Bust the Mansion

Bust the Mansion Link&Win: Slot Overview

One of the fun things about online slots is that it's possible to vicariously live a bunch of different lives with a dash of imagination. It's a bit like the TV show Quantum Leap where the hero would leap through spacetime and inhabit other peoples' bodies until he solved whatever problem he needed to solve before jumping to the next life. One of the more dubious roles players can take on in slots is that of a robber, or cat burglar or whatever the studio wants to call it. Microgaming and friends have done a roaring trade in Busting or Breaking banks, and the game we've got here from Pulse 8 Studios is based around busting a cashed-up mansion.

Bust the Bank was a Microgaming slot released in 2013, and Bust the Mansion looks like it came out around the same time – with features to match. We don't get to see much of the mansion in question, mainly being restricted to a set of stairways and windows. Given that the game deals in objets d'art, Push Gaming's Mystery Museum came to mind, but in a far more basic version possessing neither intricately designed graphics nor anything imaginative in regards to gameplay. Instead, Bust the Mansion came across as old before its time, though maybe that was the point?

Whatever Pulse 8's aim was, the mansion busting is available on any device, where bets of 25 p/c to $/€25 may be selected. Gaming takes place on a 5-reel, 3-row matrix, providing 25 paylines to win across. All wins begin on the leftmost reel and pay left to right on adjacent reels. Volatility was a surprise, having been rated as 'very high', though hits come at a frequency of 35.11%, or better than one in three spins in a theoretical winner. Lastly, be aware that Bust the Mansion comes with three RTP settings, where the most desirable one has a value of 96.23%.

Turning now to the paytable brings up nine regular paying symbols – five lows and four highs. Low pay symbols are exotic-ish styled 10-A card rank symbols worth 1 to 2.4 times your stake for a five of a kind win. Then we get a Rosetta Stone type thing, Ming vases, Faberge Eggs, and golden jewelled Egyptian art worth 6 to 20x the bet for five of a kind. Worth a stack more at 400x the bet for five is the wild symbol, which substitutes all symbols except scatters or money vault tiles.

Bust the Mansion Link&Win: Slot Features

As the name says, players can look forward to a hold & win bonus round in Bust the Mansion, as well as a triggered batch of free spins on the side.

Link&Win Bonus Round

Money vault symbols appear anywhere on the panel and come with a predefined value. When at least six land in view, the Link&Win feature is activated. When it starts, triggering money vault symbols are locked to the reels and 3 respins are awarded. Subsequent money vault symbols in view also turn sticky and reset respins to their starting value. The feature ends when respins are complete, then the total money vault prizes are paid out. As well as normal prizes, there are four bonus money vault symbols – Mini, Minor, Major, and Mega worth 20x, 50x, 200x, or 1,000x the bet, respectively. The bonus round also ends when all positions on the grid are filled, awarding the Grand Prize of 5,000x your stake.

Free Spins

Landing 3, 4, or 5 golden key scatter symbols awards 10, 15, or 25 free spins, respectively. During free spins, the middle reel number 3 is replaced with a special reel containing only wild money vault symbols. These symbols help trigger the Link&Win feature while also substituting for any pay symbol. Lastly, free spins are retriggered when 3 or 4 scatters hit.

Bust the Mansion Link&Win: Slot Verdict

Try as we might, it can be tough keeping tabs on everything going on at the Microgaming family of studios. They throw around themes, features, bonuses, and ideas like a communal pair of trousers. Everyone seems to get their turn on something, but it can be hard for outsiders to keep track. Like a meme that blows up, it's tricky to track down who came up with what in the first place.

Out of this miasma of sharing and caring, Bust the Mansion was spawned to provide a hold & win game which is dependable rather than dynamic. There is unlikely to be much, if anything, players won't have seen before. Perhaps it's the combination of the low pay symbol style, basic looks and lighting, but for some reason, there was a sort of Book of Ra feel to Bust the Mansion, not to mention echoes of a bunch of other online slots of yore. As mentioned, maybe going for a retro look and feel was all part of Pulse 8's master plan.

There's not much to say about the features since all are pretty standard. One irregularity is the wild money vault symbol stack in free spins, which might assist in pushing players onto the Link&Win bonus round. Once in, well, there's nothing new there either. Pile on money symbols, maybe get lucky and score a bonus prize, that's it. The jackpot for filling the reels is pretty good, so all in all, a passable though unimaginative streak respin round. If you are going to trademark a fancy name for a feature, maybe doing something fancy with it would justify the decision?

And so, for a predictable hold & win type game with decent potential and old-fashioned looks, Bust the Mansion might fit the bill. However, in the grand scheme of things, Bust the Mansion does little that others weren't doing years before Pulse 8 was even founded. The studio might claim to 'show the market endless possibilities' as they put it, but Bust the Mansion hardly fits that description.