Captain Coil: Slot Overview
A lot of the time, online slot worlds make perfectly logical sense. It'll be located in ancient Egypt, for example, displaying sand, pyramids, and whatnot. Other times, the docs or info help lay a scene, filling in knowledge gaps by the use of words. Then there are games like Captain Coil, designed by Hacksaw partners Bullshark Games, which are head scratchers with no textual clues to explain what is going on. It appears to be a game about a giant snake conducting experiments on other creatures, or was it an experiment itself, or, let's face it, who knows? In other words, if you like a good puzzle, or features that include spreading wilds and a Global Multiplier on a cluster paying board, why not come have a slither with us?
Let's presume Captain Coil is the name of the one-eyed serpent swaying on the left-hand side of the screen, its other eye covered by a patch, while a bow tie adorns its neck area. Do snakes have necks? Other questions include eyes blinking from a caged off area, a big syringe on the floor, puddles of unidentified liquid, all before getting to the bonus round, where the Captain gets a brain in a bowl hat, and animals in tubes appear. Maybe it's best we just roll with this one.
As a cluster pays slot, landing 5 or more matching symbols connected horizontally or vertically creates a winning combination. The cascades mechanic takes winning symbols off the board and fills the gaps by dropping symbols down from the top. If new wins appear, cascades continue to trigger. The snaking and clustering take place on a 6x6 gaming grid powered by a highly volatile math model. When betting $/€0.10 to $/€50 on each spin, the maximum RTP comes in at 96.29%.
Sliding across the reels are diamonds, clubs, spades, and hearts as the low pays, then bowls of food, boxes, collars, and syringes as the high pays. Hitting a 5-of-a-kind cluster pays 0.1x to 0.4x while the largest clusters are 27+ OAK in size and are worth 10x to 50x the stake. Wild symbols replace any paying symbol to build or complete wins. An all wild win of 27+ OAK is worth 100x.
Captain Coil: Slot Features
Captain Coil's features are a Global Multiplier, Snake Pod symbols creating wilds, a snake growing Food symbol, Trail of the Serpent, Slither for Gold, and feature buys.
Global Multiplier & Snake Pod Symbol
The Global Multiplier has a starting value of x1. It applies to all wins and resets with each new base game spin. When the Snake Pod symbol lands, a snake slithers across the reels, leaving a trail of 2 to 25 wilds. These are regular wilds that cascade like other symbols when the snake fully expands. If the snake expands over a regular wild symbol or itself, a random multiplier of x2 to x100 is added to the Global Multiplier.
Trail of the Serpent
Getting 3 scatters in the base game triggers 10 Trail of the Serpent free spins. This bonus shares the base game mechanics, plus one Snake Pod is guaranteed to land on each spin. Additional Snake Pods may appear during cascades. Food symbols may land in free spins. They add +1 to the length of the snake, applied before the win and before the snake expands. After this, it transforms into a regular pay symbol. The snake's length increases with Food symbols and progresses until the feature ends. The starting length is 1. The Global Multiplier is progressive as well. Should a scatter land, it awards +1 free spin before changing into a pay symbol.
Slither for Gold
Hitting 4 scatters triggers 10 Slither for Gold free spins. It is the same as Trail of the Serpent, except the snake's starting length is 3.
Feature Buys
Four options are available at the feature buy. They are BonusHunt FeatureSpins at 2x the stake to make each spin 3 times more likely to trigger free spins, and Fast Fangs FeatureSpins at 50x to land a Snake Pod. Trail of the Serpent may be bought for 100x or Slither for Gold at 200x.
Captain Coil: Slot Verdict
If you're the sort of player who likes to stand on firm, predictable, obvious thematic ground, then Captain Coil's twisty, turning storytelling might be a little too vague for comfort. Either way, the good news is that its twisty-turny on-grid features are able to tell a pretty entertaining tale of their own. It's hard to know what to say about the game's appearance, other than, yes, it is a bit strange, a bit incoherent, but it's got the Bullshark Gaming cuteness going on, so it is easy enough to go along with. In appearance, it brought to mind prior releases like Bullride Loot and Godly Gains, with one or two mechanical links as well.
One of those links is the Global Multiplier, which is a feature that Bullshark Games is big on, and given its simple effectiveness, you can see why. In Captain Coil, the multiplier is directly connected to its other big feature, too, the slithering snake spreading wild effect. Again, adding wilds to a cluster pays game is a simple, effective way of potentially producing results. Particularly, since wilds aren't just tossed about the grid willy-nilly, but are connected in a snaky body kind of way. From a body length of 4 upwards, things start to get interesting. On their own, clusters aren't worth a king's ransom, but when adding values to the Global Multiplier, persistently so during free spins, that's when the experimentation may start to bubble over.
When the snake guy fulfills its objective, whatever that may be, Captain Coil can award up to 15,000x the stake. Something like ELK Studios' Coba or Relax Gaming's Snake Arena 2 might be a better choice if you enjoy snakes but want extra sophistication, but, if simple and easy mechanics are preferred, then Captain Coil delivers on that front, provided you're okay with a bit of storytelling ambiguity.
Narratively, Captain Coil is a bit odd, but it makes up for it with simple, yet capable features.
