September 2010
 

Multitiered Progressives Bring More Ways To Win by John Grochowski

If ever there could be said to be a progressive era in slot machines, this is it. Standalone progressives, with the jackpot rising with play on an individual machine. Linked progressives, where play on any machine raises a jackpot that’s shared by the entire bank. Wide-area progressives, where games in different casinos are linked to a common jackpot. And multitiered progressives, with several levels of jackpots and names like Mini, Minor, Major or Grand, or Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum, all on the same game.

Practically everywhere you turn on a casino floor nowadays, there are multitiered progressives. Hot new games like IGT’s Sex and the City and Amazing Race, WMS Gaming’s Hot Hot Super Jackpot and Goldfish Race for the Gold, and Bally Technologies’ Hot Shot Progressive.

The trend can trace its roots back to the introduction of Artistocrat Technologies’ Hyperlink system and the Cash Express game that was new to the American market in 2002. Electronic games with multiple progressive jackpots have been with us for decades, but the older games didn’t work in quite the same way as Hyperlink and its cousins.
Way back in the early 1990s, I sat down at a $1 Double Bonus Poker video poker machine with four different progressive jackpots. There was a progressive on royal flushes that started at the normal payoff of $4,000, then rose with a percentage of each wager until someone drew a royal. Then it rolled back to $4,000 and started again. The second progressive was on four Aces, and that started at $800, while a progressive on four 2s, 3s or 4s started at $400 and one on four 5s through Kings started at $250 — all the normal payoffs on quads.

A few feet away was a bank of IGT Megabucks games. The original Megabucks had a two-level progressive, with the big multimillion-dollar jackpot for lining up four Megabucks symbols. A second progressive of a few thousand dollars was awarded when the four Megabucks symbols appeared anywhere within the slot window, but not all on the payline.
Multitiered progressives? Sure. But the games that are so prominent on today’s slot floors have some big differences.

• Multitiered progressives usually are low-denomination games with multiple paylines accepting multiple-coin wagers per line. Pennies are particularly popular, fitting right in with the fastest-growing games in today’s casinos. Where Bally’s Blazing 7s three-reel progressives have their roots as a dollar game, the Hot Shot Progressives, using a Blazing 7s theme on the reels, are designed with penny players in mind, with 40 paylines and a 200-coin maximum bet.

• Jackpots can vary in size, but usually are smaller than in traditional one-line progressives. Game designers want the jackpots to hit frequently, especially at the lower levels, to give every player the experience of playing for a progressive and to keep them coming back for more. So we’re looking at small, frequent hits, often less than $10, at the lowest level of a multitier progressive. A promotional screen capture for Goldfish Race for the Gold, shows jackpots of $20, $75, $100 and $150. Those aren’t fixed amounts, no progressive is, but we’re looking at amounts that are a nice win on a penny game, wins that won’t change your life but if the bonus events come frequently enough, they make the game fun to play.

Bally’s Hot Shot Progressives don’t hit as frequently as Goldfish Race for the Gold, but have bigger prizes. A promotional flyer shows jackpots of about $20 at Blazing 7s level, $100 at Diamond Line, $200 at Double Jackpot, $2,000 at Triple Jackpot and $20,000 at Seven Times Pay level.

So there are big variations in jackpot size and game volatility, but something in between Goldfish and Hot Shot, is in the wheelhouse for multitiers, such a four-tier progressive with a bottom jackpot starting at $10 or less and a top jackpot of $1,000-plus.

• Progressive jackpots often are won through a bonus game within a game. In Goldfish Race for the Gold, the event is a seahorse race, with different colored fish as jockeys. Jackpots are named after the fish colors — the Blue Fish, Purple Fish, Red Fish and Gold Fish jackpots. The first seahorse to cross the finish line determines which progressive you win. And it is possible to have ties, meaning you can win two, three or even all four progressives at once.
In its popular Fort Knox progressives, IGT uses a game within a game in which players can choose among safes on a game grid that can earn a jackpot, or unlock the next level for a chance at a bigger jackpot. In keeping with the Fort Knox theme, the bonus levels are valuable metals, progressing from Copper to Silver to Gold to Platinum.

• Traditionally, progressive jackpot wins came when you lined the top jackpot symbols on a payline. Some new multitier progressive rounds launch in just that way — when you see the right symbols on the reels or screen, you launch into progressive play.

But mystery bonuses are a big part of the fun in the slots’ progressive era. The bonus round can launch even on a losing spin. Just a glance at the reels wouldn’t tell you anything special was about to happen, but when the scene changed to the bonus screen and the celebratory music and sound effects began, you’d know the party was on.
Mystery bonuses can be programmed a couple of different ways. Parameters can be set so the jackpot must hit somewhere between a minimum and a maximum, for example, there could be a $100 minimum on a jackpot, with a guarantee that it hits before it reaches $200. A random number generator then selects an exact amount between the parameters, and the win comes when the jackpot reaches the level selected by the RNG.

Alternatively, the parameters can be time instead of money. A system can be programmed so that the mystery event will launch in no more than a specific time since the last event. If that time is 10 minutes, for example, the random number generator will select a time between now and 10 minutes from now, and when we get to that time, the mystery event will launch.

There’s player appeal both in using symbols to launch the jackpot round and in mystery play. In a mystery game, you never know when that progressive event is going to launch, and even in a losing spin there’s an instant of hope that a jackpot is just around the corner. With symbol-driven events, there’s that sense of anticipation as you see the right symbols lining up.

Slot programmers have both symbol-driven and mystery play in their toolkits. Aristocrat, in introducing Cash Express and the modern era of multitiered progressives to the U.S. market, used a mystery trigger to take us on the train ride to a four-level progressive. Fort Knox’s jackpot round has a mystery trigger. But WMS, which started its multitiered progressive route with the four-level Jackpot Party Progressives, went the symbol-driven route. Whenever a Jackpot Party symbol appears on the fifth reel, a bonus screen appears where the player can collect credits while the disco music plays, just as in regular Jackpot Party, with the added feature of a star that’ll take you up the progressive ladder for a new screen and a chance at a bigger jackpot.

• While four-tier progressives are the most common, there’s room for a lot of variety in the multitier family. Aristocrat has a whole line of two-level progressives it calls its Double Standalones, while IGT has the Asian-themed House of Nine Dragons, with nine progressive jackpots.

Mysteries or symbol-driven, pennies or higher denominations, all jackpots less than $1,000 or something bigger, two levels, nine levels or anything in-between — all that gives slot machine manufacturers plenty of leeway in designing the multitiered games. Let’s take a look at some of what they have to offer.

WMS: Goldfish Race for the Gold is one of the hottest games around, and not just because of the frequent-hit four-way progressive. There are several bonuses and different entry points to the bonus rounds, meaning there’s always something different going on in the game. Different colors of fish bring different win possibilities. A red fish, for example, swims across the reels, kissing symbols, and making up to 15 of them change to Wild, perhaps creating new winning combinations. A green fish, on the other hand, brings a multiplier that can increase winnings from 2 to 10 times.

Hot Hot Super Jackpot Progressive is a more straightforward game, with five progressive levels, ranging from less than $10 at the bottom to a $1,000 start at the top. It’s no mystery when you’re going to the bonus event here — when the Hot Hot Super Jackpot symbol appears on the fifth reels, the bonus spins begin.

WMS goes for visual anticipation and excitement in Jackpot Explosion, the first game in its new Ultra Hit Progressive networked gaming portal application family. You know a jackpot is near on the four-tiered progressive as lava rises up the cone in a volcano animation in the top box. When the bonus event is triggered, the volcano explodes, the sound-effects celebration begins and one active player is randomly awarded one of the progressives.
 
IGT: Ever since the introduction and mega-success of Fort Knox, IGT’s line of multitiers has been growing. And growing. And growing. Already this year, Sex and the City and Amazing Race are new on slot floors, with Super Nova Blast, Diamond Factory, House of Nine Dragons, Crystal Fortune and World Safari right behind. In the second half of this year, we should be seeing Diamond Vault, Red Hot Fusion and a new Megabucks multilevel progressive.
House of Nine Dragons pushes the multitier concept as far as we’ve seen it so far, with nine jackpots. Not all are available at any one time. When the group bonus is initiated, the players are trying to collect free spins. When they initiate that bonus, the game randomly chooses four of those nine progressive levels to be available during that free spin event.

Amazing Race is a four-level progressive with a bonus event in which players are competing to be the fastest to reach their destinations. You collect progressive levels as you reach the designated destinations. Naturally, you want to be the first to get to the final destination. Get there first, and you collect the biggest bonuses, and sometimes are taken to a second-stage bonus event. But different progressive levels can be awarded multiple times. If two different players both reach the first destination, both get the prize for that stop.

One of the flashiest new games around, of course, is Sex and the City, which features not only five progressive tiers but also four sets of video reels on the same screen, so you’re playing four games at once. And for a full multimedia experience, there’s a new MEGAfx Surround Chair with five audio channels in the wraparound head section and a subwoofer in the seat.

With video clips, reel symbols and bonus rounds featuring all four of the TV hit’s females as well as “Mr. Big” Chris Noth providing voiceovers and essentially acting as a host for the game, fans of the show no doubt will love the game. But there’s enough entertainment with nine bonus rounds and a multitiered progressive jackpot that non-watchers can enjoy it, too. I’ve had fun at the game, and I have to admit, I’ve never watched even a single episode of “Sex and the City.”
 
Bally: It wasn’t one of the first to the party, but with the Hot Shot Progressive, Bally moves into the multitier progressive field in a big way. It plays off the popular Hot Shot line, with reel symbols pictures of spinning reels marked Blazing 7s, Diamond Line, Double Jackpot, Triple Jackpot, and Seven Times Pay. During bonus play, those reels-within-the-reels can spin independently. Three or more of the game-in-game reel symbols scattered across the regular reels trigger the game-in-game bonus.

Soon, we’ll be seeing a new line of mystery progressives called Magic Money, on Bally’s ALPHA Elite V32 platform, with its tall, elongated screen. One of the first games on the Magic Money system is Golden Scepter, which instead of the traditional five reels across, three deep configuration for 15 total symbols on the screen, gives us a 4-by-4 view, with 16 symbols. Pays are on scattered symbols, and there is a 160-credit maximum bet, right in the penny or 2-cent wheelhouse. Seven progressive levels range from a few dollars to $5,000-plus, leaving plenty of leeway for frequent small progressive hits while also offering a top jackpot that would brighten any day at the casino.

Also coming soon is Crazy Cash, a series of two-tier mystery progressives with themes including Tiki Bar and Lava Lounge. That’ll give Bally a wide range right from its multitier start, from the two-jackpot Crazy Cash to the five-level Hot Shot Progressive to the seven-level Magic Money.
 
Aristocrat: No rundown of multitiered slot machines would be complete without a mention of games from the company that brought the concept to America. Multitiers are a huge part of what Aristocrat does, from the original Cash Express to it’s biggest recent hit, Jaws, with plenty in between.

Closing in on two years as a player favorite, Jaws with its four progressive tiers has shown staying power. Based on the shark-attack film classic, there’s no mistaking Jaws when the bass line from the movie music sounds during play. Aristocrat pulled out all stops in tying the game in with the movie. The maximum bet button has an embossed shark tooth on it. On top of the machine is a 3-D display of ocean water with a buoy on top. During basic play, the water glows blue, but when you advance to the bonus feature it turns red, the buoy rocks on the waves and bells ring the alarm of a shark attack.

The base game is a five-reel video slot with a free spin feature. Bonus features are all Jaws themed: Golden Jaws, Shark Hunter and Feeding Time. Players get a chance at a four-level progressive jackpot through a Jaws dice feature, which is a trip around a video game board, with your boat trying to land on the same space as Jaws. If you catch the shark, you can win a progressive.

Always trying to do something different with its progressives, Aristocrat put a choose-your-volatility feature among three progressive levels in Beat the Bandits. Beat the Bandits is a Wild West experience, down to the woodgrain-like laminate on the sides of each machine suggesting a saloon. You might start with a roll of the dice against Madam Red. If either of you roll doubles, it’s on to a secondary bonus — perhaps a shooting contest against Grandma, gunning bottles and cans off the rails. A mystery progressive jackpot starts at $1,000 and must hit by $1,199.

The choose your volatility aspect comes in a bonus round where you choose which of three progressive levels you’re playing for. Do you go for the top prize, with a lesser chance of winning, the bottom, where your chances are strong, or the one in the middle? You pay your money and you take your choice.

If choice of volatility catches on, it adds one more tool to the designers kit to go with all the jackpot tiers, the symbols and mysteries. That’s one more way to turn multitiers into multi-fun.

- John Grochowski is the author of The Casino Answer Book, The Slot Machine Answer Book, The Video Poker Answer Book and the Craps Answer Book, available online at: www.casinoanswerman.com.