Langley Street 23

Langley Street 23: Slot Overview

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you, as the saying goes, and never was this truer than on the dark, foggy, mysterious Langley Street. This is an odd place that is somehow unknown to man, yet home to a group of unusual people having their every moment watched by a secretive organisation operating from the shadows. In ELK Studios' slot Langley Street 23, we meet one of them, Marvin, a Fox Mulder type (minus the FBI backing) who is into just about every conspiracy you can think of and is caught in the grip of paranoia as a result. However, 'they' are actually tracking Marvin, and will stop at nothing to prevent the truth from getting out in a story-driven slot that might just make you a believer.

After an interest-piquing intro, players enter the home of Marvin, one of Langley Street's residents, who might look like a regular fellow, but who has interests that go far beyond lazing in front of streamed television and staring at his mobile device. Decorating Marvin's home are images of aliens, lizard eyes, and puzzling symbols, amongst a whole host of enigmas. The nightmare really begins in the bonus round, when Marvin is abducted, and a screen is forced over his head for a re-educational mind wipe. ELK Studios has gone to town on the storytelling side of Langley Street 23, inventing a sort of X-Files meets Tales From the Loop meets a more sinister Truman Show that drags you in and makes you wonder what really lies behind the curtain of reality, if there is a curtain.

Langley Street 23 is a 5x5 slot with 35 paylines. The game's minimum bet is $/€0.20, while the maximum it accepts is $/€100 per spin. Volatility sits on the medium-high side with a rating of 7 out of 10, and the RTP varies from 87% to 96% depending on the operator and market.

Its premium symbols are a flat earth, a mechanical pigeon, an eyed pyramid, and a UFO, awarding 2.5x to 5x the bet for a 5 OAK hit. Beneath them in value are J-A royals, paying 0.5x to 1.25x for a 5 OAK combination. Wilds in all forms substitute the paytable symbols, and a winning line of all wilds has the same value as the UFO symbol. It is also possible for wilds to land with a multiplier of x2 to x100.

Langley Street 23: Slot Features

Scattered about the paranoic suppositions about how the world really is are four locked features, a free spins bonus round, and X-iter feature buys.

Locked Features

There are four features which are locked at the start of the game. The VHS tape symbol is present on the rightmost reel and is added to the TV when it hits. Unlocked feature progression and the state of the surveillance TV are kept for each bet level. Every time 6 tapes have been collected, up to 24, a feature is unlocked in the order below. When unlocked, a respin is awarded with the unlocked feature active. VHS tapes cannot land on respins.

• Mystery Symbols - Reveal the same pay symbol or wild. On each spin after this feature is unlocked, there is a chance that pay symbols become mystery symbols. Mystery symbols may land with a multiplier of x2 to x100.
• Expanding Wilds - Expand to cover the whole reel and have two multiplier values from x2 to x100. A fight takes place, and the winner's multiplier value is applied. If a symbol with a multiplier is on the same reel as an expanding wild, the multiplier values are added to the expanding wild. If a cloning wild clones over a wild or expanding wild, it adds its multiplier to that symbol, or it adds +1 if it does not have a multiplier.
• Cloning Wilds - Creates a wild symbol at its position and at the position on the left. Cloning wilds can land on reels 2-5. If the cloning wild has a multiplier, it is applied to the added wild.
• Surveillance TV - Can trigger mystery, cloning wild, expanding wild, or bonus trigger respins by landing various VHS tapes to complete sections on the screen or by chance. When this feature is unlocked, the respin guarantees a bonus game trigger.

Bonus Game

Hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatters triggers the bonus game, awarding 8, 10, or 12 free spins, respectively, where all feature symbols are unlocked, but VHS tapes do not land. Before free spins begin, players randomly get either sticky mystery or sticky wild bonus mode. In sticky mystery mode, all mystery symbols stick in place throughout the feature, revealing a symbol on each spin. In sticky wild mode, all wilds and expanding wilds lock in place till the round concludes. Multiplier adder symbols may land in the bonus round, adding to or increasing a multiplier value on mystery or wild symbols by x1 to x25. There is also a chance the multiplier adder awards +2 free spins.

X-iter

X-iter feature buys include the Bonus Hunt, which buys a spin with a higher chance of triggering a bonus game for 2.5x, or Mega Hunt for 5x to have an even greater chance. The Langley Files buy costs 25x to guarantee a game round with cloning wild, mystery symbols, expanding wilds, or a bonus trigger. The bonus round can be bought for 100x, or Project Memory Wipe, costing 200x, buys a game round with at least 2 expanding wilds, though the bonus cannot be triggered from it.

Langley Street 23: Slot Verdict

When designing Langley Street 23, ELK Studios has clearly spent a significant amount of time and effort creating an absorbing game world with a dense back story. It's appreciated, too, as the game leans away from being 'just' a slot and closer to storytelling territory. The tale is a little bit cliched, the sort of lone truth-seeking individual barely holding onto sanity, fighting governmental forces who will stop at nothing to prevent hidden secrets being revealed to a naively blinkered public who would erupt into chaos, rejecting its role as mere cogs in a machine to embrace a richer, more fulfilling reality, should they learn what's really going on.

But Langley Street 23 tells the story well, and when combined with the high quality of the production, produces a gripping slot experience. It is unusual to see ELK Studios go down the feature unlocking route; that's something more strongly associated with Red Tiger, but it actually suits the game quite well, adding to the unfolding mystery angle. Mystery symbols play a huge part in Langley Street 23's entertainment, as do wild symbols, driving a large chunk of the mechanics, topped off by a multiplier element, for a bit of extra grunt.

It could be said that Langley Street 23's features are not the most original. Expanding wilds with multipliers we've seen more than once via Hacksaw Gaming's VS symbols, Wanted Dead or a Wild, for instance, and sticky mystery symbols are nothing new, as used in Relax Gaming's Net Gains as an example. However, Langley Street 23's back story, coupled with slick execution, its particular set of features and a 10,000x win cap make it a compellingly playable game, capable of thrilling players whether they think someone's watching or not.