Toad Town Slot
Backseat Gaming's Toad Town takes the familiar Wild Reel formula and drops it into a swampy western setting populated by toads, insects and other pond creatures. The theme is actually quite fun, but it doesn't take long before the gameplay starts feeling suspiciously familiar. VS symbols expand across entire reels and reveal multipliers of up to x200, while X symbols also become full-reel Wilds and multiply any active VS values by up to x10. When several Wild Reels connect to a win, their resulting multipliers are added together.
This setup can obviously produce some sizeable combinations, although getting everything to line up is another matter. The base game can be particularly unforgiving, with long stretches where very little happens before the VS and X symbols finally cooperate. Unfortunately, the mechanics also bear more than a passing resemblance to those used in Hacksaw Gaming's Duel at Dawn and Wanted Dead or a Wild, making Toad Town feel less original than its colourful presentation initially suggests.
Three Bonus symbols trigger Toad Trouble with 10 free spins and an increased frequency of VS and X symbols. Four Bonus symbols instead activate The Swamp Showdown, which also begins with 10 spins but adds a four-level progression ladder. Collecting 3 Bonus symbols advances the ladder, awards another 3 free spins and triggers a special spin guaranteeing at least 2 VS or X symbols, increasing to as many as 5 at the highest level.
There are plenty of shortcuts into the action as well. Bonus Boost costs 2x the regular stake, Lasso Spins are available for 60x, while Toad Trouble and The Swamp Showdown can be purchased for 200x and 400x respectively. The max win of 12,500x is respectable enough, although the default 96.01% RTP only just manages to scrape above the 96% mark.
The biggest problem with Toad Town isn't that the mechanics don't work, but that they feel borrowed almost wholesale from a game that has already been around for some time. The different setting gives Backseat Gaming's version a little personality, and fans of expanding Wild Reels and potentially huge multipliers may still get something from it. However, the brutal base game combined with gameplay that feels so close to earlier releases makes it difficult to get particularly excited about Toad Town.
