Nightmare Family Megaways

Nightmare Family Megaways: Slot Overview

Tolstoy famously wrote, 'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' When you think about it, a lot of 'spooky' families are quite alike as well. We're thinking along the lines of The Addams Family, The Munsters, and, okay, that's about it, but the family unit in developer Max Win Gaming's slot Nightmare Family Megaways rests along similar lines, too – with a bit of Hotel Transylvania thrown in as well when using a dash of imagination. A bit of imagination has gone into creating this spooky-ish game, as well, which has reactions, free spins with a minimum number of Megaways, winning free spin retriggers, a rising win multiplier, and bonus buys.

Prepare for teeth-rattling fear when Nightmare Family Megaways darkens your monitor with its frightening presence. Well, no, not really; Nightmare Family Megaways is more playful than terrifying, much like the TV shows mentioned in the first paragraph. It spends the base game bathed in an enormous moon's light, where candles drip wax on a tombstone, and gargoyles, jack-o-lanterns, gnarly leafless trees, all that sort of thing have been sprinkled about the place. The free spins bonus round takes place in the same spot, though the lighting and music are switched up for the occasion. Music is one of Nightmare Family Megaways' highlights, and the artwork isn't half bad either.

Nightmare Family Megaways is played on an ever-shifting Megaways game grid with 6 reels plus a top 4 position reel. When including the top reel, up to 7 symbols can be in each vertical column, creating up to 117,649 ways to win. Players may pick a wager of 20 p/c to $/€10 per spin, and two bonus buys are on hand to fast-track your way to the bonus round. Highly volatile, Nightmare Family Megaways has a return to player of 95.86% (lower models are available) or 96.33% when buying features.

Pay symbols award wins when matching symbols land on consecutive reels, from the leftmost reel onwards. The lows are a number 9 potion, a number 10 potion, a glass full of green stuff, a cauldron, a jack in the box, and a Korn 'Issues' album cover-style stuffed toy. Next up, the high pays are four members of the family – the daughter, son, mummy, and the daddy. Hitting a 6-of-a-kind low pay win is worth 0.8 to 1.5 times the bet, whereas a 6 OAK premium win pays 2 to 50 times the bet. Circular gold W coin symbols are wild and may be used to replace any regular pay symbol.

Nightmare Family Megaways: Slot Features

Nightmare Family Megaways features are its reaction win mechanic, free spins, and a pair of bonus buys.

Reactions

Functioning as it usually does, the reaction mechanism in Nightmare Family Megaways removes winning symbols from the reels after they hit, leaving spaces on the board. These spaces are filled by symbols moving in, and if a new win is created by the reaction process, the procedure will repeat.

Free Spins

Nightmare Family Megaways' free spins do not function as they usually do in a Megaways game. When triggered by landing at least 3 scatter symbols, players are awarded 3 free spins with a starting win multiplier of x1. If the feature is triggered by 4 scatter symbols, players get 3 free spins as well as the win multiplier starting on x5. Next, a wheel spins to award the minimum number of Megaways that will occur during the round from 1,000 to 25,000. During free spins, each winning spin resets the free spins count, and the win multiplier increases with each winning reaction. After 3 consecutive non-winning spins or when the win cap is achieved, the free spins round ends.

Feature Buy

The game's feature buy has two choices. One is free spins for the cost of 100x the bet, triggered by 3 or more scatter symbols. The second choice is super free spins for 300x the bet, triggered by 3 or more scatter symbols where the minimum number of Megaways is guaranteed to be 25,000.

Nightmare Family Megaways: Slot Verdict

Boo! Spooked? Nah, neither were we really, but Nightmare Family Megaways provided a measure of spooky-ish, Munsters, Addams Family-style entertainment. The game's look and feel are quite good, the graphics are of an above-average standard, and the music adds the finishing touch on a satisfying Halloween-kinda scene. Not that you have to play Nightmare Family Megaways at Halloween, of course, it's good enough for year-round enjoyment, but all those pumpkins and whatnot may put players in the mood for All Hallows' Eve.

The gameplay is quite enjoyable as well, more so the free spins round. Free spins may not be as unique as some readers may suspect, though, since the features are the same as those gracing Amazon Island Megaways, a Max Win Gaming slot released around two years before this one. Indeed, the gameplay is practically identical, though there are some statistical differences between the two slots. Nightmare Family Megaways has a slightly lower return value and a slightly lower max win of 10,000 times the bet. It does have a feature buy, though. Red Tiger and associates weren't really known for adding this option in their games when Amazon Island Megaways came out. The feature buys could be the deciding factor for players on the fence over which slot to pick, perhaps?

Summing up, Nightmare Family Megaways has gaming elements you don't come across in many Megaways slots – free spins that are retriggered when hitting a win, for example, but it's not wholly unique since it's basically a do-over of an older Max Win Gaming slot. The game has its place, however, and should hit the spot for anyone looking for a bit of Megaways - spooky/Halloween mash-up.