Carnival of Freaks Slot Review
A grinning skull hangs in the night sky where the moon should be, and a blood-red neon sign buzzes “FRESH MEAT” over a butcher’s truck parked on the cobbles. This is the midway after the families have gone home, and DEGEN Studios has committed to it properly. The interesting thing is that the same commitment runs through the engineering: where most slots bolt new features onto an old core, this one runs a single coin-and-reveal system through every mode it has, and the whole game is better for it.
Carnival of Freaks is a horror-comic take on the carnival slot that earns its grimness through detail: a knife-thrower’s caravan with blades stuck in the target board, a fortune-teller’s stand with a crystal ball, a striped canopy bolted over the reels with riveted steel. It plays on a 5×6 grid with 50 fixed win lines, runs at 96.01% RTP, and tops out at 20,000x the bet. DEGEN Studios sits in good company here, with Book of Dizzy and City Of Sin already on the shelf alongside Covert Chaos and Holy Wilds. Freaks, it turns out, are a speciality.
Base Game & Features
Five reels, six rows, 50 fixed win lines. Wins pay left to right on adjacent reels, and only the highest combination on each line counts. That’s the whole engine, and it’s a generously sized grid for a line-based game: six rows give every spin plenty of landing space for the special symbols that do the real work.
Body Bag Reveal
The Body Bag is where most of the variety comes from. When it opens, it reveals one of several things, and what’s on offer depends on where you are in the game.
- Base game: any paying symbol, the Wild Freakshow Poster, or Freak Coins
- Cheap Thrills bonus: Character Symbols, the Wild Freakshow Poster, or Freak Coins
- Main Attraction and Full Freak Mode: the Wild Freakshow Poster or Freak Coins only
The tiering matters more than it looks. In the top two bonuses, Body Bags stop handing out ordinary symbols entirely, so every reveal is either a wild or a coin. The better the round you’re in, the fewer ways a reveal can let you down.
Freak Coins
Freak Coins carry values from 1x up to 5,000x the stake. Tips Buckets collect the coins, Cannons add spaces for more of them, and Mallets crank the multipliers up. What a coin reveal can spawn changes with the mode, too.
- Base game coin reveals: Freak Coins, Tips Buckets, Cannons and Scatters are possible, but never Mallets or Free Spins Tickets
- Bloodbath coin reveals: Freak Coins, Tips Buckets, Mallets and Scatters
- Free Spins coin reveals: Freak Coins, Tips Buckets, Cannons, Mallets and Free Spins Tickets, the full set
Notice the swaps. Mallets are locked out of the base game but available in the Bloodbath and free spins reveals; Cannons go the other way, appearing in the base game and free spins but not in the Bloodbath pool. Free Spins Tickets only ever appear during free spins, where they extend the round.
Bagged & Tagged
A base game modifier. When it hits, all Body Bags on the grid reveal the same symbol, or their positions convert into a Freak Coin feature loaded with special symbols. One outcome fills the screen with a matching set; the other turns the spin into a coin collection round.
Coin-Fed Chaos
The full-screen Freak Coin round, and the purest version of the coin mechanic the game has. Coins land and the buckets gather them. Cannons blast fresh spaces onto the grid so more coins can drop in, and every Mallet that arrives pushes the multipliers higher while the round runs.
Because nothing else shares the screen, every tool is working for the same total. It’s a round that builds as it goes rather than paying out at the end, which makes the order of the drops matter: a Mallet early is worth far more than one on the final coin.
Tempt Fate
Tempt Fate awards a random Freak feature when it triggers, drawn from the game’s roster of modifiers and bonus rounds. That includes the Full Freak Mode free spins, the strongest round on the board, so it’s the modifier with the widest range of outcomes.
The Wild Freakshow Poster stands in for other symbols and appears through the Body Bag and Freak Coin features rather than landing on the reels directly. Scatters trigger the free spins bonuses at 3, 4 or 5 symbols.
Carnival of Freaks Free Spins & Bonus Rounds
Three scatter counts, three rounds, each a step up from the last. All of them run on a global multiplier that applies to every win in the round.
- 3 Scatters: Cheap Thrills, 8 free spins, the multiplier starting at 1x
- 4 Scatters: Main Attraction, 10 free spins, again from 1x
- 5 Scatters: Full Freak Mode, 12 free spins, the multiplier opening at 4x
The global multiplier is the engine of all three rounds. It climbs as the free spins play out and applies to each win, so the later spins of a round carry the most weight. Full Freak Mode starting at 4x rather than 1x is the clearest gap between the tiers: it begins where the other two rounds need several spins to reach.
Body Bag and Freak Coin reveals stay live through every tier of free spins, but the pools tighten as the rounds improve. Cheap Thrills reveals still include Character Symbols; Main Attraction and Full Freak Mode cut them out, leaving only wilds and coins. Combined with coin reveals that can award Free Spins Tickets, the top round is built to retrigger and compound.
Tempt Fate can also drop you straight into Full Freak Mode without waiting on 5 scatters, which makes it the back door to the round most of the game is pointing at.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7.2/10
Playing it is a slow walk down a midway where most of the stalls are shut and one, the coin game, is always open. You come for that single idea, and it’s the right one to come for: because the bags and coins never change nature between modes, every round you reach makes you better at the game rather than restarting your understanding. The best of it is Full Freak Mode, which opens at 4x and strips the reveal pool down to wilds and coins, so nothing that drops can waste your time.
The worst of it is what sits underneath. Cheap Thrills and Main Attraction are largely the same round with a 1x multiplier and the loosest reveals, so most bonus triggers land as appetisers rather than events, and a 20,000x ceiling built this way demands a long session to feel reachable.
It’s for players who like one mechanic done thoroughly and don’t mind waiting out the weaker tiers to reach the good one. Anyone after varied, evenly spaced bonuses will find the midway here too quiet. For the patient, though, the night show is worth the walk.
Carnival of Freaks FAQs
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What is the RTP of Carnival of Freaks?
The RTP is 96.01%. -
What is the maximum win on Carnival of Freaks?
The maximum win is 20,000x your bet. -
How do you trigger free spins in Carnival of Freaks?
3, 4 or 5 Scatter symbols award the free spins bonuses. 3 scatters give the Cheap Thrills bonus with 8 free spins, 4 give Main Attraction with 10 free spins, and 5 give Full Freak Mode with 12 free spins. Tempt Fate can also award Full Freak Mode at random. -
How many paylines does Carnival of Freaks have?
The game is played on a 5×6 grid with 50 fixed win lines. -
What is the grid size of Carnival of Freaks?
Carnival of Freaks uses a 5×6 grid, five reels across and six rows high. -
What do Freak Coins pay in Carnival of Freaks?
Each coin pays between 1x and 5,000x your stake, gathered by the Tips Buckets as it lands. -
What is the difference between the free spins rounds in Carnival of Freaks?
All three rounds use a global multiplier that applies to every win, but the reveal pools tighten as the tiers climb. Cheap Thrills reveals include Character Symbols, while Main Attraction and Full Freak Mode award only the Wild Freakshow Poster or Freak Coins. Full Freak Mode also starts its multiplier at 4x instead of 1x. -
Can you retrigger free spins in Carnival of Freaks?
Yes. During free spins, coin reveals can award Free Spins Tickets, which extend the round. This is only possible in the free spins coin pool; base game coin reveals never award tickets.
