Back To Venus

Back To Venus Slot Review

A carnivorous plant the size of a garden shed looms over the reels, jaws open, while a riveted yellow rocket waits on the other side of the frame. Back To Venus is a slot that rewards you for losing, and that’s not a joke at its expense: two of its four features fire only on spins that pay nothing, which makes a dead reel stop the start of something rather than the end. Betsoft builds the whole thing around a bug-eating garden on an alien world, and commits to the bit.

It runs on a 5×3 grid with 20 fixed paylines, and the RTP of 97.07% is high enough to make almost anything else on the shelf look greedy. The studio’s catalogue ranges from Stay Frosty to Take The Kingdom and Thai Blossoms, and this is among the most generous of the lot on paper. Whether the features match that number is the real question.

The Venus Jungle and Its Symbols

The scene is a storybook take on a hostile planet: cartoonish 3D greenery, a soft blue sky, and wooden reels wound in vines. The giant flytrap on the left isn’t decoration, either. It’s one of the game’s central characters, and two of the four features are built around it.

The paying cast suits the setting. An astronaut in a red helmet leads the paytable, followed by the flytrap itself and a wide-eyed alien framed in purple. Below them sit three pieces of plant life, a red-roofed pod, a mushroom cluster and a green seed pod, with the royals propping up the low end.

Wins pay left to right across the 20 lines, with the highest win per line counting and coinciding wins on different lines added together. Payouts scale with the selected bet, and the values below are multiples of the total stake.

• Astronaut: 1.5x for three, 5x for four, 15x for five
• Venus flytrap: 1x, 3x, 6x
• Alien: 0.75x, 2x, 4x
• Plant pod, mushroom cluster and green seed pod: 0.5x, 1.5x, 3x
• A and K: 0.25x, 0.75x, 1.5x
• Q and J pay slightly less, at 0.25x, 0.5x and 1x

That ladder is flat at the top. Even a full line of the best symbol returns 15x the total bet, and the royals barely cover the stake at five-of-a-kind. The special symbols carry the weight instead.

The Asteroid Wild substitutes for every symbol except the Rocketship, sticks to reels two through five, and holds its place for two spins. The Rocketship is the scatter, and it also lands only on the back four reels.

Prickly Stick and Respin

Every losing spin carries a chance that the game picks a random symbol, one of the mid or high tiers rather than the Rocketship, the Asteroid Wild or the royals, and sticks it to the reels for a respin. All symbols of that type then hold in place while the rest spin again.

Respins keep going until the sticky symbol forms a win. It pays out on three or more, and standard wins are still possible alongside it. If free spins have already been awarded, they run after this feature finishes.

There are limits. It can’t trigger while sticky Asteroid Wilds are already on the reels, and neither the Rocketship nor the Asteroid Wild can land during it. The chosen symbol isn’t guaranteed to appear before the feature starts or on the first respin, so there’s a stretch of waiting built in.

Flowering Wild Boost

On any non-winning spin, the plant can go wild. The reels light up with a green border, a free respin is granted, and a win isn’t promised. What is promised is asteroids: five, six or seven Asteroid Wilds get scattered onto the reels for that respin.

Those wilds aren’t sticky this time. The boost can’t fire while sticky Asteroid Wilds are present, and the Rocketship can’t land during it. Any free spins already won play out once the respin is done.

Sticky Asteroid Wilds

Asteroid Wilds that land in the base game stay put for two spins. If a new one drops onto the same position as an existing sticky wild, the counter resets, so a chain of overlapping wilds keeps the position alive far longer than two spins on its own would suggest.

A scatter can land in place of a sticky wild.

Rocketship Free Spins

The Rocketship scatter appears on reels two, three, four and five, and there are two tiers:

• 3 Rocketships: 10 free spins, with all Asteroid Wilds sticky for the full round and a higher chance of more wilds landing
• 4 Rocketships: 10 free spins, with sticky Asteroid Multiplier Wilds from x1 to x3 possible on the reels

In the four-scatter round, wild multipliers on the same winning payline multiply together, so a pair of x3s pays nine times the line win. Not every wild carries a multiplier, and the x1 versions just display as normal Asteroid Wilds, so you can’t tell the difference until a win lands.

The round plays at the bet of the triggering spin and takes place on a second screen. It can’t be retriggered, and neither Prickly Stick and Respin nor Flowering Wild Boost is available during it. If either of those features fired on the same spin as the scatters, they finish first.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.8/10

This is a game you play for its base game. Three separate systems are pushing Asteroid Wilds onto the reels between bonuses, and the sticky wild chains mean a spin rarely feels thrown away, which is the honest reason to choose it over a plainer 5×3. The flytrap gives the whole thing a personality most reels-only slots never bother with.

Its best trick is making losing spins productive: Prickly Stick and Respin and Flowering Wild Boost both fire on dead spins, so the game works hardest exactly when it’s paying you least. Its worst habit is a free spins round that can’t be retriggered, sitting on top of a paytable that tops out at 15x. A poor ten spins is a poor round, and the base game’s smaller wins won’t dig you out.

It suits players who like the action between features more than the features themselves, and who value that 97.07% return over a big headline ceiling. Players chasing five-figure hits will find the garden too quiet. For everyone else, the plant is good company.

Back To Venus FAQs

• What is the RTP of Back To Venus?

  Back To Venus has an RTP of 97.07%, which is well above what most online slots return.
• How many paylines does Back To Venus have?

  The game is played with 20 fixed paylines, with wins paying left to right and only the highest win per line counting.
• Who makes Back To Venus?

  Back To Venus is made by Betsoft, the studio behind titles such as Stay Frosty and Take The Kingdom.
• How do you trigger free spins in Back To Venus?

  Rocketship scatter symbols land on reels 2 to 5. Three of them award 10 free spins, while four award 10 free spins with the added chance of Asteroid Multiplier Wilds appearing.
• Can free spins be retriggered in Back To Venus?

  No. The free spins round cannot be retriggered, and the Prickly Stick and Respin and Flowering Wild Boost features are unavailable while it runs.
• What does the Asteroid Wild substitute for?

  The Asteroid Wild substitutes for every symbol except the Rocketship. It can only land on reels 2, 3, 4 and 5, and in the base game it stays sticky for two spins.
• How does the Flowering Wild Boost feature work?

  Any non-winning spin can trigger it. The reels light up with a green border, a free respin is granted, and 5, 6 or 7 Asteroid Wilds are placed on the reels. A win isn’t guaranteed, and those wilds aren’t sticky.
• Which symbols can be chosen for the Prickly Stick and Respin feature?

  Any symbol except the Rocketship, the Asteroid Wild and the royal symbols A, K, Q and J can be picked at random. It sticks to the reels and respins continue until it forms a win.