The Machine Arrives At Tombola

tombola have done it yet again!  The new bingo game at this most prolific of UK bingo sites, The Machine, launched on 18th February.  Like several of their other games, it is a single ticket multi stake game with RTP that is guaranteed always to exceed 80% and in this case the price points are 10p, 25p, 50p and £1.

The Machine has a steampunk theme.  Underneath the hood it is a 40 ball bingo game with two cards per player, one with 8 numbers and one with 12 numbers, but the visuals, which are the usual high quality animations we’ve come to expect from Tombola, go far beyond that.

Each player has a machine with two concentric wheels – silver on the inside with 8 numbers and gold on the outside with 12. On each call, the gold wheel rotates clockwise, the silver wheel anticlockwise and the numbered ball is blown up out of a steam outlet. Complete the silver wheel to win the silver prize and the gold wheel to win the gold prize – but there’s a catch!

The Machine does not have any room jackpots but instead there’s something called the Pressure Prize which can be won by any player in any game.  The centre bottom number on each wheel is covered by a blue lens.  If that number is daubed, the pressure gauge under the machine goes up a notch.  If any player reaches the 6th notch on their pressure gauge, everyone’s gauge breaks, the game ends and the Pressure Prize winner collects all prizes that have not yet been won.

Such is the attention to detail with the animations that the corresponding lens cracks and falls away when someone wins the silver or gold prize before the Pressure Prize, and there’s also a flashing red hazard light on the pressure gauge that starts pulsing when another player is close to winning the Pressure Prize.

The Machine is running in 5 rooms (not all of which are open all the time) with a single chat room covering them all. Apart from the fact that they are all running separate games, the only difference between the rooms is the name and the background colour.  As happens every single time Tombola bring out a new game, all the rooms are currently extremely busy as everyone rushes to try it out.  The player reaction so far is pretty positive although a few people seem disappointed that there’s no progressive jackpot and one player was complaining that their phone battery was draining very quickly (the possible downside of having such impressive graphics).

All in all, this is a graphically beautiful game where everyone has an equal chance of winning, and which can be enjoyed for just 10p – it looks sure to be a popular addition to the Tombola canon.