Book of Halloween Slot Demo - Page 2

Pros Tips

Book of Halloween is a highly volatile online slot, so you’ll need to consider that when managing your bankroll. I recommend sticking to a low bet level, something that can potentially get you more shots at the game’s free spins bonus. That’s mostly because the free spins bonus contains expanding symbols which can boost your chances of getting the online slot’s biggest wins.

Book of Halloween Slot Bonus Features

As soon as you fire up Book of Halloween, you’re met with the familiar spooky, graveyard theme, haunting five reels and three rows that put together 10 paylines. It’s a standard setup then, with varying rewards that depend on the quality of the symbols you land in your combinations.

The lowest paying symbols are represented by coloured royal card symbols and these can fetch you wins of up to 15x your stake for five identical symbols. Further up the paytable are the higher paying symbols which take on the form of a zombie hand, a tombstone, a bubbling cauldron and a jack o’lantern. The lantern happens to be the video slot’s best-paying symbol, awarding you 500x your stake for five identical symbols.

That pretty much sets up the game’s basics, but I was let down by the lack of quality-of-life functions here. There is no turbo mode to be found, but what’s even worse is that you don’t get an autoplay function. This means you have to manually spin every single round, which can end up feeling quite tedious in the long run.

Wilds

Anyone who has played a ‘book of’ slot knows how crucial wild symbols are. They serve a dual purpose covering the roles of both wilds and scatter symbols. As wilds, these symbols step in for missing pay symbols on a payline – saving near misses and even enhancing existing wins. Think of it as your very own online slot trick or treat symbol.

Wilds are instantly recognisable, taking on the form of a leather-bound red book with the game’s logo engraved on the front. It’s one of the game’s many beautiful illustrations, evoking this image of picture books filled with monsters, magic and ghost stories.

Scatter symbol

As I’ve already mentioned, scatter symbols and wild symbols are represented by the same red book. One or two of these symbols will act as regular wilds, but three or more of them will trigger the free spins bonus. You’ll always get 10 initial free spins, but the more scatter symbols you have, the better the reward you receive.

Landing three, four or five scatter symbols bags you a win worth 2x, 20x or 200x your stake, respectively. These symbols continue to land during the free spins bonus.

Free Spins

As per the ‘book of’ tradition, before you start spinning away on your free spins bonus, the game triggers its special feature. In this case, one lucky symbol is enhanced for the duration of the bonus rounds. Whenever this special symbol forms a win on the grid, it expands to cover its respective reel and that round’s rewards are re-evaluated.

Other than that, free spins have identical gameplay to the base game. There is also no bonus buy option, so you’ll need to trigger the free spins bonus organically through scatter symbols. Although wilds land during the free spins bonus, they do not add any more free spins to your tally.

Gamble Feature

Whenever you score a win worth at least 5x your bet, you get the chance to trigger the gamble feature. This a 50/50 gamble where you can either multiply your win by 5x, win free spins or lose your entire win.

It proved to be quite a tricky option and when I opted to take a chance with it, I got very mixed results. The biggest thing to bear in mind here though, is that if you want to hit the video slot’s maximum win of 2,500x your stake, you’ll need to use the gamble feature.

Book of Halloween Slot on Mobile

I fired up Book of Halloween through a Chrome browser on my Android phone and was pleasantly surprised to see just how well the game ran. All the same features, graphics and win potential are present here and the touchscreen controls are very responsive. I could also switch simultaneously between playing in landscape and portrait mode.

I recommend playing in landscape mode since this compliments phone screens better, but this may largely depend on your preference. The slot is also available on iOS systems and can run on all modern mobile browsers.

Conclusion

I have to admit, I’m a fan of the ‘book of’ video slots. So, I was quite looking forward to playing this Halloween-themed version, hoping it would put me into the holiday mood. I like seeing different games that manage to retain the fun of the traditional setup while also bringing in new and exciting additions.

Initially, I was quite happy to see that Book of Halloween sticks to the formula, complete with an addition in free spins and a dual combo wild/scatter symbol. But I’d go so far as to say that it stays true to the system to a fault. I was hoping to see some more original mechanics come together, but these never showed up.

I was also let down by the lack of autoplay and turbo mode. In this day and age, these functions are a necessity, and their absence was felt after a few rounds. The math model also proved to be a bit of a letdown, with a max win that’s far below other ‘book of’ video slots. It also doesn’t help that to hit that max win, you’ll be forced to use the online slot’s gamble feature.

On a more positive note, the game’s visuals still hold up very well and I loved the Tim Burton-inspired graphics which lent a goofy feel to the Halloween theme. Sure, the animations may be a tad dated, but they still hold up well enough all these years later. The supernatural theme works brilliantly, complete with standard haunted imagery featuring the odd ghost, pumpkin and witch.

So, all in all, Book of Halloween turned out to be a mixed bag. For fans of the genre, the overall formula will be enjoyable even if the win potential is quite limited. But for players who aren’t all that keen on the ‘book of ’ games, then this sadly won’t change your mind.