If like me, you were a tad disappointed with the recent finale of The Walking Dead, then you might have decided to give zombies a wide berth for the moment. Hold up, though, as Hacksaw Gaming may be about to save the day with their new zombie-based online slot, Rotten! The game combines a jumbo-sized reel set with 35 paylines and a maximum win of 10,000x your bet. Hacksaw has performed a 10 billion round simulation on the slot and determined the RTP to be 96.27%. However, they haven’t told us the number of times the maximum win was awarded during the simulation, which would have been a fascinating detail to know.
Rotten includes a new game mechanic that Hacksaw is calling “SwitchSpins”. This special type of re-spin replaces lower-paying symbols with high-paying ones (or wilds) and can be triggered repeatedly until the entire reel set is composed only of the game’s top symbol! There are two free spin modes available too; the first is labelled ‘The Mad Scientist’, whilst the second is dubbed ‘Total Takeover’. The bonus buy facility allows you to purchase a set of SwitchSpins and the two main bonus rounds.
Still here? Then you’re probably eager to check out Hacksaw Gaming’s latest work! Our free demo slot of Rotten is available to play below:
| Provider | Hacksaw Gaming |
| Reels | 6 |
| Rows | 5 |
| Paylines | 35 |
| Bonus Rounds | 2 |
| Bet Range | 0.10 - 100 |
| Volatility | High |
| Max Win | 10,000x |
| Bonus Buy | Yes |
| RTP | 96.27% |
| Our Rating | 7.9 |
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Rotten Demo Slot
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Rotten Slot Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols
The world as we know it is no more! The zombie apocalypse is here, and the only way to survive this new reality is to watch out for the undead and avoid the mad scientist who created them! Whoa, Hacksaw… that’s heavy. Many previous zombie-themed online slots have taken a more light-hearted approach to our flesh-eating friends (that sentence sounds wrong, doesn’t it?), for example, AvatarUX’s Zombie APOPalypse. However, this isn’t Hacksaw’s first rodeo; we reviewed another excellent zombie-themed game from the developer just a few months back titled Undead Fortune, so it’s going to be fun to find out if this one can surpass their previous efforts.
As always, we’ll start from the top with the paytable! The highest-paying symbol is the Wild, and it returns 50x the current stake for a full payline of six of a kind. That’s slightly ahead of the top regular symbol, a Clown that looks scarily like the one from the movie adaptation of Steven King’s IT, which pays 40x for all six of his symbols. There’s a Zombie who either has his head on fire or is wearing a really bad blonde wig(!) with a return of 25x and another Dude who looks like he has a bat on his head who pays 20x for a complete payline. Two more rather Nondescript Zombies complete the high-paying line-up, both of which will pay you 15x for six-of-a-kind. Five royals make up the bottom half of the paytable and will award between 2.5x and 7.5x for a complete payline.
The betting range is nice and wide, offering a minimum wager of €0.10 per spin and maxing out at a fairly typical – yet still crazy – €100.00 per round for those with more money than they know what to do with!
Base Game & Modifiers
The reel set used in Rotten is much larger than the one used in Hacksaw’s previous zombie slot Undead Fortune and comprises six reels of five rows each. The developer has upped the payline count to 35 to accommodate those extra symbol positions, but you are still likely to find that many combinations appear that you expect to award a win yet do not. This is an acceptable trade-off in my view, however, as the prizes offered for winning combinations would be orders of magnitude smaller if Hacksaw had opted to use pay ways instead.
Switchspins Respins
At the top of the screen, directly to the right of the game logo, you’ll see each of the game’s regular symbols shown in greyed-out colours. Whenever a switch scatter symbol lands on the reels, one symbol will be chosen to be upgraded to either the highest-paying regular symbol or the wild.
The SwitchSpins feature can award between one and ten free spins, and if a new SwitchSpins scatter happens to land whilst the feature is active, then another symbol will be transformed, and additional re-spins will be added to your remaining total. The SwitchSpins meter is reset in between base game spins.
If a bonus round is triggered whilst you have SwitchSpins remaining, the SwitchSpins will play out before the bonus round begins.
Rotten Slot Bonus Features
Rotten has two main bonus rounds, each of which is activated by its own set of unique scatter symbols. You’ll need all three possible scatters of either type to trigger the corresponding free spins feature.
Mad Scientist Free Spins
This is the least exciting free spins feature of the two, as the only real enhancement offered is that the SwitchSpins feature will occur far more frequently than it does during the base game.
There is one other nice touch, however, which is that you can also win the Total Takeover free spins whilst the Mad Scientist spins are active. If this occurs, you will be returned to the Mad Scientist spins after the other bonus round concludes, now with a fresh set of ten free spins on your remaining counter!
Total Takeover Free Spins
The Total Takeover free spins offer the same increased odds of triggering the SwitchSpins feature as the previous bonus round, but this time the SwitchSpins are further enhanced as the symbol meter will not reset between free spins. If you can fill the entire SwitchSpins meter during a single bonus round, you are guaranteed a six of a kind hit on all 35 paylines simultaneously.
That will be a tricky task, as you start the feature with just ten free spins on your remaining counter. Hitting three more scatter symbols whilst the feature is active will add four additional spins to your total, but I would guess that you’ll need several of these re-triggers to stand a chance at an elusive full-screen win.
Bonus Buy
If permitted within your jurisdiction, you can opt to skip the base game and go directly to the game’s special features:
- Bonushunt FeatureSpins: Costs 3x the current bet and increases the odds of hitting a bonus round by 500%
- Switch FeatureSpins: Costs 20x the current bet and guarantees that a SwitchSpins scatter symbol will land on the next spin
- Mad Scientist: Costs 110x the current bet and awards 10 Mad Scientist Free Spins
- Total Takeover: Costs 250x the current bet and awards 10 Total Takeover Free Spins
Pros
- A rare horror theme that isn't papered over with a cartoon theme.
- The switch mechanic is capable of huge wins.
Cons
- The theme won't be to the taste of everybody.
- With super volatility in play, could the max win have been higher?
Rotten Slot Review Final Thoughts
This is undoubtedly one for fans of super high-variance slots; the bonus buy facility highlights that point nicely, as the volatility of the various options is said to START at ‘high’ and finish at ‘extreme’. With that in mind, it’s a shame that Hacksaw didn’t increase the jackpot cap slightly – 10,000x certainly isn’t something to sniff at, but plenty of high-variance slots pay much, much more.
Nevertheless, I had a great time testing this game and will definitely be playing Rotten for real money as soon as I see the game available on general release.
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