Crystal Forest Slot – Free Demo

Five reels and a sun worth 750 line bets

Crystal Forest is a 5-reel, 3-row video slot with 25 paylines by Light & Wonder, and it is wagerable from 0.25 to 125. Wins pay for 3 or more matching symbols on adjacent reels of a payline, starting from the leftmost reel. It has no conventional free spins round in the respect that one activates a bonus by hitting scatter symbols to be granted a fixed number of free spins. Instead it contains two mechanics - Cascading Reels and Free Spins. Free Spins can also arrive at random at the end of a non-winning base game spin, in which case the award is 7 Free Spins. These will be described in depth below. I played 360 spins at a stake of 1.00 from a starting balance of 1,000.00.

The 7 low value symbols are depicted by crystal balls, magic spell books, crystals, candles, frogs, toadstools and snowflakes, and the 5 high-value symbols are depicted by fairies, goblins, unicorns, wolves and dragons. The highest payout is the Jackpot sun worth 750x the line wager for 5 of a kind, and there is also a Wild symbol. The Wild appears on reels 2, 3, 4 and 5 only and substitutes for all other symbols.

Crystals that shatter until nothing lines up

Hitting a win on any spin triggers the Cascading Reels, where the paying symbols break and the symbols above drop into their spot. In my session, 106 of the 360 spins produced a win, and 63 of those paid less than the stake.

Free Spins are granted if the punter manages to get a count of at least 4 cascades in a row during one spin, with the prize beginning at 7 Free Spins for a count of 4 cascades. It rises to 10, 15, 25 and 50 for 5, 6, 7 and 8 or more cascades. I reached Free Spins once, on spin 11, when 5 cascades in a row awarded 10 Free Spins.

As long as fresh wins appear, the Cascading Reels persist. That round paid 14.00 with no retrigger, which came to 4% of everything I won across the session.

The Minty Take: A 109.8% return over 360 spins leaned on a single 187x spin, while the one Free Spins round supplied 4% of what I won.

Up 35.10, most of it from spin 199

It's not poor. My balance went from 1,000.00 to 1,035.10, a session return of 109.8% on 360.00 wagered.

Crystal Forest is a touch baffling at first. The balance dipped to 915.30 at its lowest, and my longest run without a win lasted 13 spins, ending on spin 141. It requires some time to grasp what's going on with the mechanics. The biggest hit came on spin 199, which paid 187.00, or 187x the stake, and put the balance at its peak of 1,119.00.