The Shadow Order (Push Gaming) Slot Demo & Review

This game felt awfully familiar when I first began to play, and it wasn’t long before I realised what it was reminding me of – it’s quite similar to the Rise of Olympus and Moon Princess games by Play’N’Go. All three titles use a 5×5 playfield, they all use orbs to activate their special features, and all payout for groups of three or more adjacent matching symbols in a horizontal or vertical line. The Shadow Order isn’t a direct clone though; the way the orbs move in this machine is different from the Play’N’Go titles, and the feature set is much more diverse.

The Wild symbol sits firmly at the top of the paytable thanks to its premium five of a kind payout of 300x the current stake. The highest-paying regular symbol is, I believe, supposed to represent the Nucleus of an Atom and offers a top prize of 120x for all five symbols. The Books adorned with large triangle logos can get you up to 80x your bet back in winnings, whilst the Cryptex offers returns of 60x the bet for all five symbols! That’s your lot for the high pays; the lows are divided into two groups, the most valuable of which are the chess pieces that come with prizes of 10x, 8x, or 6x the bet for the King, Queen, or Knight, respectively, whilst the Royal ‘Seals’ return just 2x, 1.5x, or 1x the total bet.

The minimum/maximum permitted bets have been set at €0.10 and €100.00 per spin, respectively, but be warned, with only 10 options in between those limits, some players may find themselves forced to bet more or less than they would ideally prefer.

The Shadow Order is a grid slot of sorts, as it doesn’t utilise any traditional payways or paylines on its 5×5 reel set. Instead, wins are awarded for lining up three matching symbols in adjacent positions either horizontally or vertically – they don’t need to start from the left-hand side, as with a typical video slot. The game also includes the familiar cascading symbol feature, which removes winning symbols from the screen immediately after your winnings are paid – in fact, this is an essential part of the gameplay here, as you’ll need to hit around a dozen wins in a single round to make your way to the free spins feature.

Orb Symbols & Features

The three coloured orbs displayed above and to the left of the reels count as additional wild symbols when they make their way onto the playfield. Whenever a cascade phase occurs, it will charge up one of the three orbs; when an orb has been fully charged, it will roll onto the playfield. Orbs are returned to the top-left starting position at the end of each game round.

Orbs always want to move down and to the right, towards the three hotspot locations. If an orb makes its way into its corresponding hotspot, it will activate its special feature, these are:

• Orb of Destruction: Destroys low-paying symbols, allowing new symbols to fall onto the grid.

• Orb of Creation: Adds 3-6 wild symbols to the grid in random positions.

• Orb of Preservation: Holds the highest-paying symbols in place and removes all other symbols except the orbs.

Ring Symbols & Characters

The first character of the shadow order is unlocked automatically from the moment you begin to play, but there are three more characters that can be unlocked by collecting ring symbols. Unlocking additional characters will increase the game’s RTP to a maximum of 95.99% when all four characters are available. Each character has a modifier attached to it, which can trigger randomly at the end of a game round.

The free spins feature will activate when all three orbs have been collected in the collection tile located in the bottom-right corner of the playfield. Five free spins will be added to your starting counter, and all three orbs will remain fully activated for the duration of the bonus round.

Free Spins

In this mode, the orb symbols become sticky and remain in their positions between rounds. A cumulative multiplier will be applied to your winnings whenever an orb reaches the collection tile during the free spins feature. You can also win two additional free spins by landing all three orbs in the collection tile, after which the orbs will return to the top left in a fully-charged state.