Evil Dozen

Evil Dozen: Slot Overview

Hacksaw Gaming partner Kitsune Studios has pulled out its chef's outfit to design a baked goods-themed online slot going by the ominous-sounding name of Evil Dozen. There's more. The team has also slipped on its best revolutionary gear as the game sees a group of agitated Gingerbread Men revolt and demand, well, it's not entirely clear what their demands may be. Something about being fed up with witchy ways. However, possible story gaps are all part of the puzzle that is Evil Dozen, which marries an offbeat skin with mechanics borrowed from a certain Hacksaw Gaming slot that involves  house pets.

Evil Dozen's story is a bit weird. It describes a Gingerbread Revolution led by Robin and his crew against Miss Muffin's witchy ways. Miss Muffin is a bit weird, too, assuming that's her on screen, wearing the revolutionary Che Guevara hat and French maid outfit. Presumably, she's the one who bakes gingerbread men and lets them loose, or entices Hansel and Gretel types with them, or, dunno, it's all a bit of a head scratcher. Whatever the case, the crew have launched a revolt, and they've done so in a cute, albeit slightly confusing, game.

Fresh from the oven and coated in icing is Evil Dozen's 5x4 matrix, which has 16 paylines evaluating combinations of matching symbols. A minimum of $/€0.10 to a maximum of $/€100 may be staked on each spin, where the preferred RTP is 96.33% and the volatility is 3 out of 5 medium.

Ten to Ace gingerbread royals land on the reels, paying out 1x to 2x the stake when landing 5 OAK in a line. Then there are five higher-paying gingerbread man symbols, worth 4x to 10x, and wilds of various kinds, which substitute all paying symbols. Wilds also pay 10x when five of them make a winning combination.

Evil Dozen: Slot Features

The ingredients in this recipe are Gingerbread House wild multipliers, She's a Witch Spins, Revolution Spins, and feature buys.

Gingerbread Houses

Gingerbread Houses are revealing wild multipliers, which come in three types: low, medium, and high. All winning combinations that include a Gingerbread House will be multiplied by the shown value. If more than one Gingerbread House is part of the same win, the multipliers are added before being used. Low values are x2 to x4, medium are x5 to x20, and high are x25 to x200.

She's a Witch Spins

Landing 3 Gingerbread Houses on the same base game spin triggers 5 She's a Witch Spins. The type and placement of the triggering Gingerbread Houses are carried over to the bonus. In this feature, Gingerbread Houses are sticky and reveal a new multiplier on every spin based on their type. Each additional Gingerbread House grants +1 spin.

Revolution Spins

Hitting 3 or more scatters in the base game triggers this feature. Each scatter reveals either 3 or 4, and the total value is the number of free spins awarded. During this feature, no wins are awarded until the end. The payouts from winning combinations and the multiplier values of any landed Gingerbread Houses that are part of winning combinations are collected above the reels to create a final win that is paid when the round concludes. In this round, it is possible to land sticky Oven symbols, which increase the multiplier or add to the win on every remaining spin. It can reveal multipliers of x2 to x100 or win amounts of 0.1x to 100x. Ovens may land on the two rightmost reels and are wild. Landing extra FS symbols can grant extra spins.

Feature Buys

Evil Dozen has four feature buys. They are BonusHunt FeatureSpins that make each spin 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus game for 3x the bet or GingerBread Houses FeatureSpins at 2x to guarantee at least 1 Gingerbread House. The two bonus rounds can be bought as well - 100x for She's a Witch Spins or 200x for Revolution Spins.

Evil Dozen: Slot Verdict

The previous time we caught up with Kitsune Studios was in Miss Candy's Sweet Escape, which bears a number of links to the current slot, Evil Dozen. Both are food-based, colourful, and feature another sort of French maid-adorned character serving up the sweets. Alluring ladies and sugar, it seems a couple of the studio's personal preferences are starting to emerge. Where the predecessor was a recognisably Sugar Rush-style event, Evil Dozen is harder to pin down. The title, the theme, the presentation, it's a little confusing. But at the same time, maybe we shouldn't judge developers who are brave enough to step out of the mould and do something less predictable too harshly.

Then again, Evil Dozen is more or less a reskin of Hacksaw Gaming's own Pug Life, so it's not widely unpredictable, mechanically. On the plus side, Evil Dozen supplies a wacky baking world that players can inhabit in order to try and win some dosh. Gingerbread Houses bring their wild multiplying ability to the game, and they don't cost an arm and a leg to be activated by Gingerbread Houses FeatureSpins, relatively speaking. The Revolution free spins feature operates out of the norm as well, on account of the way it stacks wins and a multiplier until the round ends before awarding the total. It can be quite a captivating method, should payouts and multiplier values be significantly increasing as free spins churn on. Consistent is one way of describing the desirable Oven symbol, which contributes to the pot on each and every spin. She's a Witch Spins add to the overall flavour, too, though they were the less appetising of the two bonus rounds.

Cook all the ingredients just right, and Evil Dozen is able to pull out payouts up to a 7,500x the bet win cap. A bit on the low side for a Hacksaw Gaming studio release in this day and age, but better than leaving your baked goods in the oven till they burn to cinders. So, while the storyline might be a bit wobbly, Evil Dozen does try to be different, making for a quirky game with oddball characters and potentially useful features.