3 Wildos

3 Wildos: Slot Overview

Sometimes it can be easy to get stuck in a rut, get too comfy, bored, whatever, and need some sort of drastic change. It appears that software provider Thunderkick's three bandits have gone through a personal crisis and have demanded a change of their own. That or they just wanted a holiday, for the three characters from the studio's Wildos series have left home and travelled across the globe to appear in part three. Titled 3 Wildos, not only has the scenery changed, but the gameplay now shifts to one of these up to three feature free spins events, though sticky multiplier wilds are still on the menu.

Till now, The Wildos have been Wild Western slots, either taking place in the middle of town or on a train. 3 Wildos leaves the dusty frontier far, far behind and heads to a picturesque spot of pyramids, palms, and blue skies. Thunderkick has employed a pleasing art style for the scenery shift that is easy on the eye. The Wildos stick out like sore thumbs, though. They'd never be mistaken as tourists. Instead, their face coverings instantly pick them out as bandits, here to rip the place off rather than take holiday snaps, which would explain why we initially find them kept in bone cages above the reels.

Played on a 5x3 gaming grid, 3 Wildos uses 9 paylines to award winning combinations left to right from the leftmost side. With an RTP of 94.2%, the math model is medium volatile, and it has a base bet range of $/€0.10 to $/€100 per spin. Activate the Bet+ though, and the stake increases to 3x to make each spin 3 times more likely to trigger free spins.

Pay symbols around these parts are clubs, diamonds, spades, and hearts paying 3x the bet for OAK as well as compasses, badges, statues, green Wildos, blue Wildos, and Red Wildos awarding 5x to 50x when landing a five-of-a-kind winning combination.

3 Wildos: Slot Features

3 Wildos is a slot which has free spins that trigger with one, two, or three features active. It's also got Multiplier Wilds and feature buys.

Multiplier Wilds

Multiplier Wilds appear on the middle three reels and substitute for all symbols except scatters. They all have multipliers of x1 to x5. Wins that include a multiplier wild are multiplied by its value. When more than one Multiplier Wild is part of the same win, the values are multiplied together.

Bonus Game

Three scatters, the Red, Blue, and Green, represent the three Wildos and may land on any reel, one of each colour per spin. When a scatter lands, it is collected by its matching Wildo. The collection animation is purely cosmetic, so it doesn't affect the odds of winning. The bonus game may begin with any combination of colours, triggering one or more free spins modes. When triggered, players win 3 free spins, or if the Green Wildo is active, 4 free spins. Each time a new Multiplier Wild lands on a free spin, the remaining spins reset to 3 (or 4), and Multiplier Wilds are sticky. The active colours determine which features apply.

• Blue Wildo Collect - A Collect Wild is added to the reels at least once. It collects multiplier values from winning wilds, after those wilds have revealed their multipliers. When combined with the Red feature, collection happens after the upgrade, and if more than one Collect Wild appears, the collected total applies to all.
• Red Wildo Upgrade - The Red Wildo upgrades one or more wilds, adding up to +3 to their multiplier value. The upgrade is active for the rest of the round. At least one upgrade is guaranteed.
• Green Wildo Extra - Awards one extra free spin before the feature begins.

Feature Buys

It is possible to trigger free spins with 1, 2, or 3 Wildos active for 50x, 80x, or 200x the bet, respectively.

3 Wildos: Slot Verdict

Cripes, every studio and its dog is really getting in on this one, two, three feature bonus round stuff, huh? The concept felt quite localised for a while, but it has really oozed forth recently as a wider spread of casino game makers have a crack at it. Now is Thunderkick's time, and it's chosen to pair the mechanic with its Wildo characters, which makes a perfect fit, since there were already three of them to link features to. Less of a perfect fit is the bandits in Aztec-style country pairing, which might not make much sense logically, but hey, it's a fun change, and if the Wildos return for a fourth game, who knows where they'll end up.

Besides, the setting is less important here than the on reel action, which was a bit tedious in the base game. Aside from tossing dynamite sticks at the caged Wildos above the reels, not a whole lot else happened. Much better to be in the bonus round, though some of the effects have a fiddliness to them that needs the right circumstances to really shine. Blue Collect Wilds, for instance, will take the values of other wilds - provided those other wilds are part of wins. Since there are just 9 paylines, wilds could be good at dodging the action. So while upgraded wilds might hold potent values, they're worthless to the Collect Wild unless part of a win. However, while the number of paylines might be on the low side, multipliers multiply each other, which can be powerful when several of them line up in the same win, should that ever happen.

So, new location, new rules, but still, 3 Wildos is all about getting those sticky Multiplier Wilds on the reels. Then getting them together into a win. Do so to full effect, and players can walk away with up to 5,000x their bet. Puzzlingly, that's the lowest potential of the three Wildos slots, so for extra sticky multiplier wild oomph, something like Relax Gaming's Top Dawg$ might be a better choice. Either way, 3 Wildos brings enough to the table to amuse players keen on these three collection pot style games.