Snake Charmer Slots

Its name evoking images of Eastern promise and Indian magic, Snake Charmer is a game that flatters to deceive. It features snakes, admittedly, and flutes also make an appearance, but beyond that, not much about this game makes sense. Still, this is the realm of video slots. Since when did logical storylines have any bearing on your willingness to play a 5-reel slot? Besides, even if Snake Charmer is thematically muddled, its features and layout make perfect sense.

Money goes in, money comes out and, if you’re smart or lucky, you end up with more than you started out with. That’s the philosophy at least. Now all you got to do is find a way to make it work in practice.

Snake in the Grass

Snake Charmer takes place on a standard 5x3 layout with 25 lines in all and comes courtesy of Cozy Games. The software company are known for making games that are frivolous yet fun and adorned with attractive graphics and smooth animation. Snake Charmer isn’t the prettiest game you’ll ever lay eyes on as it happens, but it’s no sight for sore eyes either. A minimalist backdrop features hills, mountains, clouds and sun, with precious little in the way of detail. If you want to see more, you’ll just have to lose your imagination.

Across the top of the screen, the game’s logo is displayed in orange cartoonish lettering, save for the S which doubles as a green snake. It appears to be a cobra, the preferred serpent of Indian flute-players seeking to charm creatures with their hypnotic music. So far, so sensible.

It’s only when you inspect the playing symbols that things get a little weird. For one thing, the symbol you’ll wind up seeing a lot of, strangely, is a green frog – one that bears more than a passing resemblance to the green snake. The frog also appears to be the largest symbol in the game, dwarfing its furry brown compatriot that’s presumably meant to be a mongoose – a notorious snake slayer.

Look Directly Into the Reels

With the bulk of Snake Charmer’s symbols resembling playing cards, and garish ones at that, the game seems a little half-baked; it’s as if Cozy Games couldn’t be bothered. But wait a second...stare at the symbols on the screen for a few seconds and something curious happens. It’s as if the symbols appear to be spinning before your eyes, and yet that surely can’t be the case. What’s going on?

Gaze at the edges of the symbols – 10, Q, J, K, A – and you’ll notice an out of focus effect, like watching a 3D movie without the glasses on. If you haven’t guessed, this is Cozy Games’ attempt to mimic the hypnotic or mesmerising effect that a snake charmer is reputed to have on the cobra in the basket. Clever stuff from Cozy Games. Just don’t stare too long or you might find yourself doing the strangest dance to the strangest music.

Make Like a Snake

Like any good video slot, the two symbols anchoring the bulk of the action in Snake Charmer are wild and scatter. In this case, scatter is played by the green cobra hovering in front of its basket, while wild features the snake and charmer set against a blue sky.

Wild will substitute for any of the symbols except for scatter, making it easier to turn combos of 2 or more into major wins. Five wild symbols are worth a serious 10,000. Scatter, meanwhile, awards free spins. There is no bonus game in Snake Charmer, so this represents your best chance of making some proper money. 2 scatters are worth 5 free spins, 3 are worth 10 spins, 4 are worth 15 spins and 5 are worth 20.

The remainder of the playing symbols are made up of the aforementioned playing card values, followed by a mere 4 proprietary symbols: flute, mongoose, frog and cobra. 5 mongooses or frogs are worth 500, while 5 cobras will fetch 1,000. And that’s all there is to know about Snake Charmer: it’s about as basic as a 5-reel slot gets, but for all its simplicity, it’s a cheery little game, one that will charm the pants right off you. Just as well you’re playing it from the sanctity of your own home then.

Spin the reels in search of scatter and wild wins but whatever you do, don’t stare too long or you could end up in a trance.