Wild Wild Chest slot review

Wild Wild Chest takes place in the dusty main street of an old Western town where we’re surrounded by bottles of tequila and stacks of gold bars as we watch the reels spin.

This slot was developed by Red Tiger Gaming and released in 2016, taking place as the name suggests at a time where the United States was still unconquered and wild. The slot has a standard 5-reel, 3-row playing field with a total of 20 paylines. The background places us in the middle of a sand-swept little town.

The symbols are big and detailed, consisting of the usual card symbols as well as unique paraphernalia related to the Wild West. Some of the symbols are characters, including the Wilds. There aren’t a lot of animations when it comes to the symbols themselves but there’s plenty of movement on the screen itself.

Cowboys are obviously a popular theme for a lot of slots so don’t expect anything too original, but the way it was designed definitely impressed me. The symbols are especially well drawn with a lot of detail.

When it comes to the music it stays pretty close to what you’d expect from a Western setting: whistling cowboys and a banjo are most of what you’ll hear. Wins are accentuated with a little jingle that didn’t really fit the theme, which is something a lot of developers struggle with. All in all, it’s very inoffensive background music.

Symbols

Wild Wild Chest is similar to most other slots available today in that it has high- and low-paying symbols, with the high-paying symbols unique creations and low-paying symbols based on playing cards. I can lament the lack of creativity here but it looks fine and the letters are made to look like the type you’d find on old-timey Wanted posters so they even fit the theme quite well.

The symbols are from highest to lowest:

• Lucky Chest: Any Lucky Chest on the screen will activate the Lucky Chest feature, with different bonuses associated with them.
• Free Spins: Get 3 Free Spins symbols on the screen to activate the Free Spins mode.
• Wild: Max. 1,000 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning line.
• Guns: Max. 320 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning line.
• Cowboy Hat: Max. 200 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning line.
• Cowboy Boots: Max. 160 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning line.
• Gloves: Max. 120 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning line.
• Ace: Max. 80 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning line.
• King: Max. 60 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning line.
• Queen: Max. 52 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning line.
• Jack: Max. 46 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning line.
• 10: Max. 40 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning line.

Getting a win doesn’t trigger any animations of the symbols themselves but does add the winning paylines to the screen. Depending on the size of the win it might also trigger other animations, including a Big Win sign and coins flooding onto the screen. I thought that was enough to give it some extra energy.

Features

Wild Wild Chest has a selection of rather basic features but they help liven up the slot enough to keep it interesting. The features are:

• Wilds: Wilds substitute all other symbols in the game except the Lucky Chest and Scatter Symbols.
• Stacked Wilds: During the Free Spins mode, Wilds will always be Stacked Wilds and fill the entire reel.
• Free Spins: With 3 Free Spins symbols on the screen at the same time the Free Spins mode starts. Players can get between 6 and 14 free spins.
• Lucky Chest: The Lucky Chest can offer different bonuses. There can be more than 1 Lucky Chest on the screen at the same time.
• Random Symbol: The Lucky Chest can have a Random Symbol appear more often on the screen.
• Re-Spins: The Lucky Chest can trigger a re-spin, creating new winning betlines.
• Reels Swap: The Lucky Chest can trigger a Reels Swap, swapping 2 or more reels to create the highest paying winning payline.

The Lucky Chest is the most original inclusion to this slot with 4 different options included. The simplest one is a coin win, which can be at most be 1,500x your bet but is usually something a lot lower than that.

The Reels Swap, Random Symbol and Re-Spins features are more interesting although they don’t always result in a win. The Reels Swap will switch the places of 2 or 4 reels with each other. A reel can’t swap places more than once. This will always create the highest possible payline.

With a Random Symbol, the Lucky Chest picks a random symbol on the screen and replaces other symbols with this Random Symbol. There can be up to 12 Symbols added this way, creating big winning betlines.

Finally, there are the Re-Spins. These are pretty much exactly what they sound like, triggering a free re-spin to potentially create more winning paylines. Unfortunately, the Lucky Chests are sticky and don’t act like Wilds so they can actually prevent wins this way.

I thought this was a fun mechanic that showed up quite often. The coin win was the easiest feature but also often very lucrative. The other features were a little more fickle, sometimes granting big wins and sometimes only creating small wins.

The Free Spins mode starts with the player being allowed to pick out of the 3 Free Spins symbols. Each of them hides a certain number of free spins which can be between 6 and 14. During the Free Spins mode, all Wilds are stacked and will be nudged up or down to fill the entire reel every time. It’s not possible to re-trigger free spins, unfortunately.

In Conclusion

Wild Wild Chest is a fun, gorgeous-looking slot with a tonne of atmosphere. The soundtrack is maybe the weakest part of the game in this aspect as it didn’t quite emphasise the Wild West theme as much as it could have.

The art is high quality even though there aren’t a lot of animations. The Lucky Chest is a welcome addition to what is otherwise a pretty standard collection of features. My favourite part kept being clicking on each chest to see what bonus popped out.

The slot has a Low Volatility but it was still quite likely to get bigger wins as well. My funds stayed rather steady the whole time playing. There isn’t that much room to choose the size of your bet, however, allowing bets between £0.10 and £60 per spin. The max. win of 2,000x your bet is quite substantial considering the steady stream of wins it provided.