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Staff Writer
Microgaming celebrates the iconic 1978 horror film with its 5-reel x 50 payline Halloween video slot. The game promises to scare and thrill in equal measure with its frightening ambiance and multiple bonus features, including Wandering Reels, a Trick or Treat Wheel, a pick-bonus style Boogeyman bonus game, and free spins. Halloween can be played on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
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All the controls you need are situated directly below the 5x4 reel setup. The spin button is found right in the centre of the control panel, and you simply need to tap this to make the reels spin. Alternatively, the autoplay is directly on the right, letting you program a set number of spins.
To adjust your bet, open the current bet menu and change the sliders around. You can also use the max bet button to instantly set your stake at $200 per spin if you're feeling brave. Your total credits are seen on the left-hand side of the control panel, while your current win is displayed on the right.
In the far right corner is the sound setting to mute or play the sounds and music, while on the left is the menu option. Open this to see all the game information and the paytable with all the symbols.
This game features ten regular symbols, each awarding a payout from matching three or more. The low pays include props you might remember from the movie, including yarn and knitting needles, a matchbook, telephone, mask, kitchen knife and revolver. These pay between 1.4x your bet and 2x your bet for five of a kind.
Four characters from the movie - Lynda, Laurie, Annie and Loomis make up the high-value symbols for this game. Lynda pays up to 2.4x your bet, Annie pays a maximum of 3x your bet, and Loomis pays 4x your bet for five of a kind. Meanwhile, Laurie is the highest paying symbol, giving you up to 10x your bet if you land five across a payline.
The Halloween game logo is wild and substitutes for all symbols barring the scatter to form winning combinations. The Bonus symbol acts as the scatter and is instrumental in the bonus feature.
There are a grand total of fifty paylines in this slot, and landing a win is as simple as matching three or more symbols from left to right along any line. Your payout depends on the value of the symbol and your stake, with wins multiplied by bet per line.
Microgaming has stuffed this slot with lots of exciting bonus features, bringing excitement and thrills to your gaming experience. No need to hide behind the couch. These bonuses could help you hit the jackpot and escape the clutches of Michael Myers.
The wild symbol is ever-present in the game, appearing on any reel as you spin. As you'd expect, it substitutes for other symbols, helping create winning lines and boosting your win rate.
Wandering reels can occur during the base game, with a group of reels spinning together. At random times during the game, this feature can activate, with the reels then stopping in one of three positions. The position it lands will determine the reels and lines played.
Jumbo blocks may appear on any spin. These giant symbols consist of multiple copies of the same symbol and span multiple reels. These can occur in tandem with the wandering reels mechanic, potentially triggering huge wins.
Landing three or more Bonus scatters anywhere in view will activate this feature. The player is allowed to spin the wheel for potential cash wins up to 10x their stake. The wheel can continuously be spun until the Boogeyman bonus or Free Spins feature is triggered.
If Michael Myers shows up on the Trick or Treat wheel, this feature will be triggered. You'll need to pick from leaves to expose cash prizes with multipliers that increase by 1 every time a prize is won. Should players uncover all 10 cash bonuses, they win an extra prize of 20x their stake. In total, you could win up to 290x your bet. Michael is also hidden among the leaves, and if he is revealed, only half the prize is awarded and the feature ends. But there's a knife hidden too. Find that and block Michael from ending the feature!
Trigger this feature when landing any one of the four character symbols during the Trick or Treat Wheel feature. 9x free spins are awarded, and only the character that triggered the spins will feature to produce wins. This feature cannot be re-triggered. During this feature, wild symbols are stacked up to 3 symbols high on the centre reel, and it can be re-triggered.
This slot has a maximum payout of 2,000x your bet. Playing at the highest bet possible means you could potentially win up to $400,000 from a single spin. Achieving such a high win is unlikely, but you have the best chance of hitting this figure during the free spins bonus round.
The RTP rate of this game is measured at 96.01%, which is pretty much the average for online slots. Meanwhile, volatility is rated as medium to high, implying a slightly lower frequency of wins than normal, but higher paying potential.
When playing slots like Halloween, you should always pay attention to the RTP rate and volatility, as they affect how fair the game is to play and the type of payouts you're likely to see. However, these rates are calculated when playing the game over many spins. If you're only playing for a standard session, your experiences can vary a lot. When I played, I was unlucky not to end up in profit and didn't manage to trigger the bonus rounds either.
While Halloween first came out in 1978, it's still extremely popular today. As a result, this game was released in 2017 and features modern graphics, designs and sounds. The game looks great, although if I had a complaint to make, I wish it was slightly spookier. The setting is familiar to fans of the film, but the graphics don't quite create that foreboding atmosphere.
The sound effects and music do a much better job of creating a scary and atmospheric experience. Microgaming ensured that the music is pretty close to that used in the film for added impact, and the sound effects that play are like a cross between a classic horror film and a fun online slot.
Halloween is available to play for free or real money, depending on which you prefer. The real money version is the only one that will let you win real payouts, but it does come with risk. If you want to get acquainted with features such as the trick-or-treat wheel and boogeyman bonus, the demo is a great place to do it.
Playing the demo will let you experience all the features for free, giving you a better understanding of the game. You can use this information to decide whether you want to play for real or not.
Horror is always great entertainment, making hairs stand on end and getting us to jump out of our chairs. Whether it's October or not, it's always a good time to play some spooky slots. Here are a few of our favourites in comparison with Halloween:
Halloween is yet another successful movie-to-slot creation from Microgaming. It checks all the boxes from visuals to features, and it produces medium to high wins with a max stake of up to 500 times the original wager on every free spin. The RTP for this game has not yet been published.
