Spade Gaming purr you to the Lucky Meow

Are you a cat or a dog person? If your answer is dog, you might want to try again. As well as the likes of Bagpuss, Garfield, Puss in Boots, Topcat and Sylvester being on your side, you’ll also know that this game is all about the good fortune that a cat represents in Asian culture.

So will this game by Lucky Spades CATch your attention or is it more of a CATastrophe?

Do You Enjoy Being Well Red?

It all starts with a background page that has Meow, the lucky cat, taking up most of the screen in front a light red background complete with yellow symbols of different sizes. Moving on to the game, the background colour becomes even darker. As there is no major background area, the red really does stand out. Not only do the little symbols appear in different sizes, but in several shades of red.

The 5 reels that make up the game are used as part of a Chinese hut, but what stands out is the lack of the game’s title. That space is taken up by different options popping up at the top of the screen, including the name of the game and the various bonuses. While the name was made pretty clear on the introduction page, it is still a surprise not to see it here permanently. Also rather unusually, there is no background music.

It’s a Cat’s Life

It’s super easy to bet between 1 and 10 and a denomination of 0.01, 0.02, 0.05. 0.10, 0.25, 0.50 and 1.0. The bet lines are easy to change between 1 and 20, with a reminder of what line you are on the screen either side of the reels. There are diagrams of each on the Paytable. There’s a Max Bet which enables a bet of 200.0 and a rather neat Auto Play which gives options of 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100, and even an infinite option. Let the good times roll. There is a Fast Speed option so you can also make them roll even quicker.

The lucky cat is the top of the regular symbols and worth up to 500 credits, with the rattle 400. These 2 are the only ones to give anything for getting 2 of a kind, appropriately giving 2 credits. The flowers have a maximum value of 200, with the Ace worth 150 going down to the symbol 10 at 50. The music when playing isn’t anything special, with basic sound effects and the odd meow where appropriate. A bit disappointing really.

Feeling Lucky?

The paytable is one of the neatest ones around, continuing with the red background, though this time without the decorative shapes. Each of the symbols is in a darker red box, with the three bonus ones above. The Wildcard is where the real power is. If you get 5 of them you’ll receive 10,000 credits, with 4 being a useful 2,000. It replaces everything except for the Scatter and Bonus.

The Scatter is a majestic golden pot. As well as being worth 500 credits if you get 5 of them (with other credits available if you get 2, 3 or 4), you can get 10 free spins if you see 3 or more of them in one go. All wins in the Free Games are tripled, except for the Lucky Bonus. The Lucky Bonus are golden objects in a very neatly tied bag with Bonus written in funky golden lettering. If you get 3 or more of these on consecutive reels, starting from the first reel you’ll access the extra game. You choose the number of bags out of the 6 (with Meow doing the honours) from the number of Lucky Bonus symbols you got. And you’ll definitely want the 5 as the bags are very rewarding.

There is another extra game, which is more regular and far more adventurous. If you decide to Gamble Game, you get the chance to double your winnings and choose between Black and Red. If you’re feeling even more confident you can try and guess which of the 4 suits will come up for 4 times the bonus. You can go up to 4 levels though you can Collect after any of them and go back.

Purr-Fectly Stylish

This really is a very stylish and elegant game. There has clearly been a lot of detail attached. The paytable is well organised, the layout is striking and even less important symbols are very neatly designed. As well as this, the gameplay doesn’t get tiring and rewards ambitious play. It will certainly leave you purring.