Zodiac Lion and Zodiac Dragon

Similar Games:

Lucha Kitty and Sumo Kitty share some clear similarities; Wild Pirates and Guardians of Egypt are sort of related; even Ocean Magic, Ocean Magic Grand, and Dragon Sphere share an element with the “zodiac wheel”

Risk Scale:

Green (usually under 10x, but sometimes closer to 30x)

Minimum Play:

Gold circles lock from spin to spin. You mostly want at least some of your frames on the left side of the board, but if you do have a big cluster of, say, eight or nine in the fourth and fifth reels, you could make an exception. Ideally, you find four or more of those gold circles horizontally.

Other:

In slots, horizontal groupings of wilds are always better than vertical groupings.

Pros love this game and it’s not hard to see why. You occasionally find some juiced-up boards that can pay you 50x your bet on just a few spins. You see a lot of camping on the Zodiacs, too, where grinders wait behind one or two of these machines and hope someone leaves a nice board behind.

But what does a minimum play look like?

Those gold circles lock from spin to spin. In some ways it’s like Wild Pirates, where setting off one circle triggers all the adjacent circles, making them wild. As you spin, a dragon head/lion head symbol adds frames to the board. Ideally, you have them all touching, so that when one is set off, they’re all set off.

In the example above, the four frames on the bottom are touching and the one at the top of reel two isn’t. You mostly want at least some of your frames on the left side of the board, but if you do have a big cluster of, say, eight or nine in the fourth and fifth reels, you could make an exception. Some grinders still wouldn’t play that, though.

Ideally, you find four or more of those gold circles horizontally like in the example above, and you want at least part of it in the first three reels.

How about something like this?

There, you have four total circles, with two connected in the first two reels and one all the way in column five — not a good play. If you add at least two more connecting circles to that initial duo going vertically, you could make a stronger case for playing.

If it isn’t already clear, horizontally connected circles are much better than vertically connected ones (think Star Goddess/Wu Dragon). While I play something like four horizontally connected circles, I want at least seven or so if it’s just a big grouping of them connected vertically.

The bets on the top row don’t have what’s called the “zodiac wheel.” Think of it like Ocean Magic or Ocean Magic Grand with the bubble boost on the bottom row of bets. Pays are better on the top row since you don’t have a chance of randomly adding a bunch of frames. You don’t need to consider this when evaluating plays, but that’s the difference between the rows of bets in this game.

If you’d like to see this game in action, here’s my video: