Ouija

Ouija: Slot Overview

Software provider Red Tiger invites players to commune with the other side in its Spiritualism-themed online slot Ouija. For those who may not know, a Ouija board is a board marked with letters, numbers, and words like 'YES,' 'NO,' and 'GOODBYE.' People place their fingertips on a small pointer called a planchette and ask questions, watching it move across the board to spell out answers - whether guided by spirits or participants themselves, we'll debate another day. As well as the supernatural sending shivers up the spine, Ouija seeks to excite players with a bonus round that advances through three levels, when retriggered on the final spin of each batch.

The modern Ouija board became commercially popular in the late 19th century, amid the rise of Spiritualism, a movement based on the belief that the living could communicate with the dead. As such, Ouija the slot has a pleasing old-fashioned appearance, like an old photo that is yellowing with age, back when it took ages to take a picture, and people looked so serious in them. The screen is laid out in a semi-Ouija board fashion, with a grid in the middle, symbol values up top, and candles laid out around the sides. During free spins, extra colour is added, increasing the mysticism factor, but Ouija was surprisingly low-key in that regard, dropping subtle hints of the other side, instead of going full-blown arcane.

The physical gaming occurs on a 5x3 matrix where there are 10 paylines awarding wins left to right from the leftmost reel. A stake range of $/€0.10 to $/€500 is provided, as is a feature buy. Red Tiger has marked the math model volatility with a 4 out of 5 rating, and there are several RTP values, where 95.8% is the highest configuration.

Wild Western 10-A royals are the lower-paying symbols, while the higher-value symbols depict a character, a hand, a sun, and a moon. Landing 5 matching royals pays 2.4x to 9.2x the bet, or hitting 5 matching premium symbols awards 23x to 77x the bet. Wilds substitute all paying symbols and are also worth 77x for 5 OAK.

Ouija: Slot Features

In the base game, landing 3 scatters on the leftmost, middle, and rightmost reels triggers 7 free spins with a chance of wilds. On the final free spin, landing 3 Win Spins symbols on the leftmost, middle, and rightmost reels triggers 7 Win Spins where every spin is a guaranteed win. On the final Win Spin, if 3 Wild Spins symbols land on the leftmost, middle, and rightmost reels, 7 Wild Spins are awarded. Every Wild Spin is a guaranteed win, and wilds lock for the duration of the round.

Feature Buy

From the shop, players may buy into the free spins round at a cost of 100x their bet.

Ouija: Slot Verdict

Ouija initially looked quite intriguing. The theme was novel, the visuals had an aged sepia look, and the music added to the mystique. After reading the paytable and playing through it, though, the interest levels very swiftly and sadly diminished. One explanation is that Ouija is a reskin of Red Tiger's 777 Strike, a slot which scored moderately the first time around, when it was released in 2021. It was an okay, but limited game, which has passed on its excitement-generating abilities to Ouija, such as they are. The presentation is fine. The old-fashioned Ouija board makes a welcome change from the brightly coloured, over-the-top visuals found in some slots. The candles, muted colours, and wispy soundtrack establish a relaxing atmosphere without making a song and dance of the theme. The restrained approach works well enough, even if it never quite delivers the chills its subject matter might suggest.

As mentioned, the gameplay is quite limited, with no modifiers to look forward to in the base game. This means the enjoyment mainly boils down to how far you can progress through the free spins phase. The first round of free spins is pretty vanilla, as they essentially just mirror the base game but with wilds. Progress to Win Spins, and things start perking up, since every spin is a winning spin. Move to the ultimate round, Wild Spins, and each spin is again a win, bolstered by the way wilds are sticky. Winning potential isn't huge, though fitting at 2,830.3x the bet.

Once realising that Ouija was a reskin, the session kind of panned out how it was expected to. Experiencing all three free spins levels, or even two levels, early on should give players the incentive to keep at it, but getting stuck at the base level means it might be tricky finding the motivation to battle on. It is a branded slot, on licence from Hasbro, which can sometimes mean the gameplay takes a back seat, but even so, Ouija feels like a missed opportunity to capitalise on an original theme with some equally original mechanical aspects.