Walk of Shame

Walk of Shame: Slot Overview

Lurking out in the cold darkness of space lie leviathans with crushing gravities, black holes where nothing escapes; not even light can withstand their pull. The gambling industry has its own black hole, of sorts, in the form of Evolution Gaming when it's on an M&A spree. So far, big-name studios which have ended up under its wing include NetEnt (and, by extension Red Tiger), Aussie powerhouse Big Time Gaming, and more recently, Nolimit City, all brought on board in three eye-watering deals. Deals so lucrative all involved must have been pretty chuffed. But what if they weren't? What if signing on with the gambling world's equivalent of Meta Platforms brought about feelings, well, of shame? This appears to be the (tongue in cheek) premise of Walk of Shame from Nolimit City, an online slot that celebrates those grim mornings after a night of bad decision-making has occurred. Not a night to remember, one you hope everyone forgets, in a hurry.

Not only is Walk of Shame a bit of fun and games, but it's also a slot that appears to be packed with industry Easter Eggs. Most notably, the game's character symbols might just have counterparts in real life. It may be best not to name names, though. Helping players find their groove is a funky dance tune, while the game flips locations from what looks like a living room, complete with a blow-up sheep and suspiciously stained walls, to an outdoor location, maybe an upmarket residence after a deal's gone through? Walk of Shame leaves plenty of room for speculation, which is all part of the fun in a slot that really really doesn't take itself seriously, on the front end at least.

Somewhat surprisingly for Nolimit City, Walk of Shame is a medium volatile game, generating a default RTP value of 96.04%, though lower models are available. The RTP varies when buying bonuses, though, and full details can be found below. Bet levels vary from 20 p/c at the lowest up to $/€100 at the highest, which is the typical NLC betting range.

The action occurs on a 5-reel game grid arranged in a 3-4-4-4-4 formation. At the base level, players get 768 ways to win, but when x-splitting is involved, that number can increase. Winning combinations pay left to right, starting from the leftmost reel, and the paytable is made up of 8 regular pays. These are four drinking glasses as the lows (all drained of their contents) and four dubious-looking characters as the high pays (represented by actual industry people, but weren't sure we should name them). Hit a five-of-a-kind winning way to collect 1-1.25x the bet for the low pays or 1.5 to 5 times the stake for the premiums.

Walk of Shame: Slot Features

Whilst no regular wild symbol lands on the reels, Walk of Shame can create them. When four of the same high-pay symbol land in a stack on reels 2-5, they merge to create a Loaded Wild. These wilds substitute for all pay symbols and come with an x4 multiplier.

Walk of Shame

Landing a Loaded Wild on reels 3, 4, or 5 plus a Mr E symbol triggers the Walk of Shame. In Walk of Shame, the Loaded Wilds move one step left for the next spin, ending when a Loaded Wild reaches reel 2.

Scatters & Free Spins

Two types of scatters appear on the grid – Invitation and Mr E symbols. Landing 3 or 4 Invitations scatters triggers 10 or 15 One More!!! free spins, respectively, while 3 or 4 Invitation scatters plus 1 Mr E scatter triggers 10 or 15 All Nighter free spins, respectively. When Mr E lands in the base game, it turns into an xSplit and either splits the row or the reel. xSplits do not split other scatters.

• One More!!! - During One More!!! free spins, each landed Loaded Wild instantly adds +1 to the win multiplier, which does not reset until the feature ends. Landing a Mr E scatter activates the All Nighter and awards three additional free spins. Should 1, 2, 3, or 4 Invitation Scatters hit, players collect an extra 1, 3, 5, or 7 free spins, respectively.
• All Nighter - In this round, each Loaded Wild that hits instantly adds +1 to the win multiplier and may trigger the Walk of Shame. Now, Mr E remains on the first reel throughout, acting as an xSplit symbol. As before, landing 1, 2, 3, or 4 Invitation Scatters awards an extra 1, 3, 5, or 7 free spins, respectively.

Nolimit Bonus

Where applicable, players get three bonus buy choices from the Nolimit Bonus:

• One More!!! – 69x the bet, max RTP 96.45%.
• All Nighter – 314x the bet, max RTP 96.18%.
• Lucky dip – 131x the bet for a 75% chance of landing One More!!! or 25% chance of getting All Nighter. Max RTP 96.32%.

Walk of Shame: Slot Verdict

To most people loading up the game, Walk of Shame will be just another Nolimit City release, albeit an extraordinarily wacky one. However, Walk of Shame is a very personal Nolimit City release celebrating the Evolution Gaming deal, full of inside jokes, puns, easter eggs and whatnot. As a matter of fact, it gets so personal that you shouldn't be too surprised should the game be pulled. Let's just put it this way, representing the character symbols are actual people in the industry, and if you know your games and game providers, you might be able to figure out who they are (lol). Another detail, at the end of each feature, you hear (presumably, the NLC founder) call out "jävlar", which is something like bloody hell or f**k in Swedish.

Walk of Shame conjured up images of someone being invited out for 'one drink', which they reluctantly agreed to cos they've got to get home to prep for a big presentation at work the following day. The next thing they know, they've woken up in a bush at midday with a cracking headache and have to walk home with no shoes, their mobile phone sacrificed on the altar of unplanned all-night blinders. It's basically The Hangover of slots and, again, it might also offer up some clues as to the studios' reactions to the Evolution acquisition, or at least a humorous representation of them.

Gaming-wise, Walk of Shame isn't one of the studio's more experimental slots, keeping its features relatively simple. All the better for it, really, as the light-hearted theme is complemented by equally light-hearted gameplay revolving around full reel walking wilds, with a bit of xSplit and win multiplying on the side for good measure. Nothing eye-popping by Nolimit City standards, and the same goes for the max win, though 9,822x the bet is nothing to sniff at.

Despite a bundle of striking imagery, along with lower-than-usual potential, one of the most surprising things about Walk of Shame was the medium volatility setting of its math model. Is Nolimit City softening as it matures, is it being kept in check by its paymasters while being thrust at a wider audience, or is this another tongue-in-cheek joke element? So many questions, yet it feels like the answer would be a sly shrugging of shoulders and a yeah, we did the deal, but that ain't gonna stop us kind of thing. So no, Walk of Shame isn't one of the studio's hold-the-phone world beaters, yet that doesn't prevent it from being a fun game. And who else but Nolimit City, the tricksters of the iGaming realms of you will, would release a slot like this?