Birds on a Wire

“Birds on a Wire” gives you exactly what the title mentions, birds as symbols, arranged on wires instead of typical reels.

Once Birds on a Wire loads, what you will see is a total of three wires, on which you get fifteen bird symbols, arranged five for each row. The game’s animation style is not exactly realistic, so some birds might have the shape of Christmas trees, others might be pink and square, and so on. They do look cute though, even though you might not be sure what kind of bird they’re supposed to represent. There are 5 reels, but with 17 paylines on them, which is an unusual choice. The game’s big payout will give you $20,000.

It’s a cute game, but the design is not going to be considered a masterpiece by anyone. It’s just not realistic enough, appearing more like the kind of cartoon that very young kids would love.

There are bets that go as high as $100 in this game, taking into account all the lines, at maximum value. You’re not choosing how much each line gets though, instead working only with the total value of the wager. You click on Bet, at the bottom of the screen, and from the menu that opens up you choose the value of the wager for next round. It will be at $100 or lower.

One of the features that you will take advantage of is the one with Dropping Symbols. It’s part of many other slot machines, and it basically takes off the reels the symbols which are part of winning combinations. New birds will come take the now empty spots, and with a bit of luck they will be part of new combinations. Symbols will keep dropping, until no more wins are formed as a result. Multipliers go up each time you have a win this way, starting at 1x and reaching 5x eventually. During free spins, multipliers are between 4x and 20x.

The wild, which shows you a huge black bird, is responsible for forming the combo that pays the big prize, which goes up to $20,000 if the wager was at $100. You need five Black Bird wilds on the same line to get that much money. With four or less, it acts as a regular wild, substituting for another symbol rather than forming its own combo. It can’t substitute for the bonus symbol though.

10 free spins are won if you get the bonus symbol in at least three positions. Dropping symbols have much bigger multipliers here, for consecutive wins.

The game has its own advantages, and at least it’s not like other slot machines out there. Play it for its features and even its prizes and multipliers, but not for the design.