Catemple

Catemple: Slot Overview

Zoolatry, also known as theriolatry, is the worship of animals, a practice that has been seen in various forms around the world, from Ancient Egypt, where animals were linked to deities, to India's veneration of cows. After playing through ELK Studios' online slot Catemple, gamblers may just form a newfound respect for our feline friends. Catemple is a scatter pays slot, with a focus on scooping coins from a Collect Zone located at the bottom of its gaming area. On top of these gaming bones are numerous off-shooting features like a Bonus Game, a Super Bonus Game, feature symbols, and more.

A four-armed kitty ornaments Catemple's gaming grid, which, due to a graphical effect, looks as though it is leaning away from players like a pinball table. More felines appear in the background, where kitty statues hold up even more blue kitties in what is a true kitty bonanza. Apologies for using the word kitty so much. A slinky, exotic tune adorns the airwaves, making Catemple, what? How about a semi-Asian, semi-religious type of slot, where players bow down to the power of the cat and cross their claws in hopes that Catemple is going to sit on their lap and purr lovingly rather than slash their shins?

A medium volatile math model ensures that Catemple can enfold in any number of ways, while its top theoretical RTP is registered as 94%. When picking a stake, 20 c to $/€100 is the betting range, while a number of X-iter feature buys are, as per usual, on hand. Pressing spin drops 35 symbols into a 5x7 grid, which makes use of a scatter pays mechanic.

Catemple pays out when 7 or more identical symbols land anywhere on the gaming grid. No paylines, ways, or clusters are required. The lowest 4 value symbols are disks with a mouse, fish bones, a bell, and a paw printed on them, while the 4 higher value symbols are purple, blue, green, and red gems. A 7-8 symbol scatter win awards 0.1 to 0.5 times the bet, rising to 1 to 25 times the bet for 15+ OAK. Winning symbols and any collected symbols are removed from the reels, causing symbols to tumble down to fill the empty spaces, repeating till a win does not appear.

Catemple: Slot Features

Catemple sends up features such as Golden coins, Mystery symbols, Feature symbols, a Bonus Game, a Super Bonus Game, and X-tier feature buys.

Golden Coins

Golden coins trigger when they reach the Collect Zone, which is the bottom row in the main game. Coins displaying multipliers pay their value instantly, Bonus and Super Bonus coins are collected for triggering the bonus games, and multiplier coins add their values to the global multiplier. The global multiplier multiplies all wins, including coin wins. Each new base game starts the global multiplier at x1. Getting the MAX WIN coin awards the remaining amount needed to reach the win cap.

Feature Symbols

Mystery symbols reveal feature symbols, which can be:

• Wild - substitutes for any paying symbol.
• Hot Wild - spawns 1 to 3 new wild or Hot Wild symbols on the grid. Each new Hot Wild symbol spreads further.
• Paw Strike - removes all non-winning pay symbols, moving wilds, Golden coins, and feature symbols to the Collect Zone.
• Multiplier, Bonus, Super Bonus or Coin.

Bonus Game & Super Bonus Game

A collected bonus symbol triggers the Bonus Game with 3 free drops when there are no more wins. Collecting 2, 3, or 4 bonus symbols awards 5, 7, or 9 free drops, respectively. A bonus symbol collected during the Bonus Game awards +1 extra drop. In the Bonus Game, the Collect Zone is expanded to 2 rows, not just one. Free drops without wins increase the global multiplier by +1. A Super Bonus symbol in the Collect Zone upgrades the round to the Super Bonus and awards +1 drop. The global multiplier carries over from the base game and persists between free drops.

A collected Super Bonus symbol triggers the Super Bonus Game when there are no more wins. In the Super Bonus Game, the Collect Zone is expanded to 3 rows. Otherwise, the rules are basically the same as the Bonus Game.

X-iter

The X-iter menu us where it is possible to activate these: Bonus Hunt - 3x the bet buys a game round, which is more than three times more likely to trigger a Bonus Game, Mystery Symbols - 10x the bet buys a game round with at least 3 Mystery symbols, Coin Row - 25x the bet buys a game round with a random row filled with instant pay coins, Bonus Game - 100x the bet (7 free drops), or Super Bonus Game - 500x the bet (9 free drops).

Catemple: Slot Verdict

ELK Studios, along with other heavy-weight developers such as Push Gaming and Pragmatic Play, do like their coin win slots. ELK Studios was a little later to the party but has dived deep into the coin world via slots like Dam Beavers and Pirots 2. Just as popular as coins, maybe more so, we've got scatter-paying slots, which have really, really blown up over the last while, with every other casino game maker and its dog getting in on the action. Maybe we should have said cat rather than dog in this instance, and Catemple's theme is an odd one. Not bad odd, but it's not every day you see a faux Five Nights at Freddy's animatronic cat open its mouth to drop symbols on a pinball machine gaming grid amidst such feline reverence, giving the game an almost Slurpy or Squeeze experimental vibe.

Catemple's gameplay and mechanics weren't really as experimental as those two games, though, and the flow was easy to follow. Cast your eyes over coins falling into the Collect Zone to instantly receive their benefits - cash, building of the global multiplier, or a Bonus/Super Bonus Game trigger. Easy, and the scatter pays dynamic works well here, adding a random element to the way coins may or may not drop into the Collect Zone. The inclusion of the MAX WIN coin is a double-edged sword. Kind of good to know it is theoretically possible to hit the 10,000x win cap with a single coin, kind of puzzling as to what Catemple might achieve without it.

All up, Catemple is a slot that's some way out there but not as out there as certain other ELK Studios slots have been. There's no denying a significant score on the bohemian-ometer, but Catemple refrains from getting too weird while laying a fun furry coating over a fine interaction of scatter pays, coins, and features, making it as entertaining as it is unique.