Dark Spiral

Dark Spiral: Slot Overview

Humans are creative animals that like to entertain our fellows through humour, mirth, and merriment. We also like to scare each other, and horror is able to function as a sort of 'safe space' to explore the darker aspects of humanity. This is not something that happens in slots a lot. However, software provider Hacksaw Gaming has shunned the sunnier side of gambling for a moment to explore a weirder, more sinister side. The game it has emerged with is Dark Spiral, a Stygian study in body parts, transformation, and cosmic dread.

Dark Spiral is certainly an eye-grabbing slot. Not because it's particularly beautiful, but it has a gripping horror quality that's hard to look away from. And, like good horror, you know you should probably look away, but can't help wondering what happens next. It's a sort of surreal, Junji Ito, Human Centipede nightmare where body parts collide, mash together, and create something that really shouldn't be. The back story is as disturbing as the visuals, mentioning girls screaming, an old art room, body parts melting together, splitting smiles, terrifying reflections, all very disturbing stuff to accompany gamblers while they're trying their luck.

Dark Spiral is played on a 6x4 grid, where wins are formed by matching symbols across three or more adjacent reels, starting from the far left. The game's Summoning symbols can stack additional symbols onto the reels, dramatically expanding the win potential - from 4,096 ways to win up to a maximum of 331,776. The volatility is firmly on the high end, while the RTP sits at 96.22% (the best of the four available settings) across a betting range of $/€0.10 to $/€100 per spin.

On the lower side of the paytable are 10-A playing card ranks awarding 0.5x the bet for a 6 OAK winning way. Then there are five organic, body part, creature symbols, they're kinda weird, as the high pays awarding 1x to 3x the bet for a 6-of-a-kind win. Wilds hit on all reels, substituting all paying symbols and worth 5x for 5 OAK. A cascade mechanic removes winning symbols before filling the grid with a symbol drop, repeating as long as new wins appear.

Dark Spiral: Slot Features

Dark Spiral's main feature is a revealing Summoning symbol, found in the base game and its three bonus rounds. As well as these are four feature buys.

Summoning Symbols

Summoning symbols can be 1x2 to 1x4 in size and land on all reels except the leftmost reel. When they land, they reveal a different stack of matching symbols or wild. A stack of 1x2 reveals 3-6 symbols, a stack of 1x3 reveals 5-9 symbols, while a stack of 1x4 reveals 6 to 12 symbols. If a wild lands directly above or below a Summoning symbol on the same reel, the Summoning symbol increases in size by expanding to cover the wild. When Summoning symbols are part of a win, they remain on the reel while the other winning symbols cascade. Winning Summoning symbols reveal a new pay or wild symbol, continuing like this till no wins occur.

Free Spins

• Shattered Bonus Game - This bonus is triggered by landing 3 scatters, and 10 free spins are awarded. It has an increased chance of landing Summoning symbols. Landing 2 or 3 scatters in all three bonus rounds awards an extra +2 or +3 free spins, respectively.
• Twisted Bonus Game - Hitting 4 scatters triggers 10 free spins in the Twisted round. In addition to Shattered's mechanics, all Summoning symbols that land stick to the reels, revealing new symbols when part of a win and on each spin, till the round ends.
• Tortured Hidden Epic Bonus - Landing 5 scatters activates this feature with 10 free spins. It plays like Twisted, but 2 Summoning symbols are guaranteed on the first spin.

Feature Buys

Players may activate BonusHunt FeatureSpins at 3x the stake to make each spin 5 times more likely to activate a bonus round or Summon the FeatureSpins at 100x to guarantee at least 2 Summoning symbols land. Shattered may be bought for 100x or Twisted for 200x the stake.

Dark Spiral: Slot Verdict

Horror slots aren't rare as such, Print Studios, for example, have mastered them exceptionally well in slots like Dreadworks and Darkness, yet they're not the most common genre either. Judging by a large chunk of releases, it seems gamblers prefer to take a punt in uplifting environments, not necessarily jokers and fruit all the time, but somewhere colourful, bright, and lively. Dark Spiral is the polar opposite of all that. It's the sort of game which sits in a cold dark room, in a giant stuffed armchair sneering at the world, before ripping the thin superficial skin off of life, clearing away the civility we force on ourselves to peer at what squirms beneath, and what it's found is a cold, uncaring, malevolent universe far beyond the comprehension of our scientific rationality and hubristic self belief. Or something.

However, when moving from theme to mechanical gameplay, Dark Spirals was a bit like a horror movie where the payoff didn't quite match the buildup. Visually, there is little to compare the game to, except maybe something like Darkness or Blood and Shadow, yet the features failed to spark the same level of thrill. The action is built around Summoning symbols, which are interesting, though they felt like a less adrenalised version of the Nitro Reels found in ELK Studios' Nitropolis slots. Given the enormous number of possible ways to win, and a win cap of 10,000x, Summoning symbols can no doubt technically power out a chunky hit, but they felt anticlimactic, or were missing an extra complementing killer modifier to really raise hair on the back of the neck when compared to Dark Spiral's insidious game world.

Hacksaw Gaming still scores cool points for daring to create something wildly different from all the cute, cuddly slots crowding the market. If you can stomach the visuals, then Dark Spiral offers a unique experience, even if the gameplay itself isn't as wild as the body horror on display.