Blue Diamond slot review

Blue Diamond takes the classic fruit machine and boils it down to its most basic elements before bringing it to us on the computer or phone.

It seemed 2016 was the year Red Tiger was dedicated to remaking the classic fruit machine if we go by the release of Blue Diamond and Five Star. Both these slots take the concept of the original fruit machine and made them into different but still similar games! Blue Diamond goes for the most basic type of fruit machine, with a 3-reel, 1-row playing field and 1 betline.

This slot brings things back to their origins with the reels filled with the familiar symbols that most of us grew up with at the local pub or gambling hall. The Blue Diamond name seems almost arbitrary, with the only diamonds in the game being on the special Sticky Re-Spin feature.

In terms of design and graphics, the slot looks fine but has almost no personality. There is no background and the design seems centred around creating a digital version of a fruit machine. The only type of animation is the big win, at which point the camera pans up to show us the total coin value won.

The music is possibly trying even harder to resemble the classic experience with a low-quality electronic beat that consists mostly of rapid beeps. It fit the style of the fruit machine but it didn’t sound very good or exciting. Luckily there is a mute button.

Symbols

Blue Diamond doesn’t have a lot of symbols since there is only 1 payline and there is always the possibility the betline ends up in between 2 symbols. This makes it even harder to get a win and it explains the High Volatility. During my time playing, I found that a moderate bet amount would deal with the volatility reasonably well.

The symbols are:

• Blue Diamond (Wild): Substitute all other symbols in the game and trigger a sticky re-spin. Max. 888x your bet with three-of-a-kind.
• 7: Max. 88x your bet with three-of-a-kind.
• Triple BAR: Max. 38x your bet with three-of-a-kind.
• Double BAR: Max. 28x your bet with three-of-a-kind.
• Single BAR: Max. 18x your bet with three-of-a-kind.
• Any BAR: Max. 8x your bet with three-of-a-kind.
• Three Cherries: Max. 5x your bet with three-of-a-kind.
• Two Cherries: Max. 3x your bet with three-of-a-kind.
• One Cherry: Max. 1x your bet with three-of-a-kind.

The symbols look static and are exactly what you’d expect from a classic fruit machine. They have no animations when part of a winning payline and really aren’t that interesting to look at.

Features

Blue Diamond has two simple features that are blended together into a single symbol. The features are:

• Wilds: The Blue Diamond symbol acts as a wild, substituting all other symbols in the game.
• Sticky Re-Spin: When the Blue Diamond appears on the betline, it will trigger a Sticky Re-Spin. The symbol will stay in place while the remaining reels spin again. This can trigger another Sticky Re-Spin if another Blue Diamond symbol appears, or it can award a win.

There are so few options and features in this game that the paytable is just shown next to the playing field at all times. I thought that was convenient and is of course a reminder of how it used to be. The special features are both part of the same symbol, meaning that they don’t require any extra explanation from the game itself either.

On the one hand, I appreciate the simplicity of the slot, where it is always very obvious what is happening and you only have to keep track of the single payline. On the other hand, some complexity helps set any slot apart from the rest of the games.

The Blue Diamond symbol is the only real element of the slot that isn’t part of the standard fruit machine experience. It shows up fairly regularly although it doesn’t always stop on a betline and thus doesn’t activate. When it did activate it almost never helped in getting a win through the re-spin.

In Conclusion

There really isn’t that much to say about Blue Diamond that isn’t immediately apparent when you first start up the game. Red Tiger did an excellent job in copying the fruit machine template and putting it on the digital screen. If you are a player that enjoys the basic gameplay experience than this will be a perfect way of going about it.

With the High Volatility and a max. win of 1,064x your bet I don’t know if betting too high is a good idea. Players can choose a bet between $0.10 and $80 per spin. The Blue Diamond symbol wasn’t very helpful in getting wins.

Games like Blue Diamond aren’t made for me. I enjoy slots with a lot more character and preferably more reels and paylines. The lack of any kind of identity makes it difficult to tell this slot apart from all the other fruit machine variations.

That said, I know that there will be a large number of players that will love this slot. It doesn’t complicate the game experience, it offers the elements in a slot machine a lot of people are fans of and it still plays well enough to be exciting.