Jackpot Hunter

Jackpot Hunter: Slot Overview

While swinging dangerously by a whip, dispatching Nazis, and uncovering long-hidden secrets, action hero Indiana Jones rarely, if ever, embarked on adventures for personal enrichment. However, in online slots, where gamblers regularly bump into Indiana Jones wannabes, the opposite is true, and one casino game developer helping players join a hunt for monetary rewards is Pragmatic Play. The slot is Jackpot Hunter and boasts three Jackpot prizes that may be won during either a trail Bonus Map feature or a free spins round, which players can buy for relatively reasonable prices.

Much about Jackpot Hunter is a bit generic. That goes for the theme presentation, which situates the action in a green, fertile, jungle-like biome inhabited by trees, a water feature, flowers, and such like. Free spins occur in the same place, but at night time following a downpour, while the Bonus Map feature moves to a river scene where a path winds its way over a bunch of bridges. Whilst in possession of a typical Pragmatic Play sheen, Jackpot Hunter isn't the most originally presented faux Indiana Jones slot.

Encased in a stone border is Jackpot Hunter's 5-reel gaming matrix. Each of its reels holds 4 rows, and 20 paylines are built in to evaluate winning combinations. Behind the scenes, like, um, hidden treasure, is a highly volatile math model, and if you'd prefer the highest RTP version, then the 96% one is it. Bets of 20 c to $/€240 may be placed, and to jump to the two bonus rounds, feature buys are available to do so.

Jackpot Hunter's 10 pay symbols are all in some way related to adventuring. Starting from the lowest value one, players get torches, whips, pistols, water bottles, binoculars, maps, backpacks, crocodiles, a female adventuress and a male adventurer. Amongst the 7-non character symbols, the rewards are 2.5 to 12.5 times the stake for a 5-of-a-kind winning combination. For the three character symbols, a 5 OAK hit pays 15 to 50 times the bet. Wilds hit on all reels, too. Wilds have the same value as the adventurer when making wins of themselves, and they can be used to substitute for everything except scatter, bonus, or Jackpot symbols.

Jackpot Hunter: Slot Features

Laying your hands on Jackpots is essentially Jackpot Hunter's main focus. The three prizes displayed above the reels are winnable in a Bonus Map feature and a free spins round - both of these may be bought.

Fixed Jackpots

There are 3 fixed Jackpots available in Jackpot Hunter. They are the 25x Mini, 100x Major, and the 2,500x Grand. Jackpots may be won in the bonus game or in free spins.

Bonus Map Feature

Bonus symbols appear reels 1, 3 and 5. Hitting 3 bonus symbols triggers the Bonus Map feature. This bonus round has 41 steps and a wheel of fortune. The wheel spins 5 times in a bonus round, each time revealing 1 to 8 steps. After each spin, a light moves the number of steps revealed by the wheel. When the light stops, a prize of 2x to 20x the bet may be awarded, or the word Jackpot could be revealed. Cash rewards are added to a total win, Jackpot words are collected. If at the end of the bonus, 3 Jackpot words have been collected, the Mini, Major or Grand is randomly awarded. If 4 Jackpot words have been collected, the Major or Grand is randomly awarded. If 5 Jackpot words have been collected, the Grand is awarded.

Free Spins

Scatter symbols are present on reels 2, 3, and 4. Hitting 3 scatter symbols triggers 12 free spins. A special Jackpot symbol appears in the free spins feature. Hitting 3 Jackpot symbols randomly awards the Mini, Major or Grand. Hitting 4 Jackpot symbols randomly awards the Major or Grand, whereas hitting 5 Jackpot symbols awards the Grand. Should 3 scatters land in the feature, +12 free spins are won.

Bonus Buy

Players are able to buy the free spins feature for 60 times their bet or the Bonus Map feature for 20 times the bet. Both bonus buys have an RTP of 96%.

Jackpot Hunter: Slot Verdict

Indi-types are relatively pervasive in the online gambling space. Pragmatic Play has John Hunter, not to mention the female version Jane Hunter; Play'n GO has, of course, the debonair Rich Wilde, while the hatted adventurer type pops up all over the place from Stakelogic's Book of Jones to Red Tiger's Wild Expedition, and beyond. Perhaps this ubiquity contributed to Jackpot Hunter's atmosphere of home brand genericism. The game lacked much in the way of thematic spark to make it stand out from 50 other adventure slots. As mentioned, a significant coating of Pragmatic Play gloss covers the game, but strip that off, and you're left with little in the way of personality. Compare the jungly vibes here with those on show in Beheaded, for example, where one game is the souvenir equivalent of a unique objet d'art painstakingly found in a bazaar, while the other is a mass-produced trinket.

Okay, Jackpot Hunter is the trinket, but let's see, it might have its uses. One potential attraction is the comparatively 'cheap' bonus buys - 20x for the Bonus Map feature? You don't see price tags like that very often. You do get what you pay for, though, and the Bonus Map feature is a basic trail sojourn that failed to raise the pulse rate much during testing. Some stops on the trail revealed okay prizes; none ended up in a Jackpot reward. Of course, others might have better luck, and therein lies the draw of the 20x buy, presumably. The Jackpots aren't much to crow about, though despite a 2,500x top prize, Jackpot Hunter actually has a win cap of 5,000x, which, you know, okay.

According to Den of Geek, the newer Indiana Jones movies rank lower than the older ones, so perhaps the genre's allure has fizzled as the years have passed by. It still retains a grip over casino game makers, though, but if the results are slots like Jackpot Hunter, they might have to try harder to pull new converts into the fold.