The modern slot machine has a long and varied history. According to https://www.britannica.com/ it was first invented in the mid-1890s by a Bavarian-born engineer called Charles Fey who had settled in California. The first machine to be mass-produced was called The Liberty Bell and offered a jackpot of 50 cents.
Today, while the size of the prizes and the sophistication of the games may have changed hugely, there are still many features of the original inspiration that make these so enjoyable to play.
The Theme
The first machine used patriotic pride in the form of the Liberty Bell as its theme. Today, there are so many different themes that have been designed to appeal to very different players. One only has to visit a leading online site like https://games.paddypower.com/ to see this in action. The games that you’ll find there use imagery drawn from every imaginable source including Ancient Egypt to the Wild West and even from popular movies and TV series too. So it’s just a case of players finding the titles that ring their bells.
The Features and Bonuses
As time has gone on, slots have become increasingly more complex, including more and more features and bonuses. These take many forms – from wilds, where certain symbols can stand in for others to create winning combinations, to multipliers, which boost winnings, and free spins – they speak for themselves. The more of these special features a slots developer can include, the more enjoyable the game can be to play.
The Sound
While playing slots is an essentially visual exercise, it is hugely advanced by the soundtrack as you play. A well-designed one can work much like a movie score does – raising tension, celebrating success and generally underpinning the emotions the player could be feeling at the time. For film- or movie-based slots, these can even include snatches from the original soundtracks
The RTP
For all of the aesthetic and entertainment features of a slots game, it’s also always going to be played with the hope of winning some money too. While it’s obviously impossible to predict the likelihood of this happening, there is a measure that can give an indication of how much a game will play out. This is called the “Return To Player”, or RTP for short and is expressed as a percentage. The best games offer an RTP of 95% or higher and there are many in this category. But it’s important to remember that this is the proportion of the stake money that will be returned to players over time, not in a single session.
The Overall Experience
While a great slot contains all these elements, it’s also very much about the overall personal experience that makes a particular slots game great to play. So while some games will suit some players, they’ll leave others cold.
So it all comes down to a question of individual taste and, as this article in https://theatlantic.com/ explains, that’s a very complex question indeed.
