18+ Only. Play Responsibly.
The bonus had paid €18.75.
I had watched a cauldron fill with purple smoke, three ravens turn Wild, a witch fling something luminous across the reels and an x7 mushroom remain one position away from the only place where it could have mattered.
Then the feature ended.
€18.75.
The witch smiled.
I stared at the total for a few seconds because I felt there might have been another number coming.
There wasn’t.
That was how Witchcraft Riches introduced me to the difference between possessing magic and using it responsibly.
I had started the session at €1.50 a spin.
The game opened in a crooked forest clearing surrounded by glowing plants, hanging lanterns and several trees that looked as though they had been listening to private conversations.
A witch stood beside the reels stirring a large copper cauldron.
She had green eyes, a purple hat and the expression of somebody who knew exactly what was inside the pot and had decided I didn’t need to.
The symbols were the expected collection of magical wildlife and questionable vegetation.
Ravens.
Black cats.
Owls.
Mushrooms.
Potion bottles.
There were also four different rune stones in place of ordinary low symbols.
The first few spins were uneventful until three identical mushrooms landed.
Instead of paying immediately, they dissolved into purple sparks.
Those sparks flew into the cauldron.
The cauldron shook.
Then three fresh mushrooms were thrown back onto random reel positions.
Each returned with x2 attached.
Two connected with another mushroom already sitting on reel one.
€9.60.
That got my attention.
The mechanic seemed to work whenever at least three matching premium symbols landed anywhere on the reels.
The winning symbols were collected.
The witch stirred them.
The cauldron returned the same symbol type to random positions, now enchanted and multiplied.
Sometimes it returned three.
Sometimes four.
Once I watched three ravens go in and five come back.
The multipliers varied too.
x2 appeared often.
x3 was less common.
The first x5 turned up on a black cat that landed entirely by itself and achieved nothing.
That felt appropriately magical.
The witch had transformed an ordinary cat into a five-times cat and placed it where nobody could use it.
About eight minutes in, three glowing spell books landed.
They were Scatters.
One on reel one.
One on reel three.
One on reel five.
The witch dropped her spoon into the cauldron.
Purple smoke covered the reels.
Eight Rodadas Grátis—
No.
Eight free spins.
I was still in the English version and the witch had not learned Portuguese.
Eight free spins appeared.
The feature changed the cauldron completely.
Instead of emptying after every transformation, it now remembered what had gone into it.
Three small symbols appeared above the reels: raven, cat and mushroom.
Each had a meter underneath.
That looked dangerous in a good way.
The first free spin landed four ravens.
They flew into the cauldron.
The raven meter advanced to four.
The witch threw six ravens back.
Two carried x2.
One had x3.
They connected across four reels.
€11.40.
Excellent.
Second spin.
Three mushrooms.
Their meter reached three.
Five enchanted mushrooms returned.
One showed x5.
They landed almost perfectly.
Almost.
The x5 mushroom sat on reel five while the actual win stopped on reel four.
€3.30.
Still fine.
The third spin dropped two more ravens.
Nothing happened because I hadn’t reached whatever collection threshold the game wanted.
The counter simply moved from four to six.
So the bonus wasn’t just repeating the base mechanic.
It was storing symbols until the cauldron decided there were enough to cast a larger spell.
The fourth spin supplied another raven.
Seven collected.
The entire raven meter flashed.
The cauldron exploded.
Every raven currently visible on the reels became Wild.
That was much better.
There were four of them.
Two Wilds carried x2.
One carried x4.
The last remained plain.
A line of owls ran through three Wilds.
€26.10.
Now the feature had paid enough to become interesting.
I had four spins left.
The cat meter was sitting on two.
Mushrooms had three.
Ravens had reset to zero.
I wanted to know what the cats did.
The next spin gave me one cat.
Three collected.
Nothing.
Another landed on the sixth spin.
Four.
Still nothing.
The seventh free spin dropped two cats at once.
Six.
The meter started glowing.
I needed one more.
The last spin began.
A cat appeared on reel two.
Seven.
The meter filled.
The witch raised both hands.
The cauldron turned bright green.
Every cat on the reels became a sticky x3 symbol.
For one spin.
There were five of them.
This looked enormous.
Then the reels completed themselves around the cats.
Nothing connected.
Five enchanted x3 cats sat across the screen forming several highly impressive independent businesses.
€0.
The feature ended.
Or at least I thought it did.
A tiny purple flame appeared beneath the free-spin counter.
The witch snapped her fingers.
One extra spin.
Apparently completing any collection meter on the final free spin awarded another go.
Good.
The extra spin started with five x3 cats still visible.
They were no longer sticky.
They vanished immediately.
That was less good.
Three mushrooms landed.
The mushroom counter jumped from three to six.
One short of activation.
A raven landed with an x7 symbol underneath it.
There were no other ravens.
The spin paid €0.75 from two rune stones.
Then the bonus ended properly.
€41.55 total.
That wasn’t the €18.75 I had eventually found myself staring at later.
That disaster came on the second feature.
The first one was decent enough to create the problem.
I returned to the base game with €143.10 in the balance, slightly above where I had started.
Now I understood the cauldron.
That made every cluster of matching symbols interesting.
Three black cats could turn into six multiplied cats.
Four owls could come back with x3s.
A group of mushrooms might rebuild half the reels.
The game had given me just enough evidence to believe the base game had teeth.
For the next twenty minutes, those teeth mostly chewed my balance.
The transformations happened regularly, but they were wonderfully capable of missing.
Four owls went into the pot.
Five came back.
None touched reel one.
No win.
Three ravens transformed.
One returned at x5.
It landed directly above the only raven it needed to connect with.
Three cats became four x2 cats.
Two appeared on the same reel.
The witch celebrated all of these developments.
At €118.20 I landed two spell-book Scatters.
The third appeared during the cauldron respin.
It didn’t count.
That hurt more than it should have.
The books had to land on the original reel result.
The witch was apparently strict about paperwork when it suited her.
At €104.70, three books finally appeared properly.
Second feature.
This time I knew what I wanted.
Seven of one symbol.
Trigger its stored spell.
Preferably before the final spin.
The opening free spin gave me three ravens.
Fine.
Second spin added two more.
Five.
Third spin added nothing useful.
Fourth spin gave one raven.
Six.
I had four spins remaining and needed one.
This was exactly the sort of situation slots use to make adults stare very seriously at cartoon birds.
Fifth spin.
No raven.
Sixth.
A raven landed.
Seven.
The meter filled.
The witch threw her arms outward.
Every raven became Wild.
There were two on the reels.
One had x2.
They produced €6.90.
That was considerably less majestic than the first activation.
The meter reset.
Two spins remained.
Three mushrooms appeared.
Their counter began.
Last spin.
Four mushrooms.
Seven immediately.
The mushroom spell activated.
Every mushroom transformed into a random multiplier between x2 and x10.
There were four visible mushrooms.
x2.
x3.
x4.
x7.
The x7 sat on reel four.
I had two mushrooms on reel three and one on reel five.
For a moment I thought the entire thing had connected.
Then I noticed reel two.
No mushroom.
No Wild.
Nothing.
The x7 had become a very expensive decoration.
A pair of rune stones paid €1.50.
Feature total: €18.75.
That was where I had started.
The witch smiled.
The cauldron smoked.
I reconsidered several recent decisions.
My balance was now €91.95.
I should have stopped.
Instead, I decided the base game owed me one decent transformation.
This is a dangerous sentence because slots do not maintain personal accounts.
I knew that.
I kept spinning anyway.
At €1.50, the balance moved steadily downward.
€87.
€80.
€76.
Then four black cats landed.
Into the cauldron they went.
The witch stirred.
Seven cats flew back out.
Three carried multipliers.
x2.
x3.
x5.
They filled reels one, two, three and five.
A normal cat landed on reel four.
For once, everything connected.
The win started climbing.
€12.
€19.
€27.
€34.50.
There it was.
The transformation I had been waiting for.
My balance returned to €103.20.
I considered that a rescue and gave the game another ten spins.
Nothing.
Then another ten.
A few potion bottles returned €6.60.
Three owls transformed into four owls and paid €4.20.
Two Scatters appeared twice.
The third did not.
By €82.35, I had run out of reasons that sounded different from one another.
The witch was still stirring.
The cauldron was still bubbling.
Every so often it swallowed perfectly respectable symbols and returned a more powerful version of them somewhere completely useless.
I stopped at €80.85.
The session had started with magic everywhere and ended down more than €60.
On the final screen, a single x3 mushroom sat beside the cauldron.
The witch reached toward it.
I closed the game before she could put it somewhere stupid.
Safari Sun spun until my soul hit the wager limit.