Big Stack Lumberjack: Slot Overview
There's something almost romantic about the image of a hardy lumberjack gearing up, wandering through the woods, chopping down a tree using sheer muscle power and transforming logs into timber for building something. This time-honoured activity was one of the key building blocks of civilization and human progress. However, fast forward to today, where forests are being decimated at a frightening rate, and the romance starts to fade. Ah well, let's put images of deforestation and animal annihilation from our minds as we join software provider Print Studio's tree-chopping Chad in the online slot, Big Stack Lumberjack.
Print Studios has laid on a mightily pleasant gaming world for Big Stack Lumberjack that isn't a million miles away from the woody feels of its Pine of Plinko slots. Here, we find towering trees, denuded hillsides, and a beefy lumberjack with a massive axe and the sort of gigantic hands that would clean up in an arm wrestle. It's an all-around nice place to hang out and it goes some way to cushion the blow of the claimed 42 million trees cut down per day, as if we're in a race to enact our very own Lorax situation IRL. Then again, trees grow back, so who knows?
A back-to-basics activity is matched by a back-to-basics gaming grid consisting of 5 reels, 3 rows, and 10 paylines awarding wins beginning from the leftmost side. Swinging this virtual axe is a highly volatile pastime, and when betting 10 c to $/€50 per spin, the default RTP clocks in at 96.18%, rising to 96.59% when buying the bonus round.
Nice of Print Studios to name the individual pay symbols, too, where players encounter the lower paying Log, Rock, Stump and Bush paying 2.5 times their bet for a 5 matching symbol win. You get more for landing 5 matching Spruce, Elm, Maple, and Beech symbols at 5 to 10 times the bet. Tree symbols are fully stacked, and each one can award a symbol multiplier of up to x100 when they land fully in view. Multipliers apply to all wins of the corresponding symbol.
Big Stack Lumberjack: Slot Features
The scatter symbol in Big Stack Lumberjack not only triggers the bonus round but is also wild, so it substitutes any regular pay symbol. As well as Lumberjack Spins, there are Ultimate Lumberjack Spins, which are linked to an Eternal Oak feature, plus Timberfall and a bonus buy.
Timberfall
Full tree symbols may be chopped down, covering all positions from the bottom position to the left or the right side of the gaming grid.
Eternal Oak
In the base game, the Eternal Oak grows in the background after a number of spins. When the Oak is fully grown, Axe symbols are added to the reels for a chance to chop down the Oak. Chopping down the Oak triggers Ultimate Lumberjack Spins. When Ultimate Lumberjack Spins end, the Eternal Oak resets to a random stage and Axe symbols are removed.
Lumberjack Spins
Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols in the base game triggers the Lumberjack Spins bonus, where players are presented with 2 options. They can choose 7 free spins with symbol multiplier increments of 5, 10, 15, 20, 50, or 100, but a lower chance of Timberfall, or 10 free spins with symbol multiplier increments of 1, but a higher chance of Timberfall. A counter displays current symbol multiplier values next to the reels. After a win, each full tree symbol increases the corresponding symbol multiplier. Symbol multipliers accumulate this way and apply to the remaining spins. Landing 2 to 5 scatter symbols in a bonus game awards a further +2 to +10 free spins, respectively.
Ultimate Lumberjack Spins
The ultimate version of free spins can be triggered by the Eternal Oak. In this bonus, players get 7 free spins with multiplier increments of 5, 10, 15, 20, 50, or 100 and a higher chance of Timberfall.
Feature Buy
Paying 85 times the bet buys entrance to Lumberjack Spins triggered by at least 3 wild scatter symbols.
Big Stack Lumberjack: Slot Verdict
Print Studios has a reputation for daring innovation, and while Big Stack Lumberjack isn't the freakiest piece of creative work the developer has ever done, it is, on the whole, a rather unique slot. Firstly, the noble (or vilified, depending on your view) profession of cutting down trees is rarely venerated in the online gambling world. The lumberjack dude here might be plaided cliche in some ways, but he also fits right in with the rural woodland scene and is a dab hand at chopping down trees. Just like clearing a pesky forest to make way for agriculture and the march of humankind or a mall, the more trees you can fell while playing Big Stack Lumberjack, the better.
The benefit of trees falling is twofold. First, you've got matching tree symbols spreading to one side of the gaming grid. Hopefully, it falls the most favourable way, though trees do pay out on 2 OAK hits, so that's a plus. Secondly, felled trees are able to bestow a symbol multiplier, which can not only be quite high on its own but can accrue during free spins where they are collected. Like eyeing up which way a tree may fall when it is cut, players have the dilemma of choosing the 7-spin or the 10-spin option. Will the tree fall in the desired direction? In this case, there is no way of totally knowing till someone calls 'Timber', and hitting play.
When the trees are falling in the right place, Big Stack Lumberjack comes with an impressive 20,000x win cap, proving there is plenty of dough in wood. No wonder people are doing their darndest to hack it from the face of the Earth. To conclude, Big Stack Lumberjack might not be as out there as some of Print Studios' more experimental work, but it's a neatly packaged slot stocked with engaging ideas.
Big Stack Lumberjack chops its way into the slot scene with unique mechanics, engaging gameplay, and a solid win cap, proving that timber isn't the only thing falling in style.
