In the “Ask me anything (about slots)” section of the Casinomeister forum, a user known as trancemonkey answers various questions about slots. He is a specialist in the field, having worked as a producer/programmer for over 20 years. Although the specific companies he has worked for are not listed, in one of the posts he says that he worked for Quickspin for two years and at the time of the post, he was working for IGT.
One of the questions asked to him was about the bonus rounds, in which the player is asked to choose one of several options.
Are the results of choice bonuses predetermined? For example, the chest feature in Vikings Go Berzerk. It seems to be so, so I'm curious.
Sometimes. From a game control point of view, it is better if the result of the function where the player is given a choice is completely determined before the player makes the choice.
The only case in which you can be given complete randomness is if all the results have the same weight , that is, you have the same chance of getting each of them, but in 99.5% of cases this is not the case. For example, in Secrets of the Stones - I would be 99.9% sure that which stone you choose does not matter. If someone from NetEnt told me otherwise, I would be surprised.
That is, according to the expert, in most cases it does not matter what you choose, if you are given a choice before you. The result is already a foregone conclusion without you, the player only has to see what kind of result it is.
Considering that prizes of different values are usually played in such rounds (different number of bonus credits / multiplier size / number of free spins, etc.), then it is logical that the chances of getting each of them will not be equal. This means that the results are already known in advance, so you don’t have to think too much about what to discover.
