In recent years, the world of online casinos has witnessed an explosion in the development of new slots games. One such game that has managed to make a name for itself is "Forrest Arrow" – a 5-reel slot developed by a leading software provider. This review will delve into the intricacies of this game, exploring its theme, design, symbols, payouts, and various bonus features.
Theme and Design
Forrest Arrow takes players on an adventure through a dense forest, replete with wildlife and mythical creatures. The game’s backdrop is a breathtakingly detailed illustration of trees swaying in the wind, forrest-arrow.com while the reels are set against a wooden structure that appears to be part of an old hunting lodge. The overall design is visually stunning, making it a joy to play.
Symbols
The symbols on Forrest Arrow’s reels include traditional slot machine icons such as high-value cards (10-A), which are depicted in a rustic style with leaves and vines intertwined around the numbers. In addition to these, the game features a range of animals native to North America, including owls, foxes, rabbits, wolves, and eagles.
One notable symbol is the Wild Card, represented by an owl’s head. The Owl acts as both wild card and multiplier, substituting for any other symbol on the reels (except scatters) to create winning combinations. When a wild card appears in combination with other high-value symbols, it doubles their value.
Payouts
The payout structure of Forrest Arrow is based on a traditional 243-way payline system, where players can win by landing three or more matching symbols adjacent to each other on any reel or scattered across the reels. The payouts are relatively standard for a slot machine in its class:
- Cards (10-5) reward between 2x and 50x of the bet
- Lower-value animal symbols pay between 3x and 100x of the bet
- Owl Wild Card pays up to 5000x the stake when five land on a single reel
Wilds
The Wild Symbol, represented by the owl’s head, already mentioned above is active in the base game. The Wild acts as a substitute for all symbols except scatters.
There are also stacked wild symbols that appear on reels two and four. When they land on the reels during normal gameplay, these can lead to some nice combinations of winning lines and add an extra level of excitement to the spinning experience.
Scatters
The Scatter Symbol is represented by a small golden hunting trophy with two antlers. These appear only on reels 1,3 and 5. Three or more Scattered Trophies award Free Spins when they land anywhere on the reel – as long as these lands are in any three rows or if three scatters landed one above another (in which case we have an automatic activation of free spins).
Bonus Features
One notable bonus feature is triggered by landing three, four or five Scatter Symbols:
- 3 Scattered Trophies award 10 Free Spins with a multiplier
- 4 Scattered Trophies give us 15 Free Spins and a corresponding increase in the multiplier value.
- Landing all 5 Trophies will double your winnings for all combinations.
The free spins bonus mode starts automatically. During this feature, every new spin brings two extra reels to be combined (with any symbol that appears on one or more of these additional rows can give players an even bigger chance of getting at least three adjacent symbols together). Players have 5 rounds available. At the end of those five rounds a random multiplier is applied.
In addition to this there are some smaller rewards for having collected consecutive wins without being interrupted by any type of loss:
- A collection occurs after every single winning turn (a number of times, then a fixed sum of money).
- After collecting five consecutive wins in total, one can get an additional 5 extra free turns which offer no progressive multipliers but do multiply winnings more than what we might expect from other combinations with three or four adjacent symbols together.
RTP
The official Return To Player for this slot is unknown to me. But it’s worth mentioning that many reviewers and players claim the game pays out as much if not higher, on average of $1 in $10 bets placed during a long period of play – This value could be around 97%.
This RTP might actually have changed by now because I didn’t notice any actual change announced but since we do see games updating their payout data from time to time…
Volatility
Forrest Arrow is an average-to-high volatility slot. It may not offer the same level of excitement as more extreme volatile slots, it’s still capable of delivering some massive hits, often at unexpected times.
During normal play and also during free spins we can see that Forrest does go through a bit longer periods without any decent wins, with even more losing streaks on top – This kind of pattern is expected due to its classification as medium/high volatility game.