About Sylvan Spirits
There are many mystical woodland slots available in UK casinos – from the classic Pixies of the. Forest from IGT to Well of Wonders by Thunderkick. It always makes for some excellent visuals and soundtracks, plus the mysterious narratives easily weave their way into the features of these games. In this case we are taken to another enchanted forest where ancient Druid stones sit, carved with strange symbols, mirror-like lakes rest below overhanging trees, and weird animal symbols adorn the reels.
It’s all taking place on a standard 5×4 set, where normal sized symbols share the space with a very important Mega Wild. It’s a highly volatile slot but it does come with a pays both ways, 1,024 paylines set up and a free spins round, so there are plenty of chances to get near to that top payout.
RTP, Variance and Top Payout Â
As far as Red Tiger games go, this one is highly volatile – their own rating of Sylvan Spirits is a 5/5 on the variance scale – so that means a very unevenly distributed win model with lots of dry spins before hitting any good win sequences. Bear this in mind when you are choosing your stake. The top payout is set at over 7,500x stake, whilst the RTP is slightly lower than average at 95.77%.
Symbols and Paytable
This is an atmospheric slot and the mix of lush woodland, strange Druid stones and weird animals gives the reel set an almost fairy-tale like quality. The symbols themselves comprise of low value icons represented by playing cards (10 through to Ace) carved into stone, and premium icons consisting of animals as follows: rabbits, owls, deer, and foxes, paying from 0.9x to 1.5x bet for five of a kind.
Look out as well for The Lady of the Forest who is the 2×2 Mega Mystic Wild that substitutes for all regular symbols and also adds multipliers to wins. Then there is the Scatter which is there to trigger the Free Spins feature.
Gameplay and Features
The peace and tranquility of the forest that exists throughout most of the base game will be disturbed from time to time with two additional features that are incorporated in the game! There is the 2×2 Mega Mystic Wild, which guarantees a win when on the reels, and the Free Spins bonus round. Both features involve win multipliers and here is how they work:
Mega Mystic Wild Feature
Now … pay attention because this gets a little complicated!
When the Lady Wild appears on the reels she will land in a 2×2 size. And when she does land on the reels, she GUARANTEES a win. That is not all, because the symbols that are included in the win also earn their own multiplier which is stored above the reel set. Next time that symbol appears in a winning line, the multiplier is applied to the value of the win. These win multipliers can increase as high as 99x.
Free Spins Feature
In the free spins round the win multipliers feature in enhanced.
Here, when three scatters appear on the reels, the Free Spins feature is triggered. During the bonus round, with each winning spin, those symbols involved in the win get a bump to their corresponding multipliers. And in this case, after any win, the multipliers do no re-set.
AND …
After a winning spin, a cascade occurs in which winning symbols are removed and new ones drop in to replace them. If this creates more wins, the process repeats. When this combines with high multipliers you can start pushing up towards that 7,000x + top payout.
Our Verdict
Sylvan Spirits is a great-looking game and this one of its biggest strengths. As a slot, the base game action will be much too slow for a lot of players. The maths model is weighted heavily to the bonus round where free spins and cascades are always a good combination. On top of that you have the opportunities created by those multiplier values that stick throughout the round. If you can push one of the symbols up toward the 99x then you have a real chance hitting some big big payouts. However, this is of course very tricky to do, and it will take a very lucky player to get anywhere near that value. So, enjoy the view, and good luck chasing those wins! And remember to always play responsibly.
