Wheel of Wishes slot: We play 50 Power Mode spins & 50 in the Base Game

There was a huge amount of excitement when Microgaming announced that they were revamping their Wowpot slot into something a little more spectacular. The original game boasted a very small progressive prize fund of just a few thousand and it was one of the smaller Microgaming progressive jackpot network slots.

However, nobody really expected what Microgaming eventually unfolded. The Wowpot Jackpot metamorphosised into the Wowpot Progressive Jackpot, which boasted four different progressive jackpot prize, the Mini and Minor, plus the much larger Major (seeded at 50,000) and the massive Wowpot! Jackpot (the first ever slot to be seeded at 2,000,000).

The company debuted this brand new progressive jackpot fund on the Wheel of Wishes slot, which was given an initially limited release at a few partner casinos, followed by a general release across casinos affiliated with Microgaming from 11^th February 2020.

Since then, the Wowpot Jackpot has continued to climb and now stands at over 4.4 million. Nobody has yet managed to claim the top jackpot prize on the Wheel of Wishes slot, but a number of players have claimed hundreds of thousands in prizes on a number of Major Jackpot wins on the game, while the Mini and Minor jackpot prizes are won several times every day by other players.

Of course, the slot world is wondering who will be the lucky player to land the Wheel of Wishes top jackpot prize for the first time and while we do not know the answer to that, all I can say is that it wasn't triggered by the writer when I played through the two different game modes available in the game.

What are the Wheel of Wishes slot two game modes?

One of the most important features of the Wheel of Wishes slot is which game mode you play it in. There is the standard base game mode, which plays like a traditional 5x3 reel slot, or the Power Mode, which you can activate by clicking the button to the left of the reels.

In the base game mode you can spin from 0.10 per spin, although you can ramp that up to a much larger amount if you prefer. If you elect to play in Power Mode though, the cost to you per spin will be 10x the amount you selected in the base game, so if you played the minimum bet amount of 0.10 per spin, then in Power Mode, that means a minimum bet amount of 1.00 per spin.

Now why would you want to pay 10x more per spin than in the base game? The reason for that is because a Power Spin (which you can activate in the base game by landing two of the Jackpot Bonus Wheel Scatters on the reels) is the only way to trigger a shot at the Jackpot Bonus Game and with it, a chance to win one of the four progressive jackpot prizes mentioned above.

That means in the base game, not every spin will offer you a shot at the progressive jackpot bonus game, however in Power Mode, every spin will offer you that chance (although it is not guaranteed to trigger).

In our accompanying video of the two sessions, we played through 50 spins of the Base Game on the Wheel of Wishes slot (spending £5) and we then played through 50 spins of the Power Mode activated (spending £50). Both of these videos will give you an excellent idea of how the slot plays and what sort of experience you could expect if you decided to spend your cash one way or the other on the slot.

Let's begin with a quick recap on how our session of 50 spins at 0.10 per spin in the base game went. But first let's watch the video below.

Wheel of Wishes slot play-through video

Where can you play the Wheel of Wishes slot?

You can play the Wheel of Wishes at any of the Mega Moolah casinos.

Session 1 - 50 spins at 0.10 per spin in the base game

The first thing to note with the Wheel of Wishes slot is that the base game plays very much like a standard 5x3 reel game. There are Wild symbols on the reels to help you land the wins, and these can be stacked up to three high to fill a reel completely, but other than that the only other bonus feature in the game is the Jackpot Bonus Scatter.

You need to land two of these to trigger a free Power Spin, in which you need to land the large Scatter symbol in full on the middle reel in order to trigger the Jackpot Bonus Wheel, which you will then spin to win one of the four progressive jackpot prizes.

There are no Free Spins bonus options in the game, but the base game does play somewhat benignly to be honest. In our session, which you can watch first in the video, you will see that we start the session with around £55 in the account and then we finish it with exactly £55 in the account. So essentially, we spent £5 on our spins but won back roughly the same amount.

However, jackpot chasers will want to note that in our 50 spins at 0.10 per spin, we only triggered a Power Spin on three occasions. That means out of 50 spins, we had three chances to land the Jackpot Bonus Game. That is two chances fewer than had we spent the same £5 on five Power Mode spins.

However, as you can see from the amount we had left in the account after our 50 spins in the base game, this is not a volatile slot and even a relatively small bankroll can be extended to allow you a very lengthy session on the game. The wins we landed were generally decent value and were more than our bet most of the time, but there were no huge wins that really would have pushed us into profit.

Once you have seen the Power Spins in action in the base game, it is then hard to ignore the fact you can play just those type of spins when you switch the Power Mode on, which is exactly what we did in the second part of the video.

Session 2 - 50 spins at 1.00 per spin in Power Mode

The first thing I must point out is that I would never play 50 power mode spins with just £55 in my account in normal circumstances, as I feel that is a recipe to spend all your money and require an additional deposit. However, I deposited this cash expressly for the purposes of these videos which is why I played Power Mode.

The first thing you notice in Power Mode is the change of the backdrop from day to night and of course, the reels change to the large symbols on the middle three reel (which is now one large reel) and the two outer reels, which don't spin but which just appear through a blue fog on each spin.

One thing to note here is that although you are playing for 1.00 per spin in Power Mode, all wins are still calculated on your base bet of 0.10 per spin. Which is why when you land a five symbol win across the reels, even on multiple pay lines, the wins seem relatively small compared to your triggering bet.

In the Power Mode we landed a few decent value wins especially on our opening 25 spins, where we were about at the break even mark, but the second half of the session saw the game play a little more tightly and we ended up losing around £10.00 on the session. However, on a progressive slot when you have spent £55 to play, that can be regarded as a decent outcome.

We didn't trigger a shot at the Jackpot Bonus Game in either game mode. We did come close a couple of times in the Power Mode, landing two thirds of the Jackpot Bonus Symbol a couple of times on the reels, but not quite all of it. That is a little frustrating but it is notable when you watch the video that players do win the Minor and Mini jackpots as I play through the spins.

There is no doubt that while the Power Mode is more exciting, it is also much more expensive and as such, players should think wisely before using it, especially if they have a relatively small bankroll to start with. And if you are switching from Base Game Mode to Power Mode, always double check the spin cost. As some casinos default coin option in the base game is £2.50 and if you switch to Power Mode and don't check, you could play a couple of £25.00 spins before you realise!

It is worth remembering that Wheel of Wishes is just the first in what looks like being a series of slot games that are linked to the Wowpot Progressive Jackpot prize pool. Later on this year, we are expecting the release of two more slots linked to this jackpot, Sisters of Oz and Fortunium Gold and it is going to be interesting to see how each of these games approaches triggering the jackpot bonus game, or indeed whether each game has their own progressive jackpot trigger.

For now though, Wheel of Wishes remains your sole option for trying to land the Wowpot top progressive jackpot prize and as our sessions show, if winning that jackpot is your sole reason for playing the game, then the Power Mode is your best option, although it will be more costly in the long run. For those of you seeking a less volatile session but still the occasional chance to land the top jackpot prize, the Wheel of Wishes base game, with its ultra-low minimum bet of 0.10 per spin, remains a better option and which, thanks to the games low variance, should offer you a lengthy session even for a relatively small spend.

Want to learn more about the Wheel of Wishes slot?

We have comprehensive coverage of the Wheel of Wishes here, or you can visit Wheelofwishes.net for even more information such as winner stats.