Safari Gold Megaways Slot – Free Demo

The Lion Rules This Plain

Blueprint Gaming are back with another slot. I took it for 420 spins at a flat 1.00 stake, starting from a balance of 1,000.00. Just like youngsters on christmas I can't wait to see what it's all about, and Blueprint Gaming has been one of my preferred providers to review having launched some really good games as of late. I finished that run on 1,366.45. Yes, it's no secret that I am a fan of high volatility. The help screens put the bonus RTP at 97.00%, half a point above the base game.

Safari Gold Megaways is the name of their fresh game, and it has a configuration of Megaways reels and up to 117,649 ways to win. Payouts are multiplied by the total bet, so the paytable figures read straight as stake multiples. Blueprint Gaming has decided to go for a safari slot, going against the grain and declining to launch a football slot or something involving shores and palm trees. There's a Megaways Wheel Bet as well, which buys up to 10 games with a guaranteed minimum number of Megaways, its segments running 1,000, 5,000 and the full 117,649.

The Lion is the name of the creature that dominates Safari Gold. He's the top payer of the four premiums, ahead of the buffalo, the cheetah and the elephant. He shoves every other animal on the plains around for no evident reason, and it's my task to line him up...ok, I just invented that tale but it could be true.

Reading the Safari Gold Paytable

There are 13 symbols present in the game. The Buffalo sits next below the Lion at 7.5x the stake for six, and the Cheetah and Elephant both stop at 2.0x. They are 6 low value symbols, 4 premium symbols, a wild symbol, a mystery symbol and a bonus symbol, and the low value symbols are depicted by 9, 10, J, Q, K and A letters, while the premiums are depicted by elephants, cheetahs, buffalos and lions. The best of the letters, A and K, pay 1.75x the stake for six. The Lion is the most lucrative, awarding a 50x win for 6 on a way. Five on a way pay 25.0x the stake and four pay 10.0x. It's the only symbol that pays from 2. Two of them return 2.0x the stake.

The wild substitutes for all symbols except the Bonus and the Mystery symbol. So a wild can finish off a line of Lions, but it can't help you towards the wheel. The Mystery symbol changes into any symbol except the Bonus, and the scatter symbol arrives in the form of the Bonus symbol.

Reactions Feed the Next Win

Every winning symbol is part of a reaction, and when a win lands, the symbols that created it clear out. One spin can therefore pay more than once before the reels settle. New ones cascade in from above the reels or in from the right of the top symbols. That chain is what made spin 141 my biggest of the session, 220.0x the stake. The reaction runs again until no fresh win is formed, and wins pay left to right on adjacent symbols regardless of symbol size. It carried the balance up to 1,218.70.

The Free Spins Wheel and Its Multiplier

4, 5, 6 or 7 scatter symbols anywhere on the reels launch the Free Spins Wheel with up to 15, 20, 25 or 30 free spins respectively. A wide Megaways count with two Bonus symbols showing is a near miss and nothing more, since the wheel wants four of them. During the bonus, the win multiplier starts somewhere in the x1-x10 range. My first wheel came on spin 71 off 4 Scatters, gave 15 free spins and paid 50.0x the stake. It grows after every cascade, with no declared ceiling. A Bonus Wheel Bet buys straight into the wheel, its segments pairing free spin counts with x2, x5 and x7 multipliers.

A retrigger of 3 scatters awards 5 extra free spins and 4 scatters award 10, and in my 420 spins the wheel opened six times. Two of those came from 7 Scatters, for 30 free spins apiece. The free spins delivered 376.85. The best of them, on spin 314, paid 147.0x the stake. That was 48% of everything the session won. In total I won 786.45 from 420.00 wagered.

Minty’s Final Note: Just about half of what Safari Gold Megaways paid me — 376.85 of 786.45 — arrived inside the Free Spins Wheel, and the base game spent most of 420 spins topping up small. Whatever you make of the 96.50% on the help screen, the wheel is doing the heavy lifting here.

Where 420 Spins Left Safari Gold

To be honest it's a bit tough to give mid-volatility slots impartial reviews when I'm a sucker for high volatility gambling. For what it's worth, 93 of my 420 spins paid something, and 48 of those came back under the stake.

The enormous wins to boast about are in there on paper as it is capped at a 50,000x max win. Getting there means the free spins multiplier compounding through cascade after cascade. That is about as high as it gets by today's standards. My own high point was 1,443.05, on spin 314. I just didn't get close to it, with 420 spins returning 187.2% and a best single spin of 220x off a cascade chain. The longest I went without a win was 19 spins, ending on spin 380. In other words, the hardcore slotters will have to endure a lot of 22% hit rate to discover whether that cap signifies anything.