Demon Queen

Demon Queen: Slot Overview

Players who like to holiday somewhere hot might be intrigued by today's destination. Designed by Hacksaw Gaming partner NowNow Gaming, the Demon Queen slot drops gamblers into the underworld where metal melts, and the temperature is forever set to an uncomfortably warm level. Lurking in the infernal realms is a slot which hits its stride with a special reel that drops wild symbols with various abilities onto the main grid, helping to keep the action flowing alongside a cascading wins mechanic. Those tempted can join us as we dare the fiery depths to find out if Demon Queen can follow through with some sort of potentially fiery payoff.

Accompanying gamblers on their trip to the underworld is an actual red-dressed demon queen character, holding a trident, and chuckling away, looking a bit like Liz Hurley in the fantasy comedy film Bedazzled. A swirling, molten, skull-headed background makes up the area around the reels, and NowNow Gaming has designed an atmospheric demonic slot, though hesitancy was caused by the fruit and card suit pay symbols. Classic slot symbols to be sure, but they felt out of place in such a heavy environment, diluting the overall effect to a degree.

Demon Queen takes bets of $/€0.10 to $/€100 per spin, and each game round sees a 5x4 grid spin. 20 paylines evaluate winning combinations from left to right, starting with the leftmost reel. Be on the lookout for a special Feature Reel up top, and a handful of feature buys are available by clicking on the Buy Bonus button in the lower left corner. With a medium volatile math model, two RTPs are available, of which 96.26% is the preferred version.

Diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades are Demon Queen's low pays, awarding 1x to 1.5x the bet for 5-of-a-kind. Its high pays are strawberries, plums, oranges, and watermelons, paying 5x to 15x the stake for a 5 OAK hit. When wilds are on the reels, they substitute for all paying symbols. They may appear on any reel and pay 50x for a five wild symbol win.

Demon Queen: Slot Features

Above the grid is a Feature Reel that spins horizontally, landing Blazing Wilds or Empty symbols. After a winning combination has paid, the winning symbols are removed, letting the Feature Reel drop Blazing Wilds and Empty symbols onto reels with spaces below them. Empty symbols then vanish. Any remaining gaps are filled by symbols refilling the reels, providing another chance to win. The Feature Reel slides left, refilling empty spaces with Empty symbols or new Blazing Wilds. Cascading continues until no more wins appear. Three types of Blazing Wild may appear:

• Multiplier Wild: Multiplies any line win it is part of by x2 to x500. Multiplier values are added together first if more than one is part of the same win.
• Filler Wild: Drops to the lowest available position on its reel and fills empty spaces above it with wilds.
• Locked Wild: Its first win breaks the lock, but it remains on the reels. The second win removes it from the reel.

Devil's Deal Bonus

Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatters triggers 10, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively. Free spins continue the base game's mechanics. In addition, a fourth Blazing Wild may appear on the Feature Reel. This is the Mystery Wild, and when it drops onto the main reels, it awards 1-5 free spins before transforming into one of the three other Blazing Wilds. Scatter symbols do not land during free spins.

Feature Buys

The feature buy section has three choices. BonusHunt FeatureSpins cost 3x to make each spin 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus game. At 50x, the Blazing Wild FeatureSpins guarantee the appearance of at least one Blazing Wild Feature, while 100x buys the Devil's Deal Bonus.

Demon Queen: Slot Verdict

Demon Queen is a fairly fiery experience that mixes classic elements with more modern twists, though not without some precedence. One of the main standouts is the horizontally spinning Feature Reel, which injects life by dropping various Blazing Wilds onto the grid. Being intertwined with cascading wins means this system is able to keep a spin chugging along, while giving a sense that any round might evolve into something rewarding. Multiplier wilds are particularly attractive, since they can have a value of up to x500, which is more than enough to turn any line win around. And with 10,000x as Demon Queen's max win, the more multis the merrier.

The set-up does have a whiff of ELK Studios to it. For example, like Demon Queen, Tropicool also dropped features onto clear reel space from its Cool Reel, with a bit more variety on offer, such as swaps and flips. In Demon Queen, you really only get wilds, in one form or another, which is fine, but maybe NowNow Gaming will expand on the mechanic in future iterations. The Feature Reel does get an upgrade for the bonus round, but it is a relatively minor one. The Mystery Wild ends up functioning like one of the other three Blazing Wilds, while granting extra spins. It's handy for sure, since there is no other way of gaining extra free spins, but somewhat anticlimactic, as well.

Whilst not the scorcher it might first appear, Demon Queen turned out to be about all right, in the end. It's a sort of watered-down, less sophisticated version of some of the stuff ELK Studios has been doing, though it might appeal if simplified feature reel drop action with a more classical presentation sounds exciting.