Reindeer Royale

Reindeer Royale: Slot Overview

Stockholm-based software provider ELK Studios has leaned towards the yearly Xmas redo bandwagon with the release of Reindeer Royale, a slot built from the bunny-infested 2023 release Rabbit Royale. If you thought the previous game was a tad sadistic, get a load of the do-over, where Rudolf the legend has been slain, and his pals are none too happy about seeing his head hanging on a wall like a trophy, so are out for revenge. Drunk with crazed bloodlust, the reindeer in this game are linked to money symbol collection, collecting money from each other, respins, free spins, and more.

Rabbits might have been replaced by reindeer, but the lonely, isolated atmosphere of Rabbit Royale has been revived for Reindeer Royale. This time, the dwelling is a rickety old wooden shack that looks like it wouldn't keep much of the cold out. And cold there is in this pine tree, mountainous domain, where much in the background contributes to the chill factor. Two psychopathic human characters accompany the psychopathic reindeer characters, running amok way out in the neighbour-less boonies where humanity and sanity are spent qualities.

Played on a 5x5 game grid, Reindeer Royale has a connector ways pay mechanic with 259 ways to win. It is volatile, too, with ELK Studios having rated this part of the game as 9 out of 10, and despite any Christmas leanings, the RTP remains at 94%. When opening up the X-iter bonus buy menu, players get 5 choices, while the base bet range is 10 c on the lowest side to $/€100 on the highest.

For whatever reason, symbol values have fallen since Rabbit Royale, so a line of 5 matching low pays (darts, traps maybe, bottles, and grabbers) award 0.3 times the bet. For high pay, Reindeer Royale has a vehicle, a meat mincer, a dude with a gun, and a dude with a knife, paying 1 to 3 times the bet for 5 OAK. Wild symbols are able to reveal ammunition caches, more on these later, and substitute for any regular paying symbol. A payline of all wilds has the same value as the highest-value symbol.

Reindeer Royale: Slot Features

Reindeer Royale fires off features such as ammunition reveals, Reindeer Respins, a Ghost feature, free spins, and X-iter bonus buys.

Ammunition Reveals, Reindeer, and Reindeer Respins

Ammunition cache symbols may simply land or, when a wild contributes to a win, it reveals an ammunition cache with a random value. The reveal takes place after the payline win, and only if there is at least one reindeer symbol in view. Ammunition cache symbols are blockers displaying cash values. All reindeer symbols in view collect the values of the ammunition caches after paylines wins. Ammunition cache collections trigger a respin.

Reindeer symbols are also blockers, and their job is to collect ammunition cache values on the reels. They also collect other reindeer symbol values when they are vertically and horizontally adjacent to each other. This occurs after ammunition cache collection. A collect triggers a respin, and reindeer symbols may move to new positions. If a reindeer lands on a respin without ammunition caches, 1 respin is granted.

Ghost Feature

The ghost feature triggers randomly on a respin or free spin when there are at least 2 reindeer in view. It triggers a face-off between a random number of visible reindeer, which takes place over spinning reels where the selected reindeer are located. Reindeer do not need to be adjacent to each other.

Free Spins

In the base game, landing 3 scatters awards 3 free spins with 1 reindeer on the first spin. Landing 4 scatter symbols award 4 free spins with 2 reindeer on the first free spins, while 5 scatters trigger 5 free spins with 3 reindeer on the first free spin. During the feature, landing 3 or more scatter symbols retriggers additional free spins and reindeer, determined in the same way as when the bonus was first triggered. Any reindeer present on the triggering base game spin are carried over into the bonus round, in addition to any reindeer awarded from the scatter trigger - up to a maximum of 5 reindeer. All reindeer stay sticky in free spins, their collected values persistent, and free spins are not consumed by respins.

X-iter

Reindeer Royale's X-iter offers several different bonus buys: Bonus Hunt (2x the bet) - buys one spin with triple the chance of triggering free spins, Oh Deer! (10x the bet) - buys one game round with a reindeer symbol, It's Reining Deers (25x the bet) - buys a game round with 2 reindeer and a wild symbol, Bonus (100x the bet), or Super Bonus (500x the bet) - 5 free spins and 3 reindeer.

Reindeer Royale: Slot Verdict

Reindeer Royale doesn't ooze enough tinsel, decorations, or Santas to be considered a traditional white Christmas slot, but there are enough references in the form of reindeer and a reindeer called Rudolf to lump the game in the general Xmas direction. That would at least explain why ELK has basically reskinned Rabbit Royale, as many developers do for the Christmas season. The skin change has been successfully accomplished, however, due to ELK Studios flexing its art, sound, and fury department to create an amusing atmosphere of desolate violence perpetrated by a group of maniacal reindeer.

The Ghost Collect feature is a new named addition, that's one thing, and symbol values have been decreased, potentially making Reindeer Royale's base game more painful than Rabbit Royale, as it seemed to drop a large number of dead spins. Although, maybe the lowered symbol values mean more of the measly RTP has been shared with the reindeer symbol collection feature. That would be good because the action only really heated up when reindeer and ammunition cache symbols were in view. Then the game could be quite exciting, the music cranking up several notches, as does the violence, along with the chance to collect some dough. As in its predecessor, the magic of Reindeer Royale is the way adjacent reindeer symbols grab each other's cash values and add them to their own. Two reindeer on the board swapping values can be entertaining, 5 might be crazy. They would need to be unbelievably crazy to get near Reindeer Royale's 25,000x the bet max win. Without the power of multipliers it's a little hard to picture this occurring. But, with a planetoid amount of luck and a whole lot of reindeer symbol swapping, technically, at least, it appears possible.

All in all, Reindeer Royale isn't one of ELK Studios' greats on account of the second time around reason. But it was a fun game to review, such is the talent the developer's graphics and sound team has for knocking together slots that appeal to the senses, augmented by equally appealing features (if and when they go pop).