WU DRAGON / STAR GODDESS

HOW THE ADVANTAGE WORKS

• Wu Dragon and its companion Star Goddess feature persistent frames that lock onto the reels. One or more fireballs will occasionally shoot down from the upper right. If a fireball hits inside a frame, it will turn that frame wild, as well as all adjacent symbols. All other frames (located anywhere on the screen) will then also turn wild.

WHEN TO PLAY

• Seven frames in the first four reels with at least five in reels two and three.
  
• Six frames in the first four reels with at least three connected horizontally.
  
• Four frames in the same row (even if they aren’t connected).
  

Additional notes​

• The mechanics of this game are a little more confusing than similar games with locking frames due to the way the fireball works. If multiple fireballs hit at once, it is hard to tell what exactly is happening. You just see a big burst of fire and wilds. Just remember that all frames turn wild and wherever a fireball lands will turn adjacent symbols wild (three above, three below and one on each side).
  
• The most important thing to understand about this game is that you really want to get five-of-a-kind line hits. Ideally, the five-of-a-kind will be all wilds. Four-of-a-kind line hits don’t pay that great, while three-of-a-kind line hits barely pay anything.
  
• The fireballs will turn whatever symbols they hit wild, even ones without frames. But the frames won’t go away until a fireball hits inside any frame.
  
• Frames in reels two and three are actually more valuable than frames in reel one. If a fireball hits in reel one, it can’t expand the wild symbols to the left, so you don’t get the full effect. The same applies to frames in the middle two rows, with those being more valuable than those on the top and bottom rows.
  
• There are actually situations where you are better off not having any frames in the first reel that could potentially attract the fireball. Boards with lots of frames concentrated on the right side that don’t connect to the left side can be dangerous for this reason as well.
  
• Your biggest wins will come from situations where multiple fireballs hit multiple frames, causing a cascade of wilds to fill the screen.
  
• Right before a big win, the game will usually display a glowing border animation around the edges of the screen.
  
• The fireballs land pretty frequently, so if you have a bunch of frames, the game will usually pay out quickly.
  
• The rules I gave above should cover most playable situations, but there could be edge cases you still might want to play. Just remember that you are going for five-of-a-kind.
  
• Only the bottom row bet levels (with the Portal Lock feature) contain the persistent locking frames, so only check those.
  
• Sometimes when you check this machine, some of the bet levels suspiciously won’t have any frames on them (or maybe just one frame). Or maybe the frames you saw on a bet level suddenly disappeared. In this case, playing one spin (on any bet level) will restore the frames. I’ve heard this is an anti-vulturing feature, but to me it sounds more like a bug. Either way, I’ve found lots of good plays on this machine using this technique.
  

This is the ideal kind of play you are looking for. You are guaranteed five wilds across on the second row from the top and five-of-a-kind on the bottom row.

This is what you don’t want to happen. Three-of-a-kind line hits are pathetic, with three of them barely covering the cost of the bet. For this reason, you want frames to be concentrated in reels two and three (if a fireball hits there, it will expand the wilds to the left and right side, leading to four-of-a-kind hits).

Entire rows of wilds pay very well. Even with the bonus symbol blocking me on the bottom row, this was a nice win.

Only check the bottom row bets with the Portal Lock feature. The frames in the top row bets are not persistent—they disappear after every spin.

This is an awesome walk-up play I found. It’s common to find scenarios like this where ploppies play for a while and then give up because the machine isn’t paying out.

Situations like this are very risky to play. If you land additional frames in the middle to connect the two sides, then you will do very well. But if a fireball hits on the right side first, then you are screwed.