Red White Blue 1 Line Slot Machine
Played out on a background of stars and stripes, Octopus Gaming’s Red White Blue 1 Line slot machine is a classic title that draws on America’s rich history of gambling to provide players with a little taste of 1970s Las Vegas nostalgia.
As a single payline title, Red White Blue 1 Line is about as simple as it gets to play and actually shares a design with the 3 and 5 line versions, albeit without the extra button that allows players to enable/disable paylines. The reels, rules and all necessary information about payouts fit onto one screen, meaning everything you need to know about the game is already right in front of your eyes.
Patriot Games
As the name suggests, Red White Blue 1 Line features just one payline that is active at all times, and this is the row running right through the centre of the three reels. Despite this fact, there are still two buttons in the game that players need to familiarise themselves with, namely the bet amount and the coin size, which, when combined, enable the game to be played for between $0.01 and $15.
Payouts in Red White Blue 1 Line range from a minimum of 1x your line bet for finding a plain white seven on the central space of any of the three reels to 5,000x your stake for matching three stars and stripes sevens when the coin size has been cranked up to the maximum level during a spin.
Any combination of three BAR symbols across the central spaces also awards 5x your stake, while matching specific single, double and triple BAR logos results in a win of between 20x and 80x your bet. All in all, this means that payouts in Red White Blue 1 Line tend to come around quite frequently and your bankroll will last longer, but you’ll only see a big win once in a red, white and blue moon.
Star Spangled Banner
Naturally, the American flag features prominently in the design of Red White Blue 1 line, acting as both a background theme for the game and a decoration on some of its symbols. This gives the slot a classic look and feel, but does provide a slightly limited colour palette for the designers to work with.
As such, the symbols used in Red White Blue 1 Line are not particularly interesting to look at – in fact, while there are technically six of them, in reality they are all variations on two main icons: the BAR logo and the classic lucky seven. With the former appearing in single, double and triple versions and the latter coming in white, blue and stars and stripe editions, it’s all fairly predictable to look at.
Similarly, there’s nothing particularly adventurous about the use of sound in Red White Blue 1 Line, with nothing but the whir of reels and tinkle of winning paylines used to punctuate the gameplay.
Land Of Opportunity?
While America was once sold as the land of opportunity to thousands of migrant workers, in Red White Blue 1 Line your chance of prosperity is somewhat limited. This problem not only stems from the fact that with only one active payline, you don’t have a huge amount to aim at, but also because the stars and stripes sevens are so few and far between you’ll rarely land one, let alone three.
This is a shame because these icons are supposed to act as wilds that can be substituted for any regular symbol to complete winning paylines, but in reality you hardly ever get to use them for their intended purpose. Indeed, with just the middle row active, even if you do land a wild symbol once every 50 or so spins, there are no guarantees whatsoever that it will actually help complete a win.
Of course, if a single wild appearing is this rare, the chances of one featuring across all three central spaces are so miniscule that they are barely worth contemplating, making Red White Blue 1 Line a game that is low on excitement and even lower on returns.
American Horror Story
While we appreciate that Red White Blue 1 Line is harking back to the golden age of classic slot machines, we’re of the belief that this type of game belongs in a museum, not on our screens. In this day and age, 1 line slot machines simply don’t have the playability to keep users hooked and the regular payouts are so plodding that you really don’t get much of a reward for the time you invest.