How do I play the Wheel of Wishes jackpot slot?

The imminent general release of the new Wheel of Wishes slot from Alchemy Gaming and Microgaming, has got plenty of slot players excited. The promise of being able to have a shot at the 2 million seeded Wowpot progressive jackpot prize, not to mention a Major progressive prize seeded at a whopping 50,000, has certainly set the slots community ablaze with excitement.

Now in traditional progressive jackpot games, there was just one way you could win the jackpot prize and that was to stump up at least the minimum permissible bet, hit the spin button and cross your fingers that Lady Luck was on your side and that you would land either the sequence of symbols you needed to hit the top prize, or trigger the feature that would allow you a shot at winning the mother load.

However, what is one of the more innovative features of the Wheel of Wishes slot is that it can actually be played and approached in two different ways. Wheel of Wishes has two different game 'modes' that you can play. The first is the standard game mode, which features the base game, and the second is the Power Mode, which grants you access immediately to the main bonus feature of the Wheel of Wishes slot, but at a premium in terms of the cost per spin.

So the question is, which is the best way of the two to play the Wheel of Wishes slot and will this influence how you should approach playing the game? To answer that, we are going to take a look at the main benefits of each different game mode, as well as some of the things that you will need to consider before deciding which mode to play on Wheel of Wishes.

Let's begin by taking a look at the standard game mode.

Wheel of Wishes Standard Game Mode

• Cost Per Spin - 0.10 to 25.00
• Reels in Play - 5 each with 3 symbols

The first thing to note here is that the cost to play the Wheel of Wishes slot in standard game mode can be among the cheapest progressive jackpot slots to play, with qualifying spins starting at just 0.10 per spin. You can, of course, increase that bet up to 25.00 per spin in this mode and if you do, then your chances of triggering the Power Spin and landing a shot at the progressive jackpots available will also increase accordingly.

The base game sees you play on a standard reel set of 5 reels, each with 3 symbols displayed on screen. Symbols include lower value symbols, (which are the dot, plus the four suits from a pack of cards) as well as higher value symbols which are all items linked in with the Arabian theme of the slot. In the base game, you can win by landing three symbols across one of the 10 pay lines in play and prizes range from 0.5x your bet, up to 50x your bet.

The Wild is also on the reels and this can be stacked up to three symbols high and if you land five of these on a pay line, then you can win the 50x top prize in the base game, although the Wild is more often used as a substitute for standard symbols, which increases your chances of landing a win.

The main feature symbol however is the Power Symbol Scatter. You need to land just two of these anywhere across the reels to trigger a Power Spin, but if you can land, three, four or five across the reels, you will also trigger a nice cash prize of between 5x and 500x your bet depending on how many symbols you land.

When you enter the Power Spin from the base game, you are given one free Power Spin in a new game mode, Power Mode (more details of which will be explained in the section below). It is only in this mode that you can earn a shot at the Wheel of Wishes Jackpot Bonus Game and a chance at landing one of the four progressive jackpot prizes.

Additionally, you can also land some sizeable wins in Power Mode, across one or more pay lines, or your Power Mode spin could be a non-winner. Once you have played your free Power Spin, the game will go back into the base game mode ready for you to continue playing.

The main bonus of playing the standard base game in Wheel of Wishes is that it is a less volatile option than Power Mode, it is considerably cheaper, you have a far greater variety of wins available to you (which helps keep your bankroll topped up) and when you do trigger a Power Spin, it is free to play for you.

However, you can't trigger the Jackpot Bonus Game on every spin in standard game mode, which brings us neatly onto the Power Mode option.

Wheel of Wishes Power Mode

Rather than wait to trigger a Power Spin in the base game, you can elect to switch on Power Mode on the Wheel of Wishes slot, which you do by clicking the Power Mode button. When you do, this switches the game immediately into Power Mode.

In this mode, the reel set changes from the standard 5x3 reel set up of the base game, into the more unusual 3-reel set up for Power Mode. In this game, the first and fifth reels are retained, but the middle three reels combine into one large reel, that is populated by large 3x3 higher value symbols (the five lower value symbols are omitted from the reels) and one large 3x3 Jackpot Bonus Scatter.

On a power mode spin, the middle reel will spin and the first and fifth reels turn into what looks like a whirlwind, before they display the same high value symbol in each of the three positions on each reel. If you then match that symbol with all or part of the larger 3x3 symbol that is on the middle reel, you can win a large cash prize.

Of course, this means that only 5-symbol across the reels are available in Power Mode, but you can win those across multiple pay lines, which can result in some very sizeable wins, especially if you can land that larger symbol in full on the middle reels to match the smaller versions of the symbol on the first and fifth reels.

However, the exciting thing about Power Mode is that if you land the Jackpot Bonus Scatter in full on that middle reel, you will launch the Jackpot Bonus Wheel game. Here, you will be taken to a new screen and on it will be the wheel, which is populated by different coloured sectors, each of which corresponds to one of the four progressive jackpot prizes in the game. Simply spin the wheel and whatever sector the pointer lands on for that spin, is the progressive jackpot you will win.

It sounds very much like a no-brainer to play in Power Mode then as every spin could see you land a shot at the progressive jackpot prize, or land some of the higher value wins on the slot. However, there is a premium to pay for this and it is that the cost of spins in Power Mode are 10x the cost of a standard base game spin.

So, if you were playing in the base game at 1.00 per spin, and you switch to Power Mode, then your Power Mode spin equivalent would cost 10.00 per spin.

Power Mode is much more expensive to play (and this does make the slot more volatile) but the big benefit of playing in this mode is that you have access only to the larger wins on the game, you are more likely to trigger them across multiple pay lines and of course, you can trigger the Jackpot Bonus Wheel on any Power Mode spin.

Which is the best way to play Wheel of Wishes?

One of the best things about the Wheel of Wishes slot is that because you are given two different ways to play the slot, I think the game can be played by different players quite comfortably, based on how much they wish to spend and the type of slot gaming that they enjoy.

If, for example, you are a smaller stakes player, who likes a game that pays smaller amounts more often and who still wants a chance to win a massive jackpot prize, then you can play the Wheel of Wishes slot quite happily in the standard game mode.

Alternatively, if you are a player comfortable with betting more than usual on a spin and prefer higher volatility game play and are willing to take a chance and spend more, to potentially win larger amounts and give you more chance of a shot at the big progressive jackpot prizes, then the Power Mode option will certainly suit you more.

A mid-stakes player can switch between modes as they see fit, to enjoy both aspects of the game as their mood and bank roll dictates.

The great thing about Wheel of Wishes is that it allows you to play a slot game as you would like, but always offers you a shot at the huge jackpot prizes available.

Good Luck!