Nightfall

Nightfall: Slot Overview

As well as exploring the adorable side of life in games like Fat Rabbit or Fire Hopper, developer Push Gaming also has an interest in things a bit wilder, a bit darker. We got a taste of that in Fat Drac, and now again in Nightfall, a slot that has a similar, slightly grimmer, ambience. On the gaming side of things, Nightfall deviates from what Push Gaming has done in the past, making use of an unusual feature where fireballs slam into blocks, releasing instant cash prizes when they are destroyed, a little like a Brick Breaker video game but with much higher stakes.

We mentioned a link to Fat Drac in the intro. Nightfall also has a semi-Thunderkick feel to it as well as there are echoes of Baron Bloodmore here, what with the flights of bats passing over and their allusion to vampirism. Gothic is one way of describing Nightfall's look, where a quaint Mediaeval looking village sits in the background, lights flickering in houses as if the townsfolk are under the illusion of safety within their homes. The danger is never explicitly revealed, but the occult-ish symbols, gargoyles, and general dark vibe leave plenty of room for players to fill the gaps with their imaginations. Visually, the quality is solid but it isn't as striking as we've come to expect from Push Gaming.

Something more concrete are the stone slabs running along the top of the 5-reel, 3-row game grid. Each block displays a bet multiplier, and slabs change on every paid spin. More on these later. First, some numbers and RTP comes in several variations, with 96.36% being the highest on offer. Volatility has been eased, for Push Gaming, earning a medium/high rating, while the 20,000x potential is solid, though again somewhat modest for these guys.

Playable on any device from c/p 10 to €/$100 per spin, Nightfall provides 20 fixed paylines to land winning combinations of three or more of a kind. The symbols used in the game are emblematic of the game as a whole; namely, one-off wins can be extraordinary. An example of this is the top paying Gorgon-like symbol which pays out 1,000x the bet for five of a kind hit. Less impressive yet still decent are the other three totemic animal symbols, where lines of five are worth 50-100x the bet. Finally, come the less interesting low pay card suits (diamonds, clubs, spades, and hearts), all paying 5 times the stake for a line of five.

Nightfall: Slot Features

Like a good old 'book of' slot, the Fire Orb symbol in Nightfall is wild and scatter. It lands on any reel and substitutes for all other symbols except the regular Fireball Symbol or the Multiplier Fireball Symbol.

Cascades

Before getting to the innovative parts, a quick word about Nightfall's cascading mechanic. Each win triggers this feature which clears the winning symbols from the reels and fills empty spaces with new symbols. The cascade feature will roll on, racking up consecutive wins until no new combination hits.

Fireballs and Fireball Multipliers

These two symbols are needed to win prizes from the slabs above the reels. When a Fireball symbol lands, it zooms up and hits the Instant Prize slab sitting directly above it. These slabs can cover anything from one to five reels - their size and prize values change on each paid spin. What's key to know is if an Instant Prize slab is hit by 3 Fireball symbols, its respective prize is awarded. These prizes range in value between 2x and 5,000x the bet. Once a slab has awarded its prize, it vanishes, and a new slab replaces it.

Fireball Multipliers carry multipliers of x2 to x50, and when they land, they increase the Instant Prize slab above them by their respective value. Then, the Multiplier Fireball transforms into a regular Fireball and hits a slab. Keep in mind, too, that when Fireball symbols shoot off to hit a slab, the cascade feature refills the empty cell with a new symbol, which could be another Fireball.

Free Games

When 3, 4, or 5 Fire Orb symbols are in view, players win 5x, 50x, or 1,000x their bet plus 6 free spins. You also get an extra free spin for each additional Fire Orb in view. For the bonus round, several changes take place. Firstly, pay symbols are removed from the reels, so only Fireballs, Fireball Multipliers, or Scatter symbols may land. Also, the Instant Prize slabs remain on top of the reels between spins; they do not change like in the base game. This gives players the chance to chip away at them over the course of several spins. Lastly, for every 3 scatter symbols collected, +2 additional free spins are awarded.

If presented with the opportunity, players may buy the free spins bonus round for the cost of 113.5 times the total stake. Bought free spins have an RTP value of 96.17%.

Nightfall: Slot Verdict

Let's first acknowledge Push Gaming's continued desire to bravely tear up the rule book and try new things. Innovation is one of the studio's hallmarks, and Nightfall has an unusual way of potentially dishing out wins. Smashing blocks is an activity which has appeared in slots before, to be sure, but not exactly like this, thereby imbuing Nightfall with a certain curiosity factor. It doesn't feel like Nightfall is destined to be a future classic, yet there are clever things here to experience.

What Nightfall has in common with a number of slots Push Gaming has released is that it relies on its features to do something randomly massive all at once rather than progressively. It's similar to the 2,500x random prizes of Bison Battle, the 50k bubble prizes of Fat Drac, or the 1,000x Dino Coins in Dinopolis. If you're the sort of player who likes to be kept on their toes knowing that a big Instant Prize can appear at any moment, pop Nightfall on your to-try list. The corollary applies, too. If the instant prize nature of those previous Push games didn't really light your fire, Nightfall probably won't either.

However, there were times during testing when the Fireball smashing slabs feature got pretty nail-biting. If you're staring down a sizeable slab in free spins and just need one more Fireball to bust it open, then Nightfall literally teeters on a knife-edge between glory and obscurity. Potential is good, capped at 20,000x the bet, or possibly lower depending on operators' settings. Interestingly, as a comparison, the max win is less than half of what Bison Battle offers and has nearly half the probability of occurring, at 1 in 8,795,075 spins.

To sum up, Nightfall was good but fell a bit shorter than expected. Its showpiece feature was fun and had its moments, yet it felt closer to a cool warm-up stunt than a prime-time innovation that other studios will rush out to copy.