Queen of the castle

There’s 576 different ways to line up symbols for a win in NextGen Gaming’s Queen of the Castle video slot, which sets the action between the turrets of a cartoon castle and can pay you a king’s ransom when some the right combinations land in place. Although it comes with the standard 5 reels, there’s no paylines running across them and the reels are unequal in size, with the number of symbols in each being in a 3-4-5-4-3 format. All that’s needed to get a win is to land 3 or more of the same symbol across adjacent reels from the left, but NextGen Gaming have filled this castle up to the ramparts with extra features, such as mystery prizes, locked reels, scatter pays, wilds, free spins and nudges.
Unlike many slots in the NextGen Gaming range, Queen of the Castle comes with relatively simple graphics, where playing card symbols, gems and a smattering of picture symbols, such as a throne, corgi dog and coin bag returning the higher-value prizes. But it’s got the high return to player percentage and reliability that comes as standard with slot games from this UK-based developer, plus it’s fully certified for fair play by independent testing labs, and it’s fully mobile optimised for players who use smartphones and tablet computers.
If you play on a phone, a little of the background detail is lost, but it’s just a view of some hills and lakes behind that castle, so gameplay isn’t affected at all. Despite straightforward graphics, it’s a nice-looking slot game that comes with smooth animations and has a nice orchestral soundtrack to accompany the sounds of spinning reels.
Royal Rewards in the Castle
Lining up enough symbols returns multiples of the coin value, and starting at the lower end of the paytable, there’s the J, Q, K and A, each of which returns 4, 5, or 6 coins when they are on 3, 4, or 5 reels from the left side. Green and purple gems pay out 5, 6, or 7 coins, while blue or gold gems are worth 6, 7, or 8. Heading up in value, the throne (well, more of a posh chair actually,) is worth 6, 7, or 9 coins, and then we have the bag of gold coins, a corgi and the game logo on a banner, which pays you the top wins in the base game of 10, 15, or 20 coins.
These relatively small rewards are offset by the rich variety of bonus symbols and special features that can significantly boost winnings. It’s also possible to land multiple winning combinations in a single spin, so don’t be put off by what appears to be quite low-paying symbols. The Queen is a wild symbol, who will be stacked on any reels she lands on, helping to complete winning lines by plugging any gaps in a sequence of matching icons, although she doesn’t actually have any value on her own, and can’t substitute for the bonus or crown symbols.
Something else that can lead to extra wins in the base game is a Locked Reels feature, which can occur in any random spin. You will see vines grow up around the middle 3 reels, which then spin together with matching symbols across them. If the same symbols are anywhere on reel 1, you are guaranteed a 4 of a kind winning combination.