Ghostbuster Slot – Free Demo
Provider:
KA Gaming
Every Wild that lands during the free spins pushes the cheapest ghost one rung up a five-step ladder toward the golden gourd, and one, two or three of them add 1, 3 or 5 spins. Over 290 spins at 125.00 that happened once, and the balance still closed at 89,925.00.
Play Ghostbuster demo
Four Ghosts and a Golden Gourd
It ships with an expanding Wild on the base game as well as a free spin mechanic. The free spin round is played at the same bet as the spin that triggered it. That mechanic contains the chance to win additional free spins. In my 290 spins at a 125.00 stake, the free spin round came up four times.
There are some intriguing mechanics at work. It still comes across as rather a conventional slot, though, with it's 5-reel, 3-row and 25 paylines layout. All 25 paylines are fixed, so every spin covers every line. Nothing amiss with that. My session ended at 89,925.00 from a starting balance of 100,000.00, a return of 72.2% on 36,250.00 wagered.
The Ghost Ladder Paytable
Ghostbuster features a Wild symbol and a Scatter. Only the Scatter pays anywhere on the reels; every other symbol pays left to right on a payline. Four ghosts and a golden gourd are the top-paying symbols, and A, K, Q, J and 10 are the low-paying symbols. Five of any of those card symbols on a line pay 2x the total bet, and three pay 0.2x.
The ghosts, that is the top-paying symbols, arrive in a ladder - green ghost, purple ghost, red ghost with lantern, blue ghost and golden gourd. Five of a kind on a line pays 4x the total bet for the green ghost, 8x for the purple ghost, 10x for the red ghost, 16x for the blue ghost and 20x for the golden gourd. In Free Spins they are shifted up that ladder, and it will make more sense if you continue reading. A green ghost moved up to purple, for example, turns a five-of-a-kind line from 4x into 8x the total bet.
Catching Ghost and the Twelve Free Spins
The Wild can appear on reels 2, 3 and 4 only. It substitutes for every symbol except the Scatter. It may expand to cover the entire reel. Because the Wild never lands on reel 1, a paying line always starts with a regular symbol there.
12 Free Spins are awarded if 3, 4 or 5 Scatters appear anywhere on the base game. The Scatters also pay on their own, 5x the total bet for three, 10x for four and 50x for five.
In Free Spins, the Catching Ghost mechanic is in effect, and if 1, 2 or 3 Wilds appear on the reels, 1, 3 or 5 further free spins are awarded. In my session the round on spin 104 was the only one where Catching Ghost added a spin, one extra for 13 in all, and it paid 1,450.00, or 11.6x the stake. Until the golden gourd is reached, each Wild also upgrades the least-valued top-paying symbols one step up the ladder. The other three rounds ran their 12 free spins with nothing added and paid 35.0x, 4.8x and 28.0x the stake.
Our Minty Verdict: Four free spin rounds carried 38% of what I won, and the base game spent most of its hits paying back less than the stake. A 72.2% return over 290 spins is what that split looks like when the bonus shows up only four times.
A Re-Skin With a Lantern
It still comes across as a standard KA Gaming slot in spite of the Catching Ghost free spin mechanic. Across my 290 spins the free spin rounds paid 9,925.00, which was 38% of everything I won. It doesn't seem like there was too much ambition put in making it stick out or for it to open new territory. Of those 290 spins, 89 paid something, and 51 of those paid less than the 125.00 stake.
It's not a poor slot in any way. My balance peaked at 102,987.50 after the 35.0x round on spin 33, and my longest run without a win was 11 spins. But finally I can't help to feel like I'm playing a re-skin rather than something novel and wholly new. IGT's Ghostbusters Triple Slime and NetEnt's Ghost Pirates are two other ghost-themed slots. It's one of those slots that will be played for a week or two and then quietly drift off the lobby.