Fortune Skulls

Fortune Skulls Overview

Fortune Skulls is a Wild West slot from NetGame that mixes cowboy, Mexican and slightly futuristic imagery: a skeleton leans on the frame, and the symbols are ornate metal card suits, a guitar, a tequila bottle and three characters. It plays on 5 reels and 3 rows with 50 fixed paylines. The main features are stacked, nudging skull wilds, cash prizes that sit above the reels, a Pick’em jackpot bonus and free games.

Release Date, RTP and Volatility

NetGame’s own game data lists Fortune Skulls with a release date of 20 August 2023, an RTP of 96.12%, medium volatility and a maximum win of 2,200x. SlotCatalog gives different figures – 25 May 2023, 96.28%, high volatility and 2,000x – and the game is offered with several RTP profiles, so the version at your casino may differ; we use the studio’s numbers. NetGame also publishes a hit frequency of 21.3%, a feature rate of one in 60 spins, a big-win rate of one in 90 spins and a maximum exposure of €250,000.

The Paytable

We read the paytable at a total bet of 50. The wild and the Fortune Skulls symbol both pay 1,000 for five, which is 20x the bet. The bearded Caballero pays 500 (10x) for five, Maria pays 250 (5x) and the grey-haired Don Pedro 150 (3x). The tequila bottle pays 100 (2x), the guitar 50 (1x), and the four card suits 20 each (0.4x). Caballero and Maria are the only symbols that already pay for two of a kind.

Skull Wilds and the Nudge Feature

The wild is a jewelled skull marked WILD. In the base game it appears on reels 2, 3 and 4 and always lands as a stack. When a stack is only partly visible, it can nudge up or down to show more wilds – or to reveal the Fortune Skulls symbol hidden behind it. Several of our screenshots show wild stacks two or three symbols high in the middle of the grid.

Theme and Presentation

The reels are framed in weathered wood and rope, with a cow skull on the left and a cowboy hat hanging on the right, and a desert of red rocks stretches out behind them. The skeleton standing on the left gives the game its day-of-the-dead flavour. The low symbols are not flat card suits but heavy metal ornaments – a spade, a heart, a diamond and a club – each set with a coloured gem, and the wild skull has red jewelled eyes. Big wins are counted up in large gold numbers across the middle of the grid.

The Three Characters

The three portrait symbols are the ones that matter most. Caballero, the dark-bearded gunslinger, tops the paytable at 10x for five and even returns a small amount for two of a kind. Maria in her red cowboy hat is next at 5x, again from two of a kind. Don Pedro, the grey-haired old man with a stern look, pays 3x for five but needs at least three on a line. Because the wild stacks sit on the middle reels, lines of characters usually come together when a stack covers reels 2 to 4.

Prizes Above the Reels

Each reel has its own prize panel above it. It can show a cash amount, the Pick’em Bonus or Free Games. When the Fortune Skulls symbol lands on a reel, the prize above that reel is awarded. At a bet of 10 our screenshots show cash prizes of 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 350, which is 4x to 35x the bet; the full published range is 2x to 150x.

Our Base-Game Wins

All our base-game screenshots were taken at a total bet of 10:

• 24.00 (2.4x) – two skull wilds stacked on reel 2 connected the grey-haired Don Pedro symbols.
• 34.00 (3.4x) – a line of red diamond suits across the middle row.
• 50.00 (5x) – a Fortune Skulls symbol landed on reel 3 under a wild stack and collected the cash prize above it.
• 76.00 (7.6x) – a full wild stack on reel 3 surrounded by guitars.

The Pick’em Jackpot Bonus

If a Fortune Skulls symbol collects the Pick’em prize, a shooting-gallery game starts. Eighteen targets – bottles and lanterns – are shown, and each shot reveals a jackpot symbol. The bonus ends when enough matching symbols are collected, and the corresponding jackpot is paid:

• 3 Mini symbols – 15x the bet
• 4 Minor symbols – 35x
• 5 Major symbols – 200x
• 6 Grand symbols – 2,000x

The plaques at the top of the screen confirm the scale: at a bet of 10 they show Mini 150, Minor 350, Major 2,000 and Grand 20,000, and at a bet of 50 the Grand reads 100,000.

Free Games

Collecting the Free Games prize awards 10 free spins, confirmed by the “You won 10 free games” screen. During the round the prize panels above reels 1 and 5 are unlocked as well, and both wilds and Fortune Skulls symbols can land on every reel. Collecting the Free Games prize again adds two more spins, with no limit on retriggers. On spin 6 of 10 in our round, Fortune Skulls symbols on reels 1 and 3 appeared next to two wild stacks, and the win meter showed 43.00.

How the Features Work Together

The design links everything to the Fortune Skulls symbol. A wild stack that nudges into view can uncover it, the symbol then collects whatever the panel above its reel is showing, and that panel decides whether the spin ends with a small cash prize, a shot at the jackpots or a set of free games. In the free games the two outer panels open up and the skull can land anywhere, so each spin has five possible collections instead of three. It is a simple loop, but it gives the base game more to watch than the line wins alone.

The Bonus Buy Version

NetGame has also released Fortune Skulls: Bonus Buy as a separate game, dated 21 June 2024 in the studio’s data, with a 96.26% RTP and a 3,000x maximum win. Our partner casinos list both versions side by side.

Bet Settings

The total bet is set with the plus and minus buttons under the reels and runs from 0.50 to 50 per spin. All 50 lines are always active, as the counter in the bottom-right corner shows.

Who It Is For

Fortune Skulls suits players who like a busy base game with several ways to reach a bonus. The prizes above the reels make every Fortune Skulls symbol meaningful, the Pick’em round offers a 2,000x Grand jackpot, and the free games open up the outer reels for bigger collections.

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