Deal With Death

Deal With Death: Slot Overview

Metaphorically or literally speaking, the term 'deal with death' could have all manner of meanings. One might apply it to base jumping, free solo climbing, or wing suit enthusiasts who throw themselves off perfectly good mountains. In our case, we're talking about playing cards with a skeletal character in developer Hacksaw Gaming's online slot Deal With Death. In this game, players divide their time between landing regular pay symbols in Classic Mode and dealing out cards during Joker Mode, which may get a boost from a handful of Joker modifiers, including multipliers and a unique reshuffle sequence that deals the best three results from a collected set of cards.

Death in this instance appears to be represented by a metallic skeletal character, flicking a casino chip between his digits, like a robotic croupier programmed to stare into a gambler's very soul and predict what cards they're holding. So, while Deal With Death might deal with an actual Deathly character, it does so in a less jarring way than it could have, considering Hacksaw Gaming is the studio responsible for designing slots like Hand of Anubis and Rotten. So, instead of terror, Deal With Death conducts business in a less frightening way, as if this metallic character has put down the scythe to have a wee punt at the card tables.

To begin the dealin', players choose a stake of $/€0.10 to $/€50 per spin, and if the wish arises, four feature buys are available as well. Flicking out the cards is a highly volatile math model, which can be found in four RTP variations, maxing out at 96.25%. Played on a 5x4 grid, regular winning combinations are evaluated by 14 paylines.

The eight pay symbols in Deal With Death are clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, and four higher-value versions of these card suits. The lower paying symbols award 2x to 3x the bet for a 5-matching symbol line, and the other four award 10x to 20x the stake for a 5 OAK hit.

Deal With Death: Slot Features

Deal With Death calls the phase where pay symbols are evaluated by paylines Classic Mode, while Poker Mode is where playing poker with cards occurs. Several Joker symbols augment the action, and there are three bonus rounds, as well as feature buys.

Poker Mode

Poker Mode activates when a Joker symbol lands. In Poker Mode, all pay symbols transform into poker cards. Each row is a Poker Hand, and each tries to create the best result from the 5 cards on that row based on the Power Hand paytable. Two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush, and royal flush are worth 5x to 2,000x the bet.

Joker Symbols

The Joker symbol is wild in Classic Mode, substituting for all regular paying symbols. Only one Joker symbol can land at the same time in this mode. After it lands and wins have been paid, the grid switches to Poker Mode and the Joker symbol transforms into a Regular Joker, a Hand Multiplier Joker, a Global Multiplier Joker, or a Triple Trouble Joker.

• Regular Joker - Transforms into a regular poker card, always picking the best option for the row it landed on.
• Hand Multiplier Joker - Applies a multiplier of x2 to x10 to the row it landed on for one spin. If more than one Hand Multiplier Joker lands on the same row, the multipliers are added together.
• Global Multiplier Joker - Awards a Global Multiplier applied to all winning Poker Hands on the grid for one spin of x2 to x10. If a Global Multiplier affects a winning Poker Hand affected by another multiplier, the values are added together.
• Triple Trouble Joker - Before calculating Poker Hand wins, the Joker transforms into the best possible regular poker card for its row. Once all Poker Hand wins have been awarded, all cards on the grid are collected, shuffled, and the three best possible Poker Hands from the collected cards are dealt and awarded one at a time in ascending order. Non-winning Joker cards on the grid transform into a random poker card.

After the Hand Multiplier Joker and Global Multiplier Joker have performed their effect, they transform into the best possible regular poker card for their row.

Free Spins

• Deal With It Bonus Game - Landing 3 scatters in Classic Mode of the base game triggers 10 free spins in the Deal With It bonus game. It keeps the base game mechanics with an increased chance of landing Joker symbols. For all three bonus features, if a Joker symbol lands on the triggering spin, the bonus game plays after any Poker Wins are awarded. Also, in all three rounds, landing 2 or 3 FS scatters grants +2 or +4 free spins, respectively.
• Dealbreaker Bonus Game - Hitting 4 scatters in Classic Mode in the base game triggers 10 free spins in the Dealbreaker round. On top of Deal With It's mechanics, every Poker Hand win increases the payout for that specific hand by its base amount after the win has been awarded.
• Fool's Gold Hidden Epic Bonus - Should 5 scatters land in the main game Classic Mode, players win Fool's Gold's 10 free spins. Building on Dealbreaker, a Joker symbol is guaranteed on every spin.

Feature Buys

The four feature buys players can activate are BonusHunt FeatureSpins at 3x the bet to make each spin 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus, Flippin' FeatureSpins at 60x to guarantee a Joker symbol lands, Deal With It for 100x or Dealbreaker for 200x the stake.

Deal With Death: Slot Verdict

Deal With Death, huh? It makes you wonder what's going on at Hacksaw Gaming. While a lot of studios coast by using regular online slot topics, Hacksaw Gaming routinely mulls over existential ideas, as evidenced by slots such as Life and Death, Circle of Life, and now Deal With Death. Whilst it doesn't do so in a particularly grim manner, the studio's preoccupation with big questions does give the impression it's concerned not only with turning a buck, but pondering on and allowing players to reflect on weightier topics. This is to the benefit of online gamblers awash in lite as a feather, cliched topics, who, should the mood arise, are able to indulge in a bout of deep thinking while putting their coins on the line for the chance to possibly get more back. Maybe a lot more?

Maybe none? Depends on how the symbols, or in this case, also how the cards fall. One possible issue with a game like this is that Classic Mode, where plain old symbols landing across plain old paylines might be a bit, too plain? The best parts are when Jokers land and gamblers get the chance to flip cards and put Poker Hands together. In contrast to a game like Deck of Scurra, which felt closer to all cards all the time, Deal With Death's back and forth might grate a little. However, once in Poker Mode, there is more to Deal With Death than just making hands out of rows of cards, which in themselves can be quite valuable at higher levels. The two multiplying Jokers are neat tricks to have in your pocket to boost a win, and the Triple Trouble Joker looks like fun, too. Free spins are most likely the best place to score Jokers, especially the hidden bonus, which, as the name suggests, probably won't trigger a lot, but you get a Joker symbol on each spin. Handy.

If the deal goes swimmingly well, then lucky players can collect a cool 20,000x the bet should Deal With Death hit full potential. A quick tap on the mental calculator reveals that it could technically be achieved by getting an x10 multi blasting a royal flush. It might happen, it might not, but slot heads who also get an adrenaline rush from cards get to conveniently mix both interests in Deal With Death.