Lights Slot – Free Demo

Fireflies place the wilds before the reels stop

Lights from NetEnt launched on May 22, 2014. It is a slot built around Floating Wilds, and they arrive at random on every single base-game spin. The fireflies that swarm across the reels are the animation for the wilds being placed. Alongside them there is a Free Spins round, with one or two changes to how those wilds operate once you are inside it. The stake itself is built from a Level and a Coin Value rather than set as one figure.

Lights' base game and bonus round differ by one number, and in the base game, the play happens on a 5-reel, 3-row grid in combination with 9 fixed paylines supplied for assessing wins along. The lines are fixed, so there is nothing to switch on or off before a spin. They pay left to right with only the largest win per line counted. In the captured panel that works out as Bet 9, Level 1 and Coin Value 0.20, for 1.80 a spin. The bonus round retains the same grid, but it delivers more wilds - as you will see.

The pay table tops out at 1,000 coins for five red lanterns

A comparatively small count of paylines is compensated for by the wilds, and the highest line pay is 1,000 coins for five red dragon lanterns. A base-game spin with the wilds already in place looks unremarkable: two of them among the red dragon lanterns, a 30-coin win worth 6.00 at this stake, balance 992.20. Notably, a wild symbol is supplied to help connect winning lines. It substitutes for everything except the Scatter. That leaves the Scatter as the only symbol you have to land on its own merits. Dead or Alive 2 and Starburst XXXtreme are two other NetEnt titles covered on this site.

Three Scatters, anywhere on the reels

Landing 3 or more scatters anywhere activates the Free Spins, and the count of scatters denotes the count of free spins awarded. Anywhere means anywhere - the Scatters do not have to sit on a payline or on neighbouring reels. 3 scatters give 10 spins, 4 give 20, and 5 give 30. Scatters landing during the round itself count the same way, which is how a retrigger happens.

The round adds one more wild at either end

The player's task in the bonus round is nothing at all. Nothing carries between spins either, since each free spin gets its own fresh handful of wilds. The reels merely keep spinning, and where the base game releases 2 to 4 Floating Wilds, free spins release 3 to 6 of them per spin. The leanest free spin therefore starts with three wilds, one more than the leanest base spin. They land at random across the grid, and the round can also be retriggered from inside itself. A retrigger asks for three more Scatters on a single free spin, the same condition that opened the round.

The Minty Summary: The Free Spins add wilds instead of changing the machine — 3 to 6 a spin against the 2 to 4 the base game hands over for nothing — so the round is the same reel set with a thicker handful of substitutes on it. Six of them across my session paid 138.60 between them, 26% of everything won.

470 spins at 1.80 a spin

Over 470 spins at 1.80 a spin the Floating Wilds kept the reels ticking over. Wagering came to 846.00 across those spins, with 537.84 coming back. Merely 170 spins paid anything, though, and 108 of those paid less than the stake. The longest gap without a win was 11 spins, ending on spin 405.

The Free Spins arrived six times - once on spin 19, then 26 spins later, then after intervals of 53, 139, 65 and 126 spins. The last of them landed on spin 428, with 42 spins still to play. They were worth having without ever running away with the session. The first, on spin 19, paid 27.00 and took the balance to 1,001.62. The best of them was a 30-spin round on spin 98, and it paid 45.00, 25.0x the stake. That one moved the balance from 950.86 to 994.06. None of the six retriggered, and between them they paid 138.60, 26% of everything won. The smallest was 7.20 on spin 45, 4.0x the stake. The session as a whole returned 63.6%. Four of the five biggest wins on the session had a bonus round attached to them. It peaked at 1,002.88 on spin 59, ending at 691.84 from a 1,000.00 opening.