Wild Boost Slot – Free Demo

The wild that stays where it lands

Amatic offers players the opportunity to pursue wilds once again. The Respin feature is the only feature in the game. The slot is constructed around one theme, and Wild Boost is a pared back rendition of the studio's fruit and sevens template. I played 240 spins of it at a stake of 120, starting from a balance of 10,000. It has landed on a form that does one thing. The grid holds twenty symbol positions in all. Packing a grid with wilds, whether off or online, is not a simple job. It is certainly not one for the faint-hearted.

Aiding the effort are held wilds that make the chore simpler by heaping on respins. I saw the feature twice in those 240 spins, and it paid 6,840 of the 18,888 I won.

A red cabinet and a meter at 656

Wild Boost is a simple game, and as such, the visuals prefer function over form. There is an effort at cohesion with a red backdrop. One captured frame runs 40 lines at a bet of 120, with the win meter at 656. But the stress here is on the large, bold symbols playing out on the reels, and sounds are kept minimal as well, with little to divert players from the serious business of spinning its reels. The banner in that frame reads Line 23: 777 Win: 105.

Step one is picking bets. Lines are picked too, from 10 up to 40 in steps of ten. They are low roller friendly, with the game's own meter ranging from 10 to 1000 credits. I set mine at 120 across 40 lines, which puts 3 on each line. The other number I have came out at 88 paying spins in 240 across my session, or 37%. Fifty-nine of those 88 returned less than the stake.

Where the sevens sit in the paytable

Amatic has fashioned the slot using 5 reels, 4 rows, and 10 to 40 paylines in increments of 10, and the chief rule is lining up identical symbols on a payline from the leftmost reel rightwards on neighbouring reels for a win. Every paytable value moves with the bet level and the number of lines in play. Only the largest win pays per line. Wins from separate lines are added together. Opening up the paytable exposes regular pay symbols split into low and high pay groups, and the low pays are fruits rendered in a vivid style — cherries, lemon, orange, plum, grapes and watermelon, crowned by a bell — supported by theme inspired high pay symbols. Wins only count on lines that are active. They include three distinct sevens in pink, green and blue, plus a mixed-seven symbol.

One of the game's chief selling points is the high value of its premium symbols. Five green sevens pay 1,500x the line bet and five blue sevens 1,000x. They span from 250x the line bet for five mixed sevens, up to 2,500x the line bet for five of the pink sevens. Below the sevens, five bells pay 200x the line bet and five cherries 25x. What betters things even more is the Wild symbol which substitutes for anything, there being no scatter to fret about; different Seven symbols landing together on a winline pay a distinctive win of their own, listed in the paytable. At a line bet of 3, that banner's 105 is a blue seven three of a kind, 35x the line bet.

What one new wild buys

Features are comparatively scarce. But they can be effective when the wilds arrive, and in fact, trigger the Respin feature, and it can nearly feel like a free go at the grid. The three wilds can sit on any positions on the grid. This happens when 3 wilds are anywhere in sight. A captured frame shows three of them in place, two on reel one at the top and second row, and one on reel two's third row. Those wilds are then held until the feature concludes, and there are two elements in play during respins that make them so appealing: the first is that every fresh wild that lands is held as well. So the grid can only ever gain wilds while the feature runs.

Better yet, every fresh wild also wins another respin. One new wild is enough to buy the next spin. The round keeps going for as long as the reels keep delivering them, and apologies for voicing the obvious, but with wilds locking in place like that, respins can be a long round when the wilds keep coming. The first of my two Respins took the balance from 5,464 to 8,824. Players will note that wins during the feature are added to the win total. The second took it from 8,188 to 11,428. It isn't retriggered as such. It only ceases when a respin brings no fresh wild, or when the screen is packed. A packed screen is twenty symbols, so the end of the feature and the Fullscreen rule meet at the same point.

The last extra is the Fullscreen: land twenty symbols of a kind, wilds included, and all line wins are doubled. Wilds held from earlier respins count towards that twenty.

The Minty Breakdown: Two Respins in 240 spins paid 6,840 of the 18,888 the run returned, 36% of everything won from a feature that showed up twice. The base game filled the other 64% in pieces, 59 of the 88 paying spins coming back under the stake.

Two respins in 240 spins

Amatic has issued a ton of slots. Blazing Coins 40 and Hot Fruits Wheel are two more Amatic machines.

It's a no nonsense slot with one feature and no complications. I wagered 28,800 over the session and got 18,888 of it back.

The base game can be something of a testing ground. Outside the two features my best spins were 1,440 on spin 83 and 960 on spin 78, 12.0x and 8.0x the stake. But it's when the respins kick in with their held wilds that it all comes together, and for example, both of the features in my 240 spin session landed ten spins apart, 29.0x the stake on spin 101 and 28.0x on spin 111, together comprising 36% of everything I won. The second of them was the peak of the run at 11,428, and the balance never got back there before it ran out after spin 240. Though the run still ended at 65.6% of what went in, with a 19 spin dry spell along the way.