Casino Bonuses
Provider | Quickspin |
Reels | 3 |
Rows | 4 |
Bonus Rounds | 1 |
Bet Range | 0.20 - 100 |
Volatility | High |
Max Win | 29,541x |
Bonus Buy | Yes |
RTP | 96.11% |
Our Rating | 8.3 |
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Game Overview
I have mixed feelings regarding Quickspin as a developer – on the one hand, I certainly enjoy playing their games. I am frequently impressed by the quality of their presentation and overall production discipline. Strangely, however, very few games have stuck in my memory over the long term. For me, their slots seem to be fantastic fun for a short period, yet I always appear to tire of them quickly. I’m not sure why this is, and I find myself immediately impressed by the look and feel of their Beastwood video slot. The vitals look good as well – The provider advertises an “unlimited” number of ways to win, but that’s not entirely true, as we will see later. The RTP is good at 96.11%, however, and the top win of 29,541x your bet (the result of a billion-round simulation, not a cap) is chunky enough for even the most demanding player.
The prominent feature in Beastwood is the so-called “Endless reels”, which gives rise to the claim of “Unlimited payways”. There are also reel multipliers which will double the value of your win, a free spin-based bonus round, and a handful of other special features we will be looking at in full later. There’s plenty to keep you entertained whilst playing Beastwood, and the bonus buy feature (if available in your jurisdiction) can help you skip the base game if you don’t find it entertaining enough.
There is a lot to see and discover here, so you may want to fire up our free demo slot of Beastwood before you begin to play for real:
Beastwood Slot Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols
It’s pretty difficult to nail what exactly the theme of the Beastwood online slot is meant to be – I guess it’s all about beasts who live in the woods, although that sounds like a serious copout when I read it back! Let’s look at things objectively, though – we have a hunter guy, a selection of deformed animals, and a few low-paying royal symbols filling a bunch of reels that look as if they are situated in a hut in the middle of some dark, foreboding woods. How else would you describe this scenario? If the game weren’t called “Beastwood”, I would very likely have reached the same conclusion with regards to the theme of this game. On that note, I’m sticking with it – Beastwood is a game based on beasts who live in the woods! It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
Let’s get serious for a moment – open up the paytable, and you will see the wild takes pride of place at the top of the list, but it has no payout of its own, so it pays identically to the single “high win” symbol. The high win symbol is the hunter character mentioned previously, but he only returns 2.5x your stake for a full pay way. How do we define a full pay way – well, it’s three matching symbols from left to right, but that is far from the full story.
Each time an extra reel is added to the right of the reel set, an additional 2x multiplier will boost the value of the paytable symbol combinations. Once the game reaches its maximum width of six symbols, the hunter character should be worth 20x your bet rather than just 2.5x as the prize has been doubled three times. That’s not the whole story, though, as you are paid at each stage of the process – 2.5x, followed by 5x, followed by 10x, followed by 20x. So now we are at 37.5x for the high-paying symbol… could you make this any simpler at all, Quickspin?!
As mentioned previously, there are four “medium-pay” symbols featuring deformed-looking animal creatures. Still, these all have a payoff of just 0.5x or 1x your stake for the minimum three-of-a-kind configuration. They could potentially be boosted up to 8x your bet once the screen reaches its full size, but here’s the thing – these still are not the maximum returns for any of the symbols we have discussed. The reels can keep scrolling after reaching their full width of six symbols, so it’s pretty much impossible to know the maximum payout for any symbol on the paytable.
Of course, you can quantify how much you will lose for each paid spin – a minimum of €0.20 is required to play, and Quickspin will accept bets of up to €100.00 per spin as long as the casino you are playing with permits such huge stakes. Be careful here – this is a super high variance online slot and could empty your bankroll in short order if you set your bet size too high.
Base Game & Modifiers
I hope the previous section didn’t sound too negative regarding Beastwood video slot – you only have to play the base game for ten minutes, and the potential for huge wins will undoubtedly become apparent to you, so I don’t have a problem with the paytable as such. My issue is merely with the opaque nature of the numbers shown on the paytable, which means that you are going to be forced to rely on the game telling you how much your spins are worth at the end of the reel expansion phase rather than being able to simply look at the screen and work it out for yourself.
Let’s move on. The base game begins on an unusual 3×4 reel layout which will expand if you hit a three-of-a-kind winning combination. When this expansion occurs, the reel setup will increase until it reaches its maximum width of 6×4. After this, new reels will continue spawning on the screen’s right-hand side. However, the leftmost reel will be removed to make way for the new column of symbols.
In my view, this makes Beastwood a 64 – 4,096 pay way online slot, not an unlimited pay way slot as Quickspin suggests. My reasoning for this is that no matter how many times the reels scroll to the left, there will never be more than 4,096 payways visible on the screen at any one time. I see the logic in Quickspin’s view, however, as prizes are awarded between each expansion phase, which means you could theoretically win on the maximum 4,096 payways before the grid scrolls. You can then win on a NEW set of 4,096 payways. If you find this difficult to visualise, please fire up our free demo slot at the top of the page, which should help you work out what I am referring to.
Reel Expansion & Multipliers
We have already talked about the expanding reel set aspect of Beastwood online slot, but it feels important to come back to it briefly at this point. Any winning combination will activate the “endless reels” feature, causing an extra column of symbols to appear on the right-hand side of the screen.
If the expansion occurs when you only have the initial three-wide reel set on the screen, you can potentially hit more matching symbols on the new reel, which would cause the expansion process to repeat itself. Once you have six reels already visible, the expansion feature could potentially allow you to carry on increasing your winnings. Still, the loss of the symbols on the left-most reel could also be detrimental to your prospects.
During the base game, new reels will only have a multiplier attached to them if the previous reel contained at least two matching symbols that form part of the winning combination. During the bonus round, all new reels will have a 2x multiplier attached to them.
Beastwood Slot Free Spins Feature
During the base game, you need to hit a minimum of four bonus symbols on a single spin to trigger the free spins bonus round. If you are lucky enough to hit more than four during one paid spin, your starting counter will be increased by three more spins for every bonus symbol forming part of the triggering combination.
The free spins bonus round is very similar to the base game, but I felt that simple three-of-a-kind hits were far more common in this part of the game than during regular play. That’s a great thing, as any three-of-a-kind win during free spins will trigger a reel expansion with a guaranteed 2x multiplier.
Every new reel added to the set during free spins is guaranteed to feature a 2x multiplier, potentially allowing you to keep doubling the value of any winning combination indefinitely. Remember, too, that wins are paid at every stage during the Beastwood video slot – you do not have to wait until the spin has completed.
Any bonus symbols that land whilst the free spins feature is in play will add an extra free spin to your remaining total. However, no full-on retrigger is available for hitting four or more bonus symbols during this part of the game.
Bonus Buy Feature
Hit the bonus buy button, and you have the option to buy your way straight to the free spins at the cost of 120x your current wager. I’m not sure if I feel this is a good deal in Beastwood – the bonus round seems more generous than the base game, but my balance seemed to tread water in between features for much of the time I was testing this game. If the price were 80x your bet, I would have no issues recommending you choose this option, but as it stands, I suggest you give the game a little regular play before diving into the bonus buy feature.
Beastwood Slot Review Final Thoughts
This is a solid effort from Quickspin – Beastwood boasts excellent presentation, a substantial maximum jackpot, and enough variation and action during the base game that the spins seem to fly by as you wait for the next bonus round to drop. Better still, I came out in front after my time testing the game, and that always makes me eager to try a new game in real money mode. I’d suggest you do the same!
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