Hotel Yeti-Way slot review

In need of a vacay? Then head on over to Hotel Yeti-Way for a good dose of sunshine, holiday activities and fun. Launched by Play’n GO in time for Summer 2021, Hotel Yeti-Way is a vibrant 6-reel, 3-row slot and up to 262,144 (during free spins) ways to win.

The Yeti is your best friend in this slot. He brings with him several features and as a Wild substitutes for all symbols bar the scatter tile. You will be able to join him for bungee jumping, scuba diving or for a surf.

Yes, it is a ridiculous-looking slot. But if you’re yearning for a taste of summer and a chuckle then this slot will leave you satisfied on both fronts.

Symbols

High-paying symbols will take the shape of your summer wish list (or nightmare considering the shark is the highest-paying symbol). Low-paying symbols are tiki-inspired card suits.

The symbols, from highest to the lowest consist of:

• The scatter tile can appear on all reels. With 3 or more scatters the free spins round is triggered.
• The Wild tile is your summer BFF - the Yeti. He substitutes for all symbols apart from the scatter. It also yields 3x with 6 adjacent symbols.
• The shark yields 3x with 6 adjacent symbols.
• The sun hat and the sunglasses yield 2x with 6 adjacent symbols.
• The flip flops and the suncream yield 1x with 6 adjacent symbols.
• The Ace, King, Queen, Jack and 10 suite symbols yield 0.5x with 6 adjacent symbols.

Features

• The Wild Yeti features
  Whenever the Yeti makes an appearance during the base game (both tiles) it will trigger a random feature: bungee jumping, scuba diving or surfing.
  
  
  • The bungee jumping Yeti will create 1 to 4 reels of stacked wilds.
  • The surfing Yeti awards between 2 and 8 wild tiles across the reels.
  • The scuba diving Yeti awards a respin round where the Shark tiles are frozen. Adding more sharks will grant a further respin (up to 24).

• The Bonus Round
  Landing 3, 4, 5, or 6 scatters will trigger the bonus round and award 8, 12, 16 or 20 free spins respectively. There are three adventures you can choose from here and they are the same as the Wild Yeti Features. Each adventure has its own features.
  
  
  • The bungee jumping adventure will land 1 to 4 stacked wilds reels with every spin.
  • The surfing adventure lands between 2 to 8 wilds on each spin.
  • The diving adventure will freeze sharks in their tracks. If the wild symbol lands again, it will trigger the respins (up to 24) and each shark that lands adds another respin.

So the mechanics of the bonus game mirror the Yeti features but there is one extra thing happening. During free spins, the reels become dynamic in how many payways they offer. Spins will have a x2 payway which doubles the number of reels. Up to 6 payways can come into play, multiplying the payways to x64 and increasing the ways to win to 262,144.

Free spins can also be re-triggered once during the free spins round to a maximum of 40 free spins.

In conclusion

Let me start by saying that I love everything about Hotel Yeti-Way when it comes to the look and feel of it. The graphics scream summer vacation, the colour palette is gorgeous, the animations are so tongue in cheek, and I could go on. What I don’t like, however, is its mechanics. They are brutal.

Here we have a game that looks chill but will give you a heart attack the minute you start spinning the reels. I just couldn’t catch a break. It took me over 60 spins to get my win above the 1x amount. The Yeti features were yielding almost nothing. The bonus was impossible to get into and when I did I only managed a 2.6x win with the Bungee feature. It was so bad I had to close down the game and do something else for a moment.

Then I restarted and although it wasn’t as bad, I still was getting little in terms of wins. OK, the Yeti feature was yielding better wins. The surfing feature was by far the best landing me wins averaging 15x. The Diver feature never yielded anything and the Bungee Yeti’s yield was around the 7x mark. The bonus never materialised again even if I went through around 500 spins.

So as you can imagine the volatility here is set to high but with great risks naturally come great rewards and that is the 30,000x max win. It is the bonus round where you will get the chance to hit such a win. Probably it is the scuba diving feature that best lends itself to these wins but it is also the most volatile of the 3.

Hotel Yeti-Way may be ridiculously good looking and it does bring with it a good dose of comedy, but the mechanics are not for the faint of heart.