The video slot machine known as Black Knight was designed by American casino machine manufacturer WMS Industries and released in 2012. The game proved to be popular enough to warrant a sequel, titled simply Black Knight II, which appeared on casino floors the following year. An online version of the Black Knight slot has also been included in WMS Industries’ Party Jackpot portfolio of online titles.
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The Black Knight appears, but does he bring treasure or doom?
This classic Williams Interactive slot machine is still available for any players looking for a simple, fast game that works well on mobile devices.
It may not have quite the shine that it once had, but there are still generous payouts, cheap betting options and free spins to win. But enough talk; it’s time to start the quest.
Unfortunately, the Black Knight slots are starting to show their age. New players will probably quickly note the pixelated, blurry edges along with the fuzzy look of the reels.
The title and background, in particular, haven’t aged well, as the castle and clouds bleed into the gold title and leave everything looking a little blocky.
Medieval graphics and symbols
The art design alleviates this a little since they opted for fairly simple and crisp-looking symbols and buttons. Everything on the reels are colorful and still easy to tell apart. The symbols are generally nice and well-themed with no generic card symbols acting as filler.
Everything is based around a medieval royal court, with kings, queens, jesters, crowns, signet rings, scepters, maps and even the Black Knight himself as a wild symbol. As with the rest of the graphics, the symbols are a little fuzzy, but the bright design and mix of colors leave them still looking alright.
Williams Interactive generally did a nice job with the finer details, which also makes the game age a little better. The interface is clean and organized, and a helpful, large win window makes it easy to see the payouts on each spin. There are also some nice transitions in place.
The bonus round features an exciting, short animation as it moves the player to a new set of reels. The expanding wilds in the bonus feature also change into a full animation of a knight charging into battle. The small details make the bonus round feel more exciting.
While there’s an exciting battle theme for the bonus feature, the main game has generic bells and chimes as a background.
Given how much time is spent on the main reels, it’s a shame that there’s not a little more of a soundtrack or at least some better sound effects.
Black Knight: Core gameplay
Black Knight is fairly typical of five-reel, three-row slot machine games. It has a maximum of 30 paylines. Players can choose any number to play between one and 30.
The game fully supports penny bets for players who want to play a single line. This doesn’t even turn off the bonus feature. All combinations have to follow an active payline from left-to-right to win.
Wild symbols are available, although they can only appear on reels 2, 3 and 4. In another slight twist, note that wild symbols can fill in for any symbol, even the bonus feature.
Overall, the core gameplay is relatively simple, with no features other than the bonus feature to get in the way of the standard spins.
The payouts are generally good. There are several small payouts to help players playing all 30 lines stretch out their session.
No one is going to get rich off of any of the sets of three; however, they do extend the game. The king symbol will even pay out 2x the line bet for just a matching pair.
The king symbol is also vital for recouping losses since it’s paytable is noticeably higher than the rest of the symbols.
Getting five king symbols is worth the highest payout in the game of 2,000x the line bet.
Unlike other games, it’s possible to get a decent win off of the core slots thanks to the payouts on the top tier of symbols. The bonus feature can hold some big winnings too, though.
Featured bonus round
During any normal spin, players have a chance of triggering the bonus feature. The bonus symbol can show up on any of the five reels, and it works as a variation on a scatter win.
While the bonus symbols don’t have to be on a single payline, they do have to appear on each reel starting from the left. Players at least need bonus feature symbols anywhere on reels 1, 2 and 3 to win.
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This set of 3 triggers the game and awards a 2x the total bet payout. Continuing it onto reels 4 and 5 upgrades it to a 10x or 50x the total bet payout, respectively.
As noted above, wild symbols can fill in for the bonus feature symbol. However, since wilds can’t appear in the first reel, players will always need to start with a true bonus symbol.
Once the feature triggers, the player is given seven free spins on a new set of reels. The bet and active paylines will be the same as the spin that triggered the bonus feature.
For example, players betting on just a single line can still play in the bonus round, but they’ll only have their single active line in play.
The free spins are just standard free spins, but the game does have one trick. Wild symbols can still appear on reels 2, 3 and 4, and if they appear, they expand to fill the entire reel for the rest of the free spin round.
Wins aren’t guaranteed, but locking a reel of wilds into place can set up some nice payouts. Once the seven spins run through, the bonus feature ends. It is not possible to get more free spins from retriggering the feature during the bonus round.
Final thoughts
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Black Knight is a reasonably nice slot machine that should be a good option for certain players. It’s missing the graphics and exciting bonus features of modern games, but it’s still a decent choice for players who want to sit down and go through a lot of spins.
The option for genuine penny bets is also nice and something that’s missing from many modern machines. The more basic graphics should also be gentle on mobile devices that struggle with more complicated or intense games. It’s not for everyone, but these classic slots still have some fun left in them.