Cats Slot – Free Demo
Provider:
IGT
Ten of a kind on a five-reel game reads like a misprint until the stacked pairs explain it: every cat in Cats lands as a doubled tile, so a played line can carry ten symbols across five reels. IGT hung its only feature on paw prints rather than on the cats, and the black panther sits at the top of…
Play Cats demo
Every cat comes doubled
The world's large cats continue to prove irresistible to slot makers. The wild here is the Cats logo rather than any one of the animals. They are reappearing on the reels on a routine basis, and this time it's IGT that's had a go, placing their game Cats among the hunting sort. IGT hung the feature on paw prints instead of on any of the cats. For whatever reason, I don't frequently get one beast carrying a game on its own, and so is the situation with Cats: here the chief character is the black panther, joined by the lion, the tiger, the leopard and the cougar. When it comes to features, well, there is one bonus game up for grabs in the world IGT has built, while prowling through this grass.
Cats has been around since August 2013. It is a lot more simple than the more recent slots, and the play occurs on a game field composed of 5 reels, 3 rows and 30 paylines. Line wins pay from left to right. They are multiplied by the line bet rather than the total one.
Cats was played here at 0.30 per spin. Spread across all 30 lines, that is a line bet of 0.01. There is no maximum listed in the rules, and RTP is set at 94.93%. On cat-themed reels the volatility isn't as steep as it frequently is; here it is rated medium, or 3/5 for those who favour a numerical rating.
Every cat symbol arrives as a lone head and as a stacked pair. The pair counts for 2 on a played line, so combinations stretch all the way to ten of a kind rather than halting at five. Two stacked pairs and a single head across the first three reels are already worth five of a kind. Symbols are split into two sets, the low pay card ranks (A, K, Q, J), plus high pay symbols – cougars, leopards, tigers, lions, and black panthers. All five cats pay the same 10 times the line bet for three of a kind. As to values, the panther pays 2500 for ten and the other four cats peak at 1000; the ace pays 200 for five and K/Q/J pay 100 for five, all times the line bet. Four of a kind splits them again, at 30 times the line bet for the panther and the lion and 25 for the tiger, the leopard and the cougar. The regular wild is worth more, at 10,000 times the line bet for a line of five, and it also substitutes any pay symbol except the paw prints to form a winner. Four of them in a line pay 1000 times the line bet, and three pay 300. When it stands in for one of the five cats, it counts as double.
Five or six paw prints across the middle reels
Cats has managed to cram in less than most for a game this aged, with one extra in total. That extra is the Free Spins Bonus, and paw prints are the only way into it. During the base game, watch out for the paw print that drops on reels 2, 3 or 4 - 5 or 6 in view trigger the Free Spins Bonus, and helping players out is the stacked paw, which counts for 2 in any spot. A single paw counts for 1, so six in view can arrive from as few as three stacked tiles. Four paw prints don't launch the round at all. But they do pay 2 times the total bet.
Six paw prints award 10 free spins. A banner across the reel frame repeats that in the base game, spin after spin. Five paw prints award 5, and the spins operate at the triggering line bet and line count, on a distinct set of reels to the base game, with the same paytable. The wild works the same way in there, still counting double when it stands in for a cat. Free spins cannot trigger additional free spins. All three of my rounds ran through without one. So there is no retrigger.
The Minty Breakdown: Of my 445 spins, 125 paid something and 78 of those handed back less than the 0.30 stake, so the grind sets the tone here far more than the one feature does, and the three bonus rounds between them contributed 13% of everything I won.
The 88.80 spin outpaid all three bonuses
IGT has built quite a modest slot, with about as many upsides as downsides, and few cat themed slots are as aged as Cats, or carry as few extras. The base game is fairly simple. The longest I went without a win was 14 spins, ending on spin 167. The hit rate is average – 125 of my 445 spins paid something, though 78 of those paid back less than the stake. The balance bottomed out at 172.37 and peaked at 268.94. But the lone feature holds some promise.
The Free Spins Bonus, for one, isn't the most thrilling, or profitable: three rounds arrived over 445 spins. They came on spins 136, 292 and 389, so 156 spins passed between the first and the second, and another 97 before the third. Together they paid 23.40. The three were close in size, at 8.10, 7.80 and 7.50. That is 13% of everything I won. Each was worth between 25 and 27 times the 0.30 stake. Larger thrills turned out to be more probable in the base game. The second biggest win was 18.00 on spin 147, 60 times the stake. One spin there returned 88.80 from a 0.30 stake, 296 times it, and the rules cap any single transaction at 500,000.00.
Cats doesn't feel suited to the diehard players, despite the respectable win possibilities. That single spin paid more than three times what the three bonus rounds paid together. The general presentation is outdated, and that, the double-counting wild, and medium volatility feel like a better fit for a more relaxed approach; add it all up and you've got an aged slot with a fair bit of grind. Two of the three bonus rounds landed while the balance was above its 200.00 starting point. Cats is not exactly a deadly gambling game. The session return worked out at 139.4%. But there are amusing moments to be had for sure. The 88.80 spin took the balance to 260.87. My 445 spins wagered 133.50 and returned 186.12, taking 200.00 up to 252.62.