Play Troll's Stash for Free

Rather fittingly, the scene of this slot machine is the outdoors: a dark, dank night, with the light from a dim, dying fire at the heart of the grid. Although this sounds all well and good, we then take a closer look at the matrix and begin to see that all is not well.

Roundstone have a knack for mismatching their design; they start off well but then seem to pile everything in in an attempt to make the game look more in-keeping. The result is a jumbled mess. Don’t get us wrong, compared with Underwater, this slot has been given more attention to detail, but not as much as we’d have liked or hoped.

That being said, the symbols you’d expect with a slot themed such as this are all there - there’s a green big nosed troll, a log cabin, a cave, menacing clubs and a chest of gold.

We’re not referring to the Wings song of a similar name (but different spelling), but to the difficulty you’re about to encounter along your quest. The company behind Troll’s Stash isn’t known to be brutal with its volatility, but we found this particular title to be a lot more trying than others. Try as we might, we rarely made a win; the only time luck favoured us was during the bonus round, and that’s basically because you can’t really lose during the feature.

Out of our ten first spins of the reels, we got one win of x5, which isn’t nearly as promising as it sounds. In fact, the total came to a 0.05 win, which is an extremely poor reward.

What is more, it also brings into question how rewarding the paytable actually is. When you look at it, it states that the smallest payout is 5, but we got only 0.05 at our lowest win!?

Pick and choose is what Roundstone slots are all about, so it’ll surprise no one that the gambling option follows that pattern. In this version of the guessing game, you get two boulders, both of which flip up to reveal what’s underneath, either LOSE or x2.

As clever as the graphics of this extra are, they don’t save us from the fact that these gamble options soon become boring, especially if you always play with this brand, for they do the same thing every time. The company jazzes up the looks, but the heart of the round remains the same.

We’re at risk of sounding like a broken record with both this game and the brand, but sadly this is one of those slot machines that lets you down. It starts off well, but it soon becomes apparent that what you’re getting here is a one hit wonder, with little to offer up during any future playthroughs.

It’s predictable and safe, which some of you will welcome if other online activities have hit hard, but for us it’s lacking a vital piece of what makes a slot special.

If we had to rate this game, it would be three stars; granted that isn’t a bad score to be given, but with so much choice out there, can any real cash slot afford to be anything less than the full package?