Ghostly Hallows

Ghostly Hallows: Slot Overview

Hacksaw Gaming partner Backseat Gaming is no stranger to the swashbuckling life, having already released buccaneering slots such as Pirate Bonanza and its sequel Pirate Bonanza 2. Where those two games featured flesh and blood sea-thieves, Ghostly Hallows ups the spooky factor by concentrating on the undead sort. Like the original Pirate Bonanza slot, Ghostly Hallows is a scatter pays game which also relies on a Cannon feature and multipliers to pop off results. The system here isn't entirely the same, though, and worth laying our peepers on to see how it performs.

Strangely, the undead and piracy go together like too much rum and morning-after regret. Books and movies have got 'em, and so do slots, of which Ghostly Hallows is another. Next to the gaming grid, we've got captain dead guy manning the cannon, while behind it, blue-flamed braziers flicker, and hulking ships sit in an eerie light. Spose there would be practical reasons for having a crew of undead. They don't need food, they can't get scurvy, and they'd possess a significant shock value when boarding ships or sacking towns. In slots, they look pretty cool too, so while some of Ghostly Hallows is light cartoon, Backseat Gaming has managed to set a mood via sombre music and heavy background imagery.

Ghostly Hallows is a scatter paying slot that forms a winning combination when 8 or more matching symbols land anywhere on the reels. The grid itself is a 6x5 matrix. Players are free to choose a stake of $/€0.10 to $/€50 per spin and can expect a theoretical RTP of 96.3% from this highly volatile game.

Nine pay symbols land on the reels. They are made up of 5 gem symbols, pistols, lamps, chests, and skulls. The largest possible combinations consist of 25+ matching symbols, and they pay 100x to 500x the stake. A tumble feature causes winning symbols to vanish, and the gaps this creates are filled by symbols tumbling downwards. If a new win is created, another tumble will trigger.

Ghostly Hallows: Slot Features

Ghostly Hallows' key extra is its multiplier-injecting Cannon feature, available in the base game and in the two bonus rounds. On top of these are four feature buys.

Cannon Feature

Before each spin, up to 5 multipliers may appear behind the grid at random positions. Multipliers can have values of x2 to x1,024. At least one is guaranteed in the bonus game. If a winning combination lands on a multiplier, it is removed and collected by the cannon next to the grid, adding to any multiplier already stored. If a Cannon symbol is on the reels, the stored multiplier is applied to the tumble win. The Cannon symbol only activates if there is a winning combination and a stored multiplier. If a Cannon symbol does not activate, all stored multipliers are reset for the next base game spin.

Cannon of the Damned Bonus Game

Hitting 3 scatters triggers this feature with 10 free spins. The multiplier stored in the cannon is persistent until triggered by a Cannon symbol.

Ghostly Pirate's Trail Bonus Game

Landing 4 scatters triggers 10 free spins in this feature. In this round, the multiplier stored in the cannon is persistent through the entire bonus.

Feature Buys

Four choices lie in wait at the feature buy. They are BonusHunt FeatureSpins at 2x to make each spin 3 times more likely to trigger a bonus game, or Cursed FeatureSpins at 50x that guarantee to land a Cannon symbol. Cannon of the Damned may be triggered for 100x or Ghostly Pirate's Trail for 250x the stake.

Ghostly Hallows: Slot Verdict

Ghostly Hallows might not be a direct descendant, but there are definite links to Backseat Gaming's Pirate series. However, while those games delivered a more yo-ho-ho side of piracy, Ghostly Hallows is the spookier alternative. Well, not really, it's more cartoon-like than being eternally damned to sail the seven seas, but the studio has altered the atmosphere to give its updated Cannon and multiplier combo a slightly newer arena to strut its stuff in.

What the features do can be a bit fiddly. It's not a Sugar Rush game that straight awards multipliers when wins land on top of them. Sure, revealed multipliers will be stored, but you still need a Cannon symbol to make use of them. This means multipliers may fizzle out and go nowhere in the base game, even when stored - that's if they even appear on the grid in the first place. As such, this makes free spins attractive, since revealed multipliers stay stored until a Cannon symbol pairs them with a win. Ghostly Pirate's Trail goes one better by storing multipliers even after they've been used. This created a very hit-or-miss experience during the review, where for a lot of the time, nothing much happened. Then, multis could pile up out of nowhere and be fired off to produce a decent result, though this only really occurred in the bonus round.

However, Ghostly Hallows' max win can be achieved in all game modes, and at 20,000x, it's not an insignificant amount. There was a slight gimmicky feel to Ghostly Hallows' tricks, but when it is firing, it's hard to deny that the Cannon multiplier combo can be used to devastating effect when it's loaded up and blasting.