Forest Rush Slots
Set deep in a magical forest, where ethereal creatures roam amongst the flowers and toadstools, the Forest Rush video slot from Cayetano Gaming plays safe with a popular theme, and keeps gamblers bankrolls safe with a high return to players ratio and decent bonus features. These include stacked wilds and a special Re-shuffling Bonus that can lead to extra rewards without needing any extra wagers.
The Cayetano Gaming casino games range has become known for outstanding design, although they appear to have been heavily influenced by the Avatar movie in this online casino slot game, as there’s an eerie purple glow to everything, including the gnarled trees, vines and grasses that form a background image. It’s very effective at adding a magical and mysterious atmosphere, which is helped by the suitably strange soundtrack that can be played alongside it.
Symbols are in a conventional 5x4 grid pattern, with spinners needing 3 or the same across any of the 40 paylines, on adjacent reels from the left side to get a win, and there’s a minimum bet level of 0.40 needed to start playing for real cash awards, or you can practice on free Forest Rush video slots. It’s easy to add more coins to each line, right up to the huge maximum bet of 1000.00 per spin. It’s mobile-optimised, giving you the option to explore this magical realm on Android or Apple-powered smartphones and tablets.
Spinning up Magical Rewards
Strangely-shaped high card symbols, designed to look like the twisted branches of a tree, will line up to create most winning combinations. A review of the pay-table reveals how many times the amount bet per line is won, with the lowest returns of 6x, 15x, or 40x coming when the 10 lands across 3, 4, or 5 reels. J, Q and K symbols are worth steadily more and the A is valued at 10x, 25x, or 60x the line bet.
Higher coin rewards are claimed when the various plants and animals of the forest turn up, starting with a bluebell that pays up to 80x, while the butterfly, toadstools, snail and rabbit will also be worth some valuable prizes. The top symbol is an owl, and when this wise creature flaps his way across 3, 4, or 5 reels of a payline, the rewards are equal to 50x, 100x, or 200x the amount staked on it.
There’s just a single bonus symbol in play here, and it’s a mysterious Enchantress, who triggers all of the features. She’s a special wild symbol that will be able to act as any other to complete winning lines if needed, and because the wild tends to be stacked several high on a reel, it’s quite easy for her to line up favourably and plug any gaps in a run of standard symbols.
Re-shuffling Bonus Feature
The main feature of the Forest Rush video slot is also awarded by this lovely lady. When all 4 spots on a reel are filled with the wild, it becomes an expanding wild symbol, giving players a full-length view of the Enchantress, in her cape and holding a glowing crystal ball, which she casually tosses into the air.
She can complete win-lines in the normal way and will then re-shuffle other symbols, not just once, but up to 5 times over, potentially bestowing new winning combinations upon you each time. This is in effect a free spins bonus round, and while 5 extra games isn’t much, and there’s no guarantee of any new wins, it’s still an unusual feature that can be triggered quite frequently.
Other Magical Forests Available
For some reason, there’s quite a range of magic forest themed slot machines, perhaps because it gives designers plenty of scope to add interesting symbols to the reels. Other slots set in enchanted woodlands include Forest Harmony, by Spinomenal, where fairies grant you bonus games, free spins and symbol transformations, while Forest of Magic, from Roundstone International, pretty much sums up what the game is about in the title.
Perhaps the best-known of the genre however, is Playtech’s Forest of Wonders slot machine, which is themed around Alice in Wonderland and has classic features such as wilds and free spins to enjoy.
Final Thoughts on Forest Rush
A great design doesn’t always mean great gameplay, but fortunately, the Forest Rush video slot can spin up loads of winning lines, although payouts can often be on the lower side relative to the amount wagered. Low-volatility slot games like this are popular however, as no one wants to be waiting around for ages to land some prizes, even if the corresponding coin wins are high-value.
The main bonus feature isn’t unique, but it’s certainly uncommon, and while some players like to see free spins or scatter symbols, the expanding wild symbol feature, and re-arranged symbols, go a long way to making up for these, although with a maximum number of re-shuffles being only 5, and potentially just the 1, has to be said that it’s not the best bonus feature we’ve ever seen.
