ALL ABOUT BLOOD LUST SLOT
Following hot on the heels of ELK studio’s atmospheric battle-worn historical slot, Crusader, comes a romantic vampire game, Blood Lust. Most slots players will be familiar with classic vampire titles like Bloodsuckers I and II and Immortal Romance – it’s true that the tales of Dracula and his type have inspired some great games. For ELK this is their first dip into this nocturnal world and whilst this slot is not stacked with new features, the slick artwork, symbol upgrades and free spins make for a solid game experience. However, high risk slots fans may baulk a little at the low potential at just 2,500x on a game that is rated as on the high end of the variance scale. Let’s find out more.
GAME SET-UP, SYMBOLS AND GRAPHICS
The realm of the vampire slot is always the same – a backdrop of a moonlit black and purple sky peppered with clouds and swirling bats. A distant castle is framed by gnarly trees, in front of which is your 4×3 reel set on which there are 99 paylines in play at all times. The low value symbols are the card suits, spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts. The vampires that make up the premium symbols consist of two guys and two girls. One of the guys, the slicker of the two with the burning gold eyes, is the highest paying at 40x for five of a kind. Fans of the film franchise will definitely recognize a Twilight saga styling to the characters.
Look out as well for the Wild which subs for all others to create paylines and also pays out 40x for five on a line, as well as the scatters required to trigger the free spins round.
BLOOD LUST SLOT RTP, VARIANCE AND PAYOUTS
Blood Lust is a high volatility slot so casual gamers may wish to steer clear of this one. It doesn’t carry the same high risk gameplay as a slot like Bonanza or Lil Devil, but it is still up there and needs to be handled with care. Unfortunately, unlike those two BTG classics, Blood Lust doesn’t offer a very big top payout – only 2,500x. This may put some players off, but with 99 paylines to trigger wins, the action can still be pretty regular. Bear all this in mind when you come to choose your stake, with a minimum of 20p available.
GAMEPLAY AND FEATURES
 Blood Lust isn’t stacked with features like other vampire slots. But it does have some interesting enhancements to liven up the gameplay.
Boosted Re-Spins
Land a Candle symbol on the fifth reel and you’ll trigger the Boosted Re-Spins. Here, every instance of one symbol will be held in place for a re-spin. Also, any bonus symbols are locked to increase your chances of triggering another feature.
Boosted Stacks
This feature triggers at random and adds stacks of symbols to the paytable to increase your chances of landing a win.
Free Spins and Symbol Upgrades
You’ll need to land three scatters to set off the free spins round. Depending on where the scatters land you will get up to 15 free spins – the scatters form a rectangle shape within which every symbol adds another spin to your total.
The free spins round comes with a symbol upgrade feature. At the top of each of the middle reels is a meter – one for each of the three lowest paying vampires. When a symbol for one of the vampires lands it adds one point to the meter. Once the meter is full a vampire, all instances of it on the reels turn to the top paying vampire and an extra free spin is added. This is not too different to the mechanic used in Thunderkick’s Pink Elephants 2 and can drive up the wins in the bonus round when you turn all the vampires into the highest value ones.
And … it is possible to trigger the free spins round again by landing three more scatters.
OUR VERDICT
Blood Lust is a nice game form ELK Studios with an interesting bonus round where the symbol upgrades feature adds some real suspense. As with all ELK Studios games, the graphics and gameplay are really slick and in almost every aspect we enjoyed this slot. Our only gripe might be the 2,500x top payout – we’ll leave you to decide if you think that makes it worth playing.
