Shadow Shifter

Shadow Shifter: Slot Overview

Shapeshifting has appeared in fiction, folklore and myth from ancient times down to the present day, with werewolves and vampires being two classic examples. The good news for skittish gamblers is that the morph action found in ELK Studios' Shadow Shifter is of the non-violent, mechanical kind rather than the blood-sucking or claw-raking kind. That doesn't mean we're not dealing with an odd slot, however. Shadow Shifter is unusual both in the way it shuffles and grows its gaming grid, as well as its accompanying sights and sounds.

According to the game docs, residing deep in an ancient forest is a creature known as the Shadow Shifter. This being is near invisible during the day, but at night, it creates intricate lines on a grid in a hidden grove only it knows. Well then, how fortunate for gamblers because they stumble upon this very grid when venturing into Shadow Shifter, the slot, which takes centre position in a hidden grove of mushrooms, trees, and berries. Above the grid, all Cheshire Cat-like is the Shadow Shifter entity overseeing the proceedings. Despite the dimly lit, mysteriously misty forest, the dankest thing about Shadow Shifter is its deep EDM, getting a bit Michael Jackson's Thriller-ish at times before launching into full metal mode for the larger win countups.

Before launching into Shadow Shifter's action, players may choose a bet of 20 c to $/€100 and activate bonus mode from the X-iter if they prefer. No matter how the game is played, the RTP comes in at 94%. Volatility is on the higher edge of the spectrum, and symbols drop onto an expandable 5-column, 4-row matrix. To win, at least 3 matching symbols must be connected in a horizontal straight line from the leftmost column.

There aren't many pay symbols, and the one you really want to see is the highest value fox/Shadow Shifter. That one pays 50x the bet for 5 OAK, while the rest - an acorn, a leaf, a green bug thing, and a yellow bird, are worth 0.4 to 15 times the bet for 5-of-a-kind. Wild symbols are able to help create winning combinations by substituting any of the paying symbols.

Shadow Shifter: Slot Features

A game round starts with inactive multipliers above each column and new symbols filling the grid. Any wins are paid out, and for each winning combination, a column pusher is created. When there are no more direct winning combinations, the column pusher pushes the columns upwards vertically to potentially create new winning combinations. Column pushers also add rows to the grid. When no more wins are created, all symbols spin out. This repeats until there are no more winning combinations. The number of rows the grid grows by is determined by how many column pushers are pushed into the game grid and move up each column with 8 rows being the maximum. In addition, when a column pusher is pushed into a column, the corresponding column multiplier increases by +1.

Multipliers

Multipliers are connected to each column. Wins are multiplied by the total amount of all multipliers of the columns of the winning combinations. Multipliers are added before being applied if more than one is part of the win.

Feature Symbols

Feature symbols may also land on the board. The symbols and their effects are:

• Max Grow - increases the number of rows to 8 immediately when it lands. After expansion, the Max Grow remains on the grid until all symbols spin out.
• Expanding Wild - expands in a vertical direction, replacing all symbols on the column with wild symbols. This does not replace scatters or Both Ways symbols.
• Both Ways - causes horizontally straight paylines to pay from left to right from the leftmost column and right to left from the rightmost column. The Both Ways feature remains active as long as the Both Ways symbol is in view.

Free Spins

Hitting 3 scatter symbols triggers 5 free spins. Multipliers and unused column pushers are persistent when entering the free spins round and between free spins. Landing a scatter in the bonus round awards +2 free spins.

X-iter

Shadow Shifter's X-iter bonus buys are: Bonus Hunt (3x the bet) buys a game round with more than triple the chance of triggering a bonus game, Expanding Wild (10x the bet) buys a game round with 1 guaranteed Expanding Wild symbol, Super Spin (50x the bet) buys a game round with max rows and guaranteed column multipliers at x5, Bonus (100x the bet) buys the free spins feature, or Super Bonus (500x the bet) for free spins with max rows and column multipliers at x5.

Shadow Shifter: Slot Verdict

Shadow Shifter is an unusual game, but unusual in a way that works, and in an industry bursting at the seams with repetitive averageness, unusual can be a good thing. It works for Shadow Shifter, where odd character meets, unusual gaming mechanics, and music that shouldn't fit but just does. The game is a testament to the way ELK Studios regularly pushes its thought processes out of the norm to think up something radical. In the case of Shadow Shifter, radical might be too strong a word, but it's definitely unconventional both on the gaming board and off it.

What happens on the gaming board is critical to a slot's success, and one of the first concepts to wrap your head around is the way winning combinations are formed - from the left, in straight horizontal lines (or the right when the Both Ways feature is active). Sounds a bit restrictive, and in some ways it is, but this payment method is key to Shadow Shifter's main feature, the column pusher moving symbols about the place, lining up wins and growing the grid. The mechanic is quite fun in itself once you've got the hang of it, but stirring in multipliers is where Shadow Shifter really starts to get interesting. The more multis, the better, as always, and a collection of multipliers boosting a full line of Shadow Shifter pay symbols could be surprising, as in a 1,000x+ result from a single line type deal.

ELK is a developer that likes to get experiential; sometimes the experiments work, other times they fizzle. Shadow Shifter isn't as far out as Slurpy, Jeff & Scully, or Rogue Rats of Nitropolis, but it's different, positively so, packs a win cap of 10,000x, and is worth a look if you're in the mood for a game that's coming in from left field.