Great Game Rockies

Great Game Rockies: Slot Overview

The Rocky Mountains, or Rockies, stretch for nearly 5000 km from Canada to New Mexico, providing a visual feast of glacial landscapes and rugged terrain. Gamblers get a glimpse of the majesty in developer Hacksaw Gaming's mightily tilted online slot Great Game Rockies. This isn't just a sightseeing voyage either, but one with hunting on its mind, where shooting targets leads to Coin symbol reveals in a game that appears to be built on or around, or at least close to, the studio's popular Le Bandit engine, with an upgrading element attached like a screw-on silencer.

Hacksaw Gaming has gone hunting in the great outdoors before, fishing if that counts, in its Marlin Masters range, but the slot which Great Game Rockies primarily brought to mind was Alpha Eagle. Like that earlier outdoors experience, gamblers are treated to a vision of mountains, forests, and wild animals. The difference in Great Game Rockies is that we're here to shoot at some of it. Though not exactly, because when the firing starts, the hunter guy on the left blasts targets above the reels rather than creatures, ensuring any actual bloodshed is absent. All in all, it's a wholesome scene that trips through different seasons depending on the current game phase.

Great Game Rockies is a medium volatile slot played on a 5x3 gaming grid. Players may choose a stake of $/€0.10 to $/€200 per spin, bearing in mind that a handful of feature buys are available, as well. Four RTP configurations have been designed where the highest one possible is 96.33%.

Woodeny J-A royals are the low pay symbols, then five Animal symbols make up the high pays. Hitting 5 matching royals awards 1x the stake, or 3x to 25x is awarded for landing 5 matching Animal symbols in a combination. Wild shrooms appear on all reels. Wilds replace any regular paying symbol, and they have the same payout value as the top Animal.

Great Game Rockies: Slot Features

What gamblers want to see around here is Hunting Season since it is where the bullets and Coins start to fly. There are also three bonus rounds to trigger, and a number of feature buy options.

Hunting Season

When a Hunting Season symbol lands, a Hunt is triggered. A target is displayed above each reel. 5 shots are fired from left to right that either hit or miss targets. Any animal symbol on a reel below a hit target is transformed into a Coin or Trap symbol. Animal symbols display 1 to 4 Stars, which determine prize values. Animals with 1, 2, or 3 Stars grant a minimum of Bronze, Silver, or Gold Coins, respectively. Animals with 4 Stars transform into a Trap symbol with a minimum value equal to Gold Coins. Bronze coins are worth 0.2x to 1x, Silver 2x to 5x, Gold 10x to 50x, and Diamond 100x to 500x.

Trap symbols collect the values of all Coins and other Trap symbols, adding the total to itself, though all collected symbols keep their values. If a wild symbol is on a shot reel, that wild gets a multiplier of x2 to x20. After Coins and Trap symbols are collected, each wild with a multiplier multiplies 1 to 5 Coin and Trap symbols.

Country Strong Bonus Game

Landing 3 scatters in the base game triggers 10 free Country Strong spins. This feature keeps the base game mechanics but increases the chance of landing Hunting Season symbols. In this feature and the next, landing 2 or 3 scatters awards an extra +2 or +4 free spins, respectively.

Free Bird Bonus Game

When 4 scatters land in the base game, players win 10 free Free Bird spins. On top of the base game mechanics, when an Animal symbol is part of a regular win, it gains another Star, and this is progressive, lasting until the bonus round ends or the Animal gains another Star.

Trophy Hunting Hidden Epic Bonus

Players win 10 free spins in the Trophy Hunting round when 5 scatters land in the base game. This bonus keeps the Free Bird mechanics, plus a Hunting Season symbol is guaranteed on each spin.

Feature Buys

Four feature buys accompany the game. They include BonusHunt FeatureSpins at 3x to make each spin 5 times more likely to trigger free spins, and Wild Hunt FeatureSpins, which land a Hunting Season symbol for 50x. The Country Strong feature can be bought for 50x, or players may buy Free Bird for 200x the stake.

Great Game Rockies: Slot Verdict

Not content to just keep adding to its growing collection of Le Bandit slots, it feels like Hacksaw Gaming has retuned the engine and dropped it into a completely different sort of game. While Great Game Rockies remains animal-themed in many ways, it's one that's more National Geographic than salty raccoon. As alluded to, it sort of picks up where Alpha Eagle left off, environmentally, while slotting in a hunter to link to the shooting action of the core feature. Instead of Rainbow symbols and Golden Squares, all Great Game Rockies needs is a landed Hunting Season symbol to trigger its central effect and get the shooting going.

The studio has also worked in a clever multi-levelled Stars aspect. This affects the base game, where higher Star Animal symbols reveal higher minimum Coins. From Free Bird and up is where the Star system really gets interesting, though, on account of extra Stars being added following regular line wins. This progression carries on through the round, too, adding a sense of build-up and anticipation, potentially increasing the chance of getting to those coveted Diamond symbols. Hopefully, hunter guy blasts a few wilds along the way, too, as their multipliers might be indispensable for getting within striking distance of Great Game Rockies' 5,000x the bet max win.

Can't say the modifications Hacksaw Gaming has made have caused the recognisable moments to seem completely refreshed, but at the very least, let's be thankful Great Game Rockies isn't just a Le Bandit clone. Instead, it brings some interesting elements to the great outdoors, and enough variety to entertain players fond of Coin reveal action but not overly fussed by enormous winning potential or high volatility, with layered features and a bit of gun smoke.