Fortune House

Fortune House Review

On August 9, 2016, Red Tiger Gaming invited its fans to once again dive into the atmosphere of Eastern wealth and good fortune with its Fortune House slot. Although this game was released a decade ago, it remains appealing thanks to its solid mathematical model featuring medium volatility and a respectable RTP of 96.12%, with a hit frequency of 26.38% according to the provider. This game is also notable for using the proprietary Bothway engine, which allows for winning combinations to form from either side of the reels, potentially leading to a maximum payout of 697x the bet. With some interesting extras like the Fortune Tree and Dragon Wheel, and a wide betting range from 0.10 to 500 euros per spin, Fortune House still feels relevant today. And you can try out this title risk-free by playing the demo version.

Although many players eagerly await new releases in the hope of seeing something truly new and unusual, it’s worth paying attention to tried-and-true classics as well. Although Fortune House can’t quite be called a vintage game, as it rolled off Red Tiger’s production lines in August 2016, a lot has happened since then. But Fortune House is a truly remarkable title, as a lot of really interesting things happen on its 5x3 grid. Let’s start with the fact that volatility here is set to medium, and the RTP is a pretty decent 96.12%, which is slightly above the market average. At the same time, the provider has specified a hit frequency of 26.38%, indicating a balanced combination of key parameters, with small wins occurring quite frequently.

Fortune House Reels Screen

Fortune House offers 20 betways for landing winning combinations, and at first glance, there’s nothing unusual about that. But the twist is that payouts are awarded for matching icons on adjacent reels. And these matches can be counted starting from either side of the grid or from the center, not just from left to right. This is the well-known Bothway engine that you may have encountered in some other Red Tiger titles. Before spinning the reels, you can select a bet ranging from 0.10 to 500 euros per spin. The promised max multiplier of x697 doesn’t look all that impressive here. But if you decide to risk the maximum possible amount, you could theoretically win a prize of 348,500, which is a pretty nice sum.

In keeping with good old-fashioned slot machine tradition, there are three categories of symbols here, with the lowest-paying ones represented by playing card ranks from 10 to Ace. Appearing slightly less frequently on the reels are the Buddhist Bagua symbol, a Laughing Buddha figurine, a golden mythical creature resembling a dragon-turtle, and a golden koi fish. You’ll also occasionally see the Wild, depicted as a character meaning “luck”, as well as 4 different Scatters that perform unique functions.

Fortune House Features

The ability to form winning combinations in different directions along the paylines makes the base game interesting in its own right. But Red Tiger has always been known for its commitment to innovation. So it’s no surprise that this slot also features several interesting bonus features, such as Mystery Win, Dragon Wheel, and others, which we’ll discuss below.

Wild Symbols

If you see a golden character or several of them appear on the grid, that’s a Wild. It works just like any other standard symbol to help you create combos when you’re short on matching symbols. And if you’re lucky enough to line up 5 Wilds along any payline, you’ll win a prize equal to 25 times your bet.

Fortune Respin

Sometimes a large Scatter symbol appears on the grid, occupying 4 cells. And if this is a Fortune Respin, you get the chance to respin the reels with that symbol locked in place. This can happen up to 5 times per game round. In other words, theoretically, you can get a whole series of complimentary re-spins.

Mystery Win

Red Tiger has added another 2x2 Scatter. When it lands on the reels, you’ll receive a random number of Mystery icons that simultaneously reveal the same randomly selected paying symbol, including even the Wild itself. If a winning combination is formed after the Mystery symbols are revealed, it is paid out before the feature is reactivated during the same spin. And just like with the previous bonus feature, this can happen up to five times in a row during a single spin.

Fortune Tree

This game also features the Fortune Tree symbol, which works similarly to Mystery Win. But the mechanism here is slightly different, although when it appears on the grid, you’ll see a random number of paying symbols land on the reels. If this results in combos, the payouts for those wins are awarded until the next launch. This feature can also trigger up to five times in a row during a single round, thereby significantly increasing your chances of a big win.

Fortune House Free Spins Win Screen

Dragon Wheel

And here’s perhaps the most interesting bonus feature, since it’s essentially a wheel of fortune that displays random multipliers ranging from x3 to x88. To trigger this feature, you need to land a special Dragon Wheel Scatter. The Dragon Wheel can trigger up to five times per spin, theoretically allowing you to stack several substantial multipliers at once. Most importantly, the odds of landing on different sectors of the wheel aren’t equal. So, unfortunately, the higher multipliers appear significantly less often than the lower ones.

Theme & Graphics

You probably shouldn’t expect stunning graphics from a game that’s 10 years old. Still, Fortune House isn’t bad, even visually speaking. Everything here is built around traditional Chinese symbols of wealth and prosperity. So don’t be surprised when you see things like a money tree with coins, a Laughing Buddha figurine, a Bagua talisman, a golden koi fish, and a mythical golden creature. Red Tiger offers us a classic Asian color palette dominated by rich reds and golds. At the same time, the developers have created quite smooth and beautiful animations for the reels and transitions between features. Despite its age, Fortune House performs quite well on mobile devices, so you can enjoy this title even while traveling, for example.

Fortune House Free Play

To safely and risk-free figure out how all four random features work and get a feel for how often they actually appear, it’s best to start with the Fortune House free play version. Here, you use virtual credits instead of real money. Basically, winnings in the Fortune House demo game aren’t real. But otherwise, the slot works exactly the same as the real-money version. We don’t have access to the Fortune House demo yet, but you can try it on Red Tiger’s official website.

Pros & Cons of the Fortune House Slot

Our Verdict

At first glance, Fortune House is a simple video slot built on a standard 5x3 grid. But dig a little deeper, and you’ll realize you’re dealing with something far more interesting, where even the base game offers fairly frequent payouts thanks to the Bothway payout system. Usually, providers hide one or two modest bonuses behind medium volatility, but Red Tiger decided to take a different approach.

So, here we have four independent bonus features, each of which can “trigger” unexpectedly in the form of a series of respins. But if we’re talking about the most effective option, it’s undoubtedly the Dragon Wheel, which can deliver an extra multiplier of up to x88, significantly boosting your winning potential. Meanwhile, the Fortune Respin is appealing because it gives you a “second chance” at no extra cost. Mystery Win and Fortune Tree function as classic combination expanders, which are particularly effective at low and medium bet levels.

If you’re tired of run-of-the-mill titles where everything revolves around just one or two bonus features, Fortune House is a good choice. So this isn’t just a game we pulled off a dusty shelf. It’s essentially several sources of adrenaline in one package. That’s why Fortune House is still in high demand at many online casinos. If you want to get to know this moderately predictable yet action-packed slot better, which fully deserves a spot in the rotation for fans of moderate risk and Eastern aesthetics, start with the demo mode.