Claws vs Paws Slot
There’s cat burglars in town, stealing jewels from a vault and being chased by a police dog across the reels of the Claws vs Paws video slot from Playson. It’s an entertaining cartoon adventure that nonetheless comes with some seriously high winning potential and a range of rewarding bonus features that include reel re-spins in the base game, big wins from a computer-hacking cat, and 3 different free spins rounds, each with their own special kitty treats.
The 5 reels are crossed by 20 lines, all of which are permanently active and any 3 or more of the same symbol across a line will equal a winning spin. There’s lots of detail to each symbol, and some clever design touches, such as a background image of a city street where the columns of a bank look like bones and there’s a cat-shaped door where our furry feline felons are based. Gameplay is accompanied by a jazzy soundtrack that fits in perfectly with the theme.
The Playson slot games developer is based in Malta and their range is licensed by the local gaming authorities who guarantee their fairness. Although the collection is still fairly small, it’s a growing portfolio and includes some well-known slot machines such as Kingdom of the Sun, Alice in Wonderslots and the booze-based Down the Pub, to name but a few. All of their games are mobile compatible for playing on Apple, Android, or Windows devices, as well as across desktop PC’s, with the same exciting bonus features and fun gameplay available across all platforms.
Animal Antics
In common with many slot games, the lower value wins are made by card symbols, with the 10 returning prizes of 5x, 10x, or 100x the amount bet on each payline when it’s on 3, 4, or 5 reels. The J, Q and K will each pay out a little more and the top card symbol is of course the A and this is valued at 10x, 40x and 200x the line stake.
A set of keys will pay up to 250x, as will a British Bobby-style police helmet, while a bone on a red velvet cushion returns wins of 40x, 150x and 300x. The game logo only needs to land on 2 reels to be worth a prize, while landing it across all 5 reels on a payline will see the best reward of 500x the line bet claimed.
Even this is topped by the shiny diamond symbol, which pays between 2x and 600x the line bet when it’s seen on between 2 and all 5 reels across a line, while this is also the wild symbol, so it’s able to act as all except the scatters when it’s seen in the right places to complete a combination.
In-Game Bonuses
In any spin, a cat with a tablet computer can appear at the side of the reels and hack the symbols, but don’t worry as all he does is add extra wild diamonds for a guaranteed winning spin, and the rewards from this feature will be some of the biggest payouts in the game. This hacking cat is also able nudge scatter symbols into place to trigger bonus features, while he will also randomly award you with between 2 and 4 reel re-spins, each of which is a guaranteed winner. What a helpful cat!
There’s a nice doggy treat to get your teeth into as well, as the police dog shines a red light onto the reels at random, respinning them while the lower-paying card symbols are removed from the mix, so it’s both easier to land a win, and that win will be created by high-paying symbols.
Multiple Scatter Features
The bank vault is a scatter symbol that can appear in any places in the main games, but there are special cat scatters that appear on reel 5 only and trigger unique free spins games. If the cat burglar on a green background is seen at the same time as 2 vault scatter symbols, you enter a free spins game where sliding wild symbols will drop down the reels one row at a time. These spins go on until there’s no more wilds on the screen, although a maximum of 3 sliding wilds will appear, so they’re not going to go on forever.
The cat on a blue background coupled with the vault will start a free spins round with progressive multipliers in effect. During these spins, a green decryptor device will increase win multipliers by 1x, but a red alarm symbol will reduce the multiplier by 1x and this goes on until 3 alarms have turned up.
Landing our criminal cat on a yellow background on reel 5 along with the vault in any 2 places, takes you to the sticky wild free games, where a random number of spins are awarded, and during which wilds will stay locked in place until the police dog removes them.
Achievement Token Feature
For most slot games, having multiple in-game features and 3 different free spins rounds would be enough, but the Claws vs Paws video slot goes even further with random tokens appearing next to some symbols. Once enough have been collected, you can spin a prize wheel, triggering either a bonus feature or collecting a real cash award of up to 40x the stake.
The longer you can wait and the more tokens you collect, the richer combinations of features and multipliers are on the prize wheels, so it’s worth hanging on for as long as you can, and you certainly won’t be barking up the wrong tree once you have enough of them.
Betting Options
While free Claws vs Paws video slots can be found, the majority of people like to play for real cash awards, so can start spinning the reels with stakes as low as 0.20 per spin. The high limit is 100.00, which can lead to some massive payouts, while other betting options include an Autoplay function where you can spin the reels for up to 100x and get them to stop at whatever win or loss limits you want.
Canine Caper Slots
Although the blend of cats, dogs and crime are pretty unique, there’s still a few games that feature one or two of these themes together. Hound Hotel, from Microgaming has a similar cartoon style, and comes with features in the free spins such as split wilds that boost the chances of completing a line, up to 3 fully wild reels at a time, and super stacked wilds.
Cops n Robbers, from Mazooma, may not have pets as the main characters, but it’s got a similar theme and style, along with a wild police dog who doubles wins, a beautiful policewoman and 3 hopeless villains. There’s free spins, tripled payouts, and a Hot Pursuit feature where players roll dice to move around a board, collecting wins until the cops catch up.
Does this game give us paws for Thought?
The Paws vs Claws video slot is an exceptional game that’s packed with clever design touches as well as an outstanding collection of bonus features and that’s fully mobile optimised to appeal to the widest possible audience.
Having several in-game extras is one thing, but those lovely people at Playson decided that it wasn’t enough, so we also get treated to those free spins with extra wild features and the chance to collect tokens to spin a bonus wheel in this fun, animal themed online slot game.
