Dead, Dead or Deader

Dead, Dead or Deader: Slot Overview

If reincarnation is real, and no one is saying it's not (we live in a big, mysterious universe, after all), then it's easy to picture the Nolimit City crew 150 years ago or so, sauntering bowlegged into a frontier town, spurs a-clinking, before shooting the place up and making off with the bank's deposits. Does 'The Nolimit Posse' have a certain ring to it? The studio's ongoing love affair with Western-themed slots motivated this line of thought, and on top of making some of the most memorable contributions to the genre already, the team was pulled in to make another, going by the name of Dead, Dead or Deader.

A slot named Dead, Dead or Deader, from a studio possessing Nolimit City's reputation for brutality, is a frightening prospect, and the game makes little effort to appear friendly. It's a very grim, bleak, dark-looking game, all red, black, and spattered like the cover of Metallica's Load album. Admittedly, this is a game about shooting and hanging, we're talking about. It's hard to gussy that stuff up to look nice.

Dead, Dead or Deader is played on a 5x3 matrix, offering 243 ways to win. xSplits are out, so the ways to win remain constant at that amount. The RTP varies, however, depending on the market, where the maximum return value is 96.09% when betting 20 c to $/€100 per spin. Behind all the hanging and the shooting lurks a highly volatile math model, which Nolimit City has rated 10 out of 10.

Black is about the only colour used to paint the pay symbols around here. They include typewriter-style 10-A card ranks, irons, a jug, a star, pistols, and a dude, paying 0.3x to 0.4x for 5 matching royals or 0.75x to 1.2x when landing 5 matching premium symbols.

Dead, Dead or Deader: Slot Features

Dead, Dead or Deader's arsenal of extras is made up of wild multipliers, xNudge Wilds with sticky respin effects, Dead Spins, Deader Spins, Boosters and bonus buys.

Wild Symbols

From the left side of the grid to the right, the first wild on the leftmost reel has an x1 multi, while wilds on the following reel have an x2 multi, and so on, where an x5 multiplier is the highest value. Multiple wilds on the same reels have the same multiplier. Wilds substitute all paying symbols and are worth 1.2x for a wild 5 OAK combination.

xNudge Wild

The xNudge Wild may land on the three middle reels. xNudge Wilds are stacked symbols that always nudge to be fully in view, covering their reel. Each nudge increases the win multiplier by +1. xNudge Wild multipliers are additive, and after nudging to be fully visible, the following events may occur:

• The Hanging - the guy at the bottom of the stacked xNudge wild gets hanged, awarding a respin with the xNudge Wild sticky throughout it.
• The Deadlock - when the respin concludes, the hanged guy may get the Deadlock, doubling the multiplier and making the xNudge sticky for another respin. After each respin, the multiplier shows the upcoming respins xNudge Wild multiplier.
• The Dropout - the guy at the bottom of the xNudge gets hanged but falls out. This does not trigger a respin. If a Dropout occurs after a respin, the multiplier value reverts to its former value, and no extra respin is awarded.

Scatters

Scatters may land on all but the leftmost reel. Landing 3 scatters awards 12 Dead Spins, while landing 4 scatters awards 12 Deader Spins. If only 2 scatters land in the base game, they transform into wilds with multipliers.

Dead Spins

In this feature, xNudge Wilds are sticky for at least one additional spin, and the xNudge multiplier is doubled before the next spin starts. Landing a scatter on the rightmost reel upgrades Dead Spins to Deader Spins and awards an extra +2 spins.

Deader Spins

Deader Spin's rules are the same as Dead Spins, except the sticky xNudge Wild multiplier is tripled instead of doubled.

Nolimit Booster & Bonus Buy

At 1.5x the bet, players are guaranteed a scatter on the second reel. At 7x the bet, an xNudge Wild is guaranteed on any of the 3 middle reels. At a slight jump up in cost, at 799x the bet, players are guaranteed 3 xNudge Wilds. From the Nolimit Bonus, players may buy Dead Spins costing 99x, Deader Spins at 499x, or a 50/50 lucky chance for 299x the bet.

Dead, Dead or Deader: Slot Verdict

When making Dead, Dead or Deader, Nolimit City hasn't completely thrown caution to the wind to experiment with weird features and topics the team hasn't touched on in the past. Instead, Dead, Dead or Deader has allowed the studio to spend time with its beloved xNudge feature to see what other sort of tricks it can perform. The main trait remains, that is, nudging till fully visible and building a multiplier into the mix. On top of this, a hanging part has been incorporated, which can trigger respins, double the multiplier, build anticipation, Dropout, or maybe, maybe, fire off a chunky win.

Like a lot of games Nolimit City has released of late, Dead, Dead or Deader caters for players keen on ante bets, as the 3 xNudge Wild Booster provided some of the review's most exciting moments. However, gamblers who prefer to grind the base game without additional betting assistance can experience similar thrills eventually, should patience and luck play their part. But, it is tempting to load up on xNudge Wilds since they provide the bulk of Dead, Dead or Deader's kick, and one of their most desirable behaviours is the doubling and even tripling of multiplier values when a positive roll is on.

If you manage to get a roll on; this does not look like a slot that is here to forge friendships. But it's got a max win of 19,349x the bet, otherwise known as Just Die Already, to aim pretend pistols at. The max win can also be achieved in the base game by landing a stacked Casket symbol on any reel (a partially visible Casket has absolutely no value). Dead, Dead or Deader moseys into the ranks of Nolimit City's illustrious collection of Western slots, and while it might not upend the gambling landscape like a Deadwood, Tombstone RIP or Tombstone Slaughter, it's packing intriguing ideas that are worth probing.