Cindereela Slot

Before we go any further, let’s all agree on this: Cindereela is an inspired name. In the pantheon of great slot machine titles, this one’s right up there with the best of ‘em. Kudos to whichever Novomatic dev had the flash of genius that birthed this post-modern fairy tale themed game. In the traditional folk story, Cinderella was dirt poor and forced to work as a servant girl for her spoilt sisters. In this less traditional video slot adaptation, you also start out with nothing before working your way from rags to riches with every incremental win.

Fortune Favours The Bold

This 5-reel slot machine contains all the essential ingredients that happy ever afters are made of: multiple paylines, free spins, bonus features and scatter symbols galore. If you didn’t spot these touches in Disney’s classic Cinderella, you clearly weren’t paying attention. Cindereela is proof that dreams can come true – provided your dream is scooping the jackpot on a 5-reel video slot.

There are three rows and 10 paylines to keep your eyes on as the action unfolds. Alternatively, if your concentration span is shorter than a midget’s stride, just select autoplay and let the game play itself. It’s your call, but rest assured you’ll have much more fun if you choose to immerse yourself in the fantasy and by “immerse” read “press the start button repeatedly until something happens”.

You can set your bet for each line, with anywhere from four to 10 coins promising a return commensurate with your stake. Once you’ve scored a win, and set Cinderella on the path to eternal love and mad cash, the first decision you’ll face is whether or not to gamble. Technically you’ve been gambling all along, but in this case it comes down to a simple stick or twist. Correctly guess the colour of the card – black or red – and you’ll double your winnings. Get it wrong and it’s back to square one.

Cash And Carriage

Speaking of cards, the generic symbols in Cindereela are made up of playing card values – the usual 9, 10, J, Q, K. The special symbols, however, are much more imaginative, and these are where the game acquires its charm. Aside from the ubiquitous Cinderella and the dashing prince (what a fetching couple they make!), other notable symbols include mice, pumpkins, red shoes, dogs and the fairy godmother herself, who serves as the scatter symbol. True Cinderella aficionados will be only too familiar with the mice and pumpkins, which transform into horse and carriage with a little sprinkling of fairy dust. As for the red shoes, they seem a shoddy substitute for the famous glass slippers, but hey, what you gonna do?

Land three or more scatter symbols on a payline and you’ll be granted up to 30 free spins. In a neat touch, the animation sees a clock appear on the screen, mimicking the race against time Cinderella faced as the hour of the midnight ball drew near. Our princess-to-be serves as the game’s wild symbol, and can substitute for any of the game’s other playing symbols save for scatter. Not surprisingly, Cinderella is also the game’s highest scoring symbol: five in line will neatly multiply your stake by a factor of 4,000.

Money Is Magic

In the original story of Cinderella, our protagonist may have commanded all the attention, but it’s the fairy godmother who made everything possible. So it is in Cindereela: if you’re to have any hope of fulfilling your very own fairy tale, you’ll need a helping hand from the woman with the wand. With three fairy godmothers in view and the bonus feature activated, any wins you achieve during the subsequent free spins will be automatically doubled. The number of spins you’re granted is dictated by the fairy godmother, who sets the clock to a number corresponding with your spins.

And that’s about all there is to know about Cindereela. Whether you’re a hopeless romantic, a perennial dreamer or a hard-nosed slot demon, this game offers enough to keep you captivated. The music can tire after a while, but that’s what the mute button was invented for. It would be nice if Novomatic would push the boat out and try something different occasionally with their bonus features, but as a standalone game, Cindereela is a solid offering. There are prettier slots out there and there are certainly more original ones, but for sheer playability and pun-ability, Cindereela is simply magic.