Do you remember the last time you saw a tutorial appear as you were loading a new online slot? For me, I believe this may just be a first! This new machine from Print Studios doesn’t just start with a tutorial; it also includes its own storyline and lore as well. These fascinating aspects of Reapers mean that it may not be an ideal game to try when you have ten minutes to kill but fire this game up on a Friday night with a couple of hours to spare, and who knows, perhaps this will be the most involving online slot to date? Of course, any game that features elements such as these couldn’t possibly be based around boring old paylines, so Print Studios have decided to go for the grid slot genre instead. We have a 96.47% RTP and a maximum jackpot of 20,000x your stake.
So, how on earth does Reapers work? The story goes that Critters have overrun an extraction facility in a colonised world, and it’s now your responsibility to clean up this mess and get things back under control. The critters have taken control of the valuable energy cells in the main building, forcing you to shut down the protective barriers surrounding it. Five reapers are available to assist you in this task, each with a different special ability, or you can opt to take the easy route into the complex by utilising the bonus buy facility instead.
Are you hungry to discover more about the world behind Print Studios’ latest online slot? Does the sight of a slot machine with the appearance of a first-person studio have your curiosity firing on all cylinders? I don’t blame you! Go ahead and try our free demo slot of Reapers below.
| Provider | Print Studios |
| Reels | 8 |
| Rows | 8 |
| Paylines | Cluster Pays |
| Bonus Rounds | 1 |
| Bet Range | 0.25 - 50 |
| Volatility | High |
| Max Win | 20,000x |
| Bonus Buy | Yes |
| RTP | 96.47% |
| Our Rating | 6.7 |
Casino Bonuses
Reapers Demo Slot
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Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols
The storyline described in the previous section is suspiciously similar to that of the legendary PC game Doom, which featured a solo space marine sent to rescue a human outpost on the planet Mars after contact is lost. When you factor in the similarities in the story, along with the huge weapon at the bottom of the screen used to blast the tiles on the grid, it seems obvious that Print Studios were at least partially inspired by Doom or one of the countless later first-person shooter games that it inspired. You don’t see many online slots based around the FPS genre, so respect to the creators of this one for taking a chance on a previously untested idea! If you like the look of this unique casino game style, Print has a couple of others you should try out, such as the excellent Cash Defense and Shinobi Spirit.
The paytable initially confused me, as it lists a prize for symbol clusters all the way down to a single symbol. It turns out that clusters of four or less symbols will only pay upon collection and not as a result of the initial layout of each round. The biggest wins require a cluster of 15 or more adjacent matching symbols, but we’ll also state the payouts for smaller clusters of 12-14 symbols and 10-11 symbols to give you a greater understanding of how much this game is capable of paying out.
The top symbol is a spooky-looking eye surrounded by spikes, but we’ll call it the red symbol for the purpose of simplicity here! The Red symbol will pay you 500x/100x/50x for the top three cluster sizes, which is far and away the most generous of the symbols included in Reapers. The Yellow symbol drops to 100x/50x/20x, while the Purple is worth 75x/30x/10x for those same three cluster sizes of 15/12/14/10-11 adjacent symbols. The Green symbol has a value of 50x/20x/6x, whilst the Blue symbol completes the table with returns of 25x/10x/5x. I quite like how these payouts have been structured, although it remains to be seen if the red symbol is prohibitively rare.
In this game, you may choose to wager between €0.25 and €50.00 per round, but I’d recommend starting small to see how things work before you think about playing for bigger bets. That’s probably good advice for most online slots, to be honest, but it seems especially poignant in a game such as this.
Base Game & Modifiers
The basic gameplay of Reapers takes place on an 8×8 playfield, which provides 64 grid positions for the symbols to land. The majority of the grid is not occupied by symbols on any individual spin, however, so forming a winning cluster in Reapers does feel a little trickier than other grid slots. Those blank spaces can come in handy, though, as the game includes several unique features which might use them in specific circumstances:
Collect
Whenever a winning cluster has formed, a reaper matching the symbols of the winning cluster will appear on an empty space adjacent to the cluster. The reaper will transform your winning symbols into energy cells, which can then be collected.
Charge
After a reaper has collected five energy cells, it will enable its charge ability, allowing it to shut down one of the protective barriers. Later barriers require additional energy cells to be deactivated, with the final barrier needing a total of six charge cycles before it can be passed safely.
Reapers
If a reaper collects one of the orb-shaped power core symbols, its special ability will be activated. The colour of each reaper is used to determine which of the following special abilities it has:
- Energizer: This makes every reaper generate an additional energy cell.
- Linker: Links with other reapers to allow the exchange of energy cells.
- Transformer: Transforms symbols into higher-paying alternatives.
- Expander: Allows the reaper to collect symbols from within a 4×4 radius.
- Erupter: Multiplies the value of all collected wins up to a maximum of 10x.
Reapers Slot Bonus Features
Unlocking all 15 barriers to trigger the bonus round took me significant time, but this does mean that it is a predictable process that is easy to monitor your progress towards.
I can imagine many players wondering if it is worth continuing to play if they run out of money before triggering the bonus round; if you have unlocked more than ten of the barriers and are having fun, then I would definitely keep going.
If you haven’t made much progress with unlocking the barriers and do not find the over-the-top activity on the playfield exciting, perhaps it’s best just to cut your losses and try something else!
Bonus Game
Once all the barriers have been unlocked, you finally earn the chance to regain control of the energy cell facility. There are five levels to make your way through, each featuring 75 unique symbol grids.
The lowest-paying critter that is currently active is removed at the start of each level, which means that the final level is guaranteed to contain only the very highest-paying symbols. I never made it that far whilst I was testing Reapers, but I can imagine the winnings get really crazy if you do!
The circular indicator in the centre of the screen indicates the number of energy cells you have collected and the number of grids remaining at the current level. If you do not collect enough energy cells before all of the grids have passed, you will not progress to the next level.
Bonus Buy
Like most other aspects of Reapers, the bonus buy facility offered here does not work the same way as that offered in other online slots! You can choose to purchase between one and five guaranteed reapers, but this does not guarantee that you will unlock every barrier required to enter the bonus game.
Purchasing five reapers is enough to give near-certainty of reaching the bonus game, but the price of doing so is an eye-watering 425x the current bet. The lower options cost 130x, 50x, 18.4x and 3.4x, so you’ll need to decide how much you are willing to pay for a significantly increased chance of reaching the high-paying bonus game.
Pros
- A unique casino game.
- Good value max win of 20,000x.
- High RTP.
Cons
- A complicated game to understand.
- If you purely love the slots, this is not a game for you.
Reapers Slot Review Final Thoughts
I’ve only really scratched the surface of Reapers in this review, and if you don’t take the time to read through the tutorial before playing, I can guarantee you will have close to zero idea of what is going on once the lasers start firing!
The idea behind this game is fantastic, but the execution struggles a little. The problem with adding any kind of story or skill element to an online slot is that some players will find a way to cheat, whilst others will lose out simply by not paying enough attention to the action on-screen.
Print Studios has done its best to get around this by ensuring that all of the actions that take place are fully automated, but that, in turn, reduces the appeal of watching everything unfold. It’s a lot like online bingo – once the computer is marking off your cards for you, what is left of the game for you to “play”?
I hope slot developers will find a way to create more story-driven, immersive experiences, and Reapers is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. It isn’t quite there yet, but it’s worth checking out if only to get a glimpse of the direction we could be heading in.
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