraph with an emoji, let us make clear right away that this Microgaming https://lcb.org/games/slots/microgaming 3x5 video slot, with 30 fixed paylines is a return to a more standard levels of graphics that won’t have you shouting their name from the rooftops. However, two special features are a nice touch and the generally fun theme is very light – just what we all need after a day full of stress.

Theme

So, yeah – emoticons. That is all. It’s hard to elaborate on something so basic and what is an integral part of all of our everyday lives. All we can say is – it’s about time! The emoticons video slot has been long time coming and maybe, in this era when even the video slot games have more elaborate and complex storylines than most movies and books – maybe something as refreshingly simple as this is just the ticket. Background is your simple blueish pattern of speech clouds and bubbles, lower-end symbols are a standard set of letters and numbers (a bit lazy, if you ask us) while a wide range of emoticons serve as symbols of higher value: there’s the “cool guy” with the sunglasses, the one winking, the one blowing a kiss, another whistling, and another cheeky one with his tongue hanging out. Oh, the one grinning, of course. Brightly colored as they are, there is barely anything going on in terms of animations. All in all, it’s a solid to mediocre 6/10 for the visual appeal. Music of the game is best described as “background music” (or elevator music, for the tunes they used to play in big hotels just to pass the time and make the atmosphere at least passable), as if something from a TV quiz jingles. We know Micogaming can do wonders when they have their minds set to it, so we are aware that the ascetic visuals here were part of the developer’s plan.

Betting Options and Functions

Player’s options at the bottom of the screen, found on a very parched dashboard, allows you to set your betting currency to coins or credits. Coin size can go from 0.01 to 0.20, and you can set up to 50 coins per line max.
Other options you may adjust are the quickness of spins and turning on and off of sound. Autoplay option can be set to 100 spins at most, which is kind of poor because today most games even have option to set autospins to thousands an even infinity. In player’s menu, you will also find vital info on wild and scatter symbols, the worth of each symbol and the cashout diagram for all 30 lines.

Features

This otherwise tame slot has a few tricks up its sleeves. First of all there are two types of wilds: a regular Wild symbols which will grant a Wild Blast if you land five of them on any position, yielding a guaranteed win. They get sticky during the extra spin round as one additional symbol position turns wild. The wild EmotiCoins symbol substitutes all symbols except the scatter. And the scatter itself is the LOL symbol – landing at least three of them will trigger the extra spins mode (ten extra spins)

Our Take

While definitely not the most complex video slot we will ever play in our lifetime, and also not the one bursting at the seams with the excitement of endless special features, EmotiCoins is still a decent effort for what it’s worth. It’s a perfect break from all the over-the-top slots who have turned an easy and innocent fun into unfathomable wells of pretentiousness. Could this game have turned into something more than what it is? Perhaps. But it doesn’t mean that the very next installment of emoji-themed games penned by Microgaming will not bring a lot of novelties to the table.