Cannon Cove

Cannon Cove Slot Review

The night cove is all lantern-glow and dark water: a stone pier along the bottom, palms on the rocks, and what looks very much like a small volcano smouldering orange on the right-hand island. High 5 Games have made a game here where the most important symbol never touches the reels. Everything in Cannon Cove aims at a blue icon that walks along the top of the columns, and until something shoots it down, the reels below do little but pay scatter cash.

That’s a patient, unusual design for a jackpot game, and the maths leans generous too: the theoretical return starts at 90.0% and climbs to 97.2% as symbols are added or upgraded. Sister titles from the same studio include 88 Drums, Arctic Sky and Da Vinci DeluxeWays. Whether the cove’s cannons fire anything worth catching is the question.

Reels, Columns and Symbols

Play takes place across columns with a scatter-style payout system: scatter symbols pay wherever they land, and the win amounts are shown on screen rather than tied to fixed positions. There’s no wild symbol in Cannon Cove, and nothing substitutes for anything else. What you see is what pays.

The characters doing the heavy lifting are the cannons. Several cannon-type symbols sit on the reels, and they’re not there to pay you directly. Their job is to shoot, and what they shoot at is the key to the whole game. That key is a swirling blue icon that never occupies the reels itself.

Alongside the cannons sit two other groups of symbols, each with its own job:

• A scatter that pays fixed cash amounts wherever it lands, with the winning amount displayed on screen at the moment it hits
• Value symbols tied to your total bet, appearing on reels two to five at 0.5x or 1x the stake, and on reel six at a higher multiple of their own

Because the scatter pays by amount rather than by symbol combination, a single spin can show several scatter wins stacked together, each carrying its own figure. The win display updates as they land, which keeps the base game readable even when the reels fill up.

An icon labelled X3 sits at the foot of the play screen as well. It’s a multiplier marker rather than a paying symbol, and it belongs to the same family of on-screen markers as the moving icon that drives the bonus. A second marker, labelled +3, appears in the same spot during play, and both sit outside the reel grid entirely.

The Free Games Bonus

The Moving Icon

At the start of each base game spin, if no icon is hovering above columns one to five, one may randomly appear above column one or column five. On every spin that follows, it moves one column towards the opposite side. Once it slides off the far end, it’s gone.

That walking icon is the trigger target, and the whole base game is a chase to destroy it. Because it moves, you’re always aiming at a moving prize, and the tension builds the further it travels before something knocks it down.

How the Bonus Triggers

Three separate routes destroy the icon, and each one starts the Free Games Bonus:

• A shot fired by certain cannon symbols that passes reel six on a column with the icon above it
• A cannon symbol landing directly on a column with the icon above it
• A cannon symbol landing on a position with a cluster of small red items, on a column adjacent to one with the icon above it

Any of those blows lands you 10 free games. The icon that triggered the round doesn’t appear on the reels during the feature, so the chase is over once you’re in.

The three routes aren’t equally likely to line up, and that’s what gives the base game its texture. A cannon landing dead on the icon’s column is the clean hit, while the shot that travels the full width of the reels has to pass through everything in between first. The adjacent-column route, with its cluster of red items, is the most conditional of the three.

Bonus Reels and Symbol Placement

Free games play out on a completely different reel set. Six reels run horizontally across the screen, stacked vertically in ascending order: reel one at the bottom, reel six at the top. It’s an unusual layout, and it changes how the symbol placement reads:

• Certain cannon-type symbols appear only on reel one
• Certain other symbols appear only on reels two, three, four, five and six
• Another symbol appears only on reels four, five and six
• One further symbol appears only on reels five and six
• On reels two to five, value symbols appear at 0.5x or 1x the total bet
• On reel six, the top reel, the value symbol appears at its own stated multiple of the total bet, and that’s where the round’s biggest pays are positioned

The structure rewards reading the board from the bottom up. Cannons fire from reel one, the middle reels carry the steady value symbols, and the money sits at the top of the stack. A spin that fills the upper reels with value symbols is the one the round is built around.

Scatter wins continue through the feature as well, paying the same fixed amounts they do in the base game. With six reels in play and the value symbols climbing towards the top, a good round layers both on the same spin.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.8/10

Cannon Cove is a waiting game, and the waiting is the point. A blue icon drifts along the top of the columns while cannons line up to knock it down, and that’s the one reason to choose it over a louder five-reeler: every spin has a target, even the quiet ones. It’s a chase you watch rather than a bonus you hope lands.

The bonus layout is the best thing here. Six horizontal reels stacked bottom to top, with the biggest pays parked on the topmost reel, reads like nothing else, and it gives the round a shape of its own. The weakness sits between triggers: strip away the walking icon and the base reels are plain, with only scatter cash to keep the water warm.

For players who enjoy a slow chase that pays off in one well-built round, this cove is worth mooring in. Those after constant feature hits will find the tide too calm, but the cove knows when to fire.

Cannon Cove FAQs

• What is the RTP of Cannon Cove?

  The theoretical return to player starts at 90.0% and increases up to 97.2% as symbols are added or upgraded. The 97.2% total is the figure to look for, and it’s well above the industry average.
• Who makes Cannon Cove?

  Cannon Cove is made by High 5 Games, the studio behind titles including 88 Drums, Arctic Sky and Da Vinci DeluxeWays.
• When is Cannon Cove released?

  Cannon Cove’s release date is 14 July 2022.
• How do you trigger the Free Games Bonus in Cannon Cove?

  A moving blue icon appears above column 1 or 5 and walks one column per spin towards the opposite side. If a cannon symbol’s shot passes reel 6 on its column, a cannon lands directly on its column, or a cannon with a cluster of red items lands on an adjacent column, the icon is destroyed and 10 free games begin.
• How many free games does the Cannon Cove bonus award?

  The Free Games Bonus awards 10 free games, played on a different reel set of six horizontal reels stacked vertically with reel 1 at the bottom and reel 6 at the top.
• How do the bonus reels work in Cannon Cove?

  During free games, six reels run horizontally across the screen, positioned in vertical ascending order from bottom to top. Cannon-type symbols appear only on reel 1, other symbols are restricted to reels 2-6, 4-6 or 5-6 depending on the symbol, and reel 6 carries the highest value symbols.
• What does the scatter pay in Cannon Cove?

  The scatter pays a fixed cash amount wherever it lands, with the amount shown on screen when it hits. Because it’s a scatter, position doesn’t matter: it pays the same whether it sits on the leftmost column or the rightmost.
• What do the cannon symbols do in the base game?

  The cannon-type symbols don’t pay directly. Their job is to destroy the moving blue icon that walks across the columns, either by firing a shot that passes reel 6 on the icon’s column, by landing on the icon’s column, or by landing next to it with a cluster of red items. Any of those starts the Free Games Bonus.