Rich Little Piggies Hog Wild Slot – Free Demo

Three coins, three shapes of bonus

The bonus arrives in three shapes, according to whether a Blue, Yellow or Red coin was in the trigger. One can never discount Light & Wonder. It is a studio with some of the most timeless online slots in its catalogue, and regrettably the fine slots are few and far between, although Light & Wonder slots do tend to be of all-around respectable quality. The same pigs run a different engine on Rich Little Piggies Meal Ticket, and the studio's other porcine build, Huff N' More Puff, runs its coins into jackpot meters as well.

Below 96% on twenty-five fixed lines

Rich Little Piggies Hog Wild is a 5-reel, 3-row video slot with 25 fixed pay lines, and it has a 95.70% RTP. That is a touch below my acceptable threshold of 96%. Line wins run from the leftmost reel across adjacent reels, and only the highest combination is paid on each one. Of the 430 spins I played, 100 paid, and 60 of those returned less than the 4.80 stake. With three distinct coin meters feeding the bonus, it's capable of some enormous payouts, and there's a Free Spins Feature included which I will examine more below.

The picture pigs and the card royals

On the reels I spot the not so thrilling card royals, and the premiums are depicted by picture symbols. The picture set is a boar mask, a ukulele pig and a beach pig with a clam shell. During the Mystery Reveal, those may be what a Mystery symbol turns into. In the one frame I captured, six lines paid 12.24 on a 4.80 bet. Wild substitutes for everything except the three Piggy Coins. The Blue, Yellow and Red Piggy Coins are the symbols that count most. Each has its own meter, and which coin is in the trigger decides how the free spins are played.

What a Mystery symbol turns into

The Mystery Reveal is a base-game feature. It occurs whenever Mystery symbols land, and every Mystery symbol is then revealed before pays and the reels settle accordingly:

• Wild: the Mystery symbol becomes a Wild.
• Piggy Coin: a Blue, Yellow or Red Piggy Coin is revealed on top of the replaced symbol.
• Premiums: one or more Mystery symbols become picture symbols.
• Low-value symbols: one or more Mystery symbols become card royals.

Piggy Coins that don't trigger the bonus fill their meters instead. The meters are held per bet option, so what you build up belongs to the stake you built it at. Blue adds 1 free spin to the Blue meter, which caps at 100. In my captured frame the Blue meter stood at 9, which is its reset value. Yellow adds 0.25x to 6.75x the bet to the Major, Maxi, Minor or Mini meter, and Red adds 15 Wilds, or 25 if the meter already displays 75, and caps at 100. The same frame had the Red meter on 15 Wilds and the Yellow meter part-filled, with the jackpot panel down the left reading Mega 60,000.00, Grand 3,600.00, Major 84.00, Maxi 48.00, Minor 36.00 and Mini 12.00.

Blue, Yellow or Red decides the round

To trigger the bonus you will have to land any mixture of Blue, Yellow and Red Piggy Coins. The size of the coins makes no difference to whether the feature triggers. That also awards 1x the total bet, and the feature awards the Blue meter's count in free spins if the trigger contained a Blue Piggy Coin, and 7 free spins otherwise. My first one landed on spin 14, ran 7 free spins and paid 129.60, 27 times the stake. The Blue meter resets to 9 after a Blue-triggered feature. The second came 366 spins later on spin 380, ran 9 free spins and paid 153.60, 32 times the stake.

Jackpot spaces and a Red meter of Wilds

In the bonus, you play an alternative reel set with base-game pay combinations. Between them the two features paid 283.20, which is 11% of everything I won. There are no Piggy Coins on the reels and Mystery symbols are still replaced before pays. That means the three meters stand still for the length of the feature. A Yellow-triggered feature lets Mystery symbols reveal Mega, Grand, Major, Maxi, Minor and Mini jackpot symbols, which populate meters of 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 2 spaces; filling one awards that jackpot and resets it. All six of those meters are cleared when the feature ends, so a part-filled Mega does not carry over. A Red-triggered feature carries as many Wild positions as the Red meter displays, then resets the meter to 15. A Red trigger fired at 15 therefore carries the fewest extra Wilds the feature can hold.

The Minty Breakdown: Two features across 430 spins paid 283.20 between them, 11% of everything the run won, while spin 135 on its own returned 1,627.20 off the base game at 339 times the stake, and without that one spin the 129% session becomes a losing one.

Down to 614.08 and back

When I first booted up the slot to give it a few spins I didn't really have high expectations, since being a Light & Wonder slot with a 95.70% RTP didn't appear like a combo much likely to impress me. I started with a balance of 1,000.00. As it turns out, however, it's a slot with enormous potential. The balance peaked at 2,240.32 on spin 138. Over 430 spins at 4.80 I staked 2,064.00 and won 2,662.08, a 129% return. It closed at 1,598.08, having been down to 614.08 at its lowest point. Spin 135 alone paid 1,627.20 for 339 times the stake in the base game. The next best base-game spin was 299, at 144.00 for 30 times the stake.

Twenty-three spins without a win

Sure, it's not the best-designed slot I've ever seen. Just like most other slots, it can get a touch sluggish when not in the mood for payouts - I endured 23 spins without a win ending on spin 352.