Jack

Jack: Slot Overview

One of the more macabre themes which winds its way into online slots is that of Jack the Ripper, the brutal serial killer who terrorised the East End of London in the 19th century and who was never caught. It seems stalking the Whitechapel streets while avoiding sharp stabby weapons is something on the minds of a number of casino game makers. It certainly seems to have been on the mind of software provider Wicked Games, which has designed the slasher slot Jack, which, interestingly, possesses several links to the studio's first release, Sidekick Jack. That debut didn't exactly score big, so let's find out if this other Jack fares any better.

Going with a Jack the Ripper theme means visual components are somewhat limited. Not saying a studio can't flex their artistic muscles when using it, but slots in this category generally display a menacing patch of nighttime Victorian London. The sort of place you really wouldn't want to be after dark, especially if your profession was lady of the night. Jack does an adequate job of bringing this violent piece of history to the reels, but it's far from being an extraordinarily presented slot. The gaming area is placed onto the back of a coach as it rumbles along a street bathed in moonlight, and you get the gist, but Jack lacks the qualities that might have made it a truly spine-tingling experience.

Jack's play area, its back alley where the slashing occurs if you will, is a 6x4 grid with 50 paylines awarding wins left to right from the leftmost reel. Wicked Games has turned down the volatility, giving it a 1 out of 5 rating in this regard, while producing an RTP of 96.11%. The regular stake range is $/€0.25 to a possible $/€500 per spin, and when using the ante bet, the stake is multiplied by 1.4x to increase the chance of getting free spins.

The game's pay symbols are 10-A lower value royals, and five higher paying character symbols. Landing a line of 6 matching royals gets you 0.8x to 2x the bet, increasing to 3x to 10x for hitting 6 matching characters. Wilds appear on all reels except the leftmost reel to substitute for anything bar the scatter.

Jack: Slot Features

The base game consists of nothing in the way of features, so landing 3 scatters to win 10 free spins is when Jack gets its knife out. Scatters are only present on the three rightmost reels, and they also pay 2x the bet when three of them land. During free spins, any wild landing on the reels transforms into a sticky wild, which remains in place for the duration of the round.

The feature may be retriggered by landing a scatter-wild. Hitting a scatter-wild on the leftmost reel awards an extra +5 free spins. Scatter-wilds substitute for all symbols. Free spins can be retriggered only once, and the scatter-wild is removed from the remaining free spins.

Feature Buy

As well as a natural 3 scatter trigger, players can activate the bonus round by buying it for 70x their stake.

Jack: Slot Verdict

Odd game. It's as if Wicked Games took Sidekick Jack, truncated the title, then jammed the bulk of its mechanics into a new skin. It's an interesting move, if an unexciting one, because Sidekick Jack did not get the adrenal glands working over time when it was reviewed due to some disjointed artwork, let down by drab features and sleepy stats. Oh well, you gotta start somewhere and all that. Strange then that Wicked Games has circled back to Sidekick Jack and had another go at it. The result might be more optically coherent, and the graphics are less confusing, but the final product isn't enormously better. The skin and theme use feel half-hearted, and nothing significant has been added to the gameplay, making it about as hard to fall for Jack as it was for Sidekick Jack.

As for the gameplay, the base game delivers little, not helped by an absence of features. Free spins are marginally better. Sticky wilds are sticky wilds; they might be pretty neat when a bunch of them have stacked up on the screen and are hammering out consecutive payouts. Yet, we have seen this sort of thing in a lot of games already, and Jack does nothing new with them, refusing to graft on a complementary side feature or any sort of creative novelty. Consequently, winning potential is about as limited as the excitement levels Jack's features can generate, topping out at 1,500x the bet.

To wrap up, Jack was a peculiar reenactment of the decidedly mid Sidekick Jack. Despite some graphical improvements, it lacks the creativity, tension, and emotional punch needed to stand out in a crowded market. Sticky wilds do their thing, and Ripper completists might feel compelled to cross Jack off their list, but it was a struggle to find many positive aspects to recommend it.