Haunted Reels

Haunted Reels Slot Review

A grinning skeleton lounges against the right-hand edge of the frame, one bony leg stretched across the foreground, while jack-o’-lanterns glow in the corners of a moonlit forest half-swallowed by blue mist. Haunted Reels hides its best ideas below ground: almost nothing in the main game matters until the coffins open, and that patience is the price of one of the more flexible bonus setups BGaming has shipped. The 5×5 grid pays by ways rather than lines, running at 97% RTP with mid-to-high volatility.

It sits in the same haunted corner of the studio’s catalogue as Chicken Halloween and Noche de Almas, though it’s a stranger, spookier beast than either. Witchcraft Riches covers similar ground for players who prefer their spells to their skeletons.

Either way, the lanterns here are lit, and the graveyard pays better than it looks.

The Main Game

Wins pay by ways, not fixed lines: a way has to start from the first reel and run at least three cells long. There’s no payline count to keep track of, which suits the 5×5 layout. The reels sit in front of a gothic house with one lit arched window, gravestones leaning at both edges, and the skeleton watching every spin like he’s seen it all before.

The symbol ladder runs from three skulls down through spiders, bats, potions and candy to the cups, and it’s a modest ladder by any measure. Pays are multiples of the total bet, for three, four and five of a kind:

• Purple Skull: 1x, 2x, 3x
• Red Skull: 0.75x, 1.25x, 1.5x
• Green Skull: 0.5x, 1x, 1.25x
• Spider: 0.3x, 0.6x, 0.75x
• Bat: 0.3x, 0.5x, 0.6x
• Pink Potion / Candy Corn: 0.15x, 0.25x, 0.3x
• Pink Candy / Green Candy: 0.15x, 0.2x, 0.25x
• Red Cup / Blue Cup: 0.1x, 0.15x, 0.2x

The Wild is a ghost that substitutes for every symbol except the Bonus symbol, and each one carries a random multiplier of x2, x3, x5 or x10. That multiplier is the main event in the main game, and it’s the only thing standing between a spin and the small change at the bottom of that ladder.

Visually, the game leans on saturated blues and warm orange accents, with two vine-wrapped iron lantern posts flanking the reels and carved pumpkins grinning from the ground. Dark pines and bare branches fill the background behind a drifting haze. It’s glossy cartoon horror rather than anything genuinely grim, and the art does a lot of work making a modest paytable feel festive.

The Bonus Game

The Bonus symbol is a jack-o’-lantern that doesn’t pay anything itself but can land on any reel. It’s the door to everything else in the game:

• 3 Bonus symbols award 5 free spins
• 4 Bonus symbols award 7 free spins
• 5 Bonus symbols award 10 free spins

Coffins

The free spins round runs on coffins. They sit on the spinning reels, and when the reels stop, some of them open or explode at random. Each opened coffin reveals one of three things: a “+1 free spin” symbol, a multiplier, or a symbol chosen in advance at the start of the round.

That pre-chosen symbol matters, because it’s the one the round is built around landing. Coffins keep feeding it onto the grid, spin after spin, and the round quietly becomes about stacking enough of them before the spins run out.

A lucky coffin can also stretch the round itself, one free spin at a time.

Multiplier Collection

Multipliers work on a collect system. When an x2, x3, x5 or x10 lands in the bonus game, it flies off to a special area at the side of the field. Collect five of them and they activate: at the end of the round, all five fly back onto the symbols on the grid at random, boosting whatever is sitting there.

Five is the threshold, and nothing happens below it. A round that gathers four multipliers and stalls pays for its symbol stacks alone, which is where most of the tension in this feature lives. A full set of five x10s is the dream, and even a mixed bag of small ones can turn a modest stack into something respectable.

Bonus Buy: Green, Red and Purple

There’s a buy menu with three differently priced bonus games, and the differences between them are more than cosmetic. Green, Red and Purple each play differently and each carries its own volatility rating:

• Green – the standard bonus game, identical to the one triggered by 3 or more Bonus symbols in the main game; low volatility
• Red – purchase only; plays like the Green game but the symbol chosen in advance comes from the high symbols only; medium volatility
• Purple – purchase only; plays like the Red game, except collecting 5 multipliers yields 10; very high volatility

The Red game’s restriction is the quietly important one. A pre-chosen symbol drawn from the skulls and creatures rather than the candy and cups gives every coffin reveal a floor it wouldn’t otherwise have, at a price the buy menu sets accordingly.

Double Shot

The Purple game’s doubling comes with its own flourish. When five multipliers are collected and scattered randomly across the sticky symbols at the end of the round, the skeleton recharges and scatters the same multipliers all over again. Ten boosts land where five would have, and a full collection in the Purple game pays twice over.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.8/10

You come to this graveyard for one thing: the bonus. Between coffins, everything is gentle spins, small pays and a skeleton who looks no more hurried than the math model, and that slow build is precisely what makes the round underneath worth waiting for.

The Green, Red and Purple menu is the best idea in the game, because it turns one bonus into three genuinely different experiences and lets you pick your own volatility instead of the studio picking it for you. The weakness is the main game itself: outside the wild multipliers, the paytable is thin enough that long stretches between coffins can feel like sitting through the slow half of a ghost story.

This one’s for players who enjoy a collect mechanic, a patient build and a graveyard this handsome; it’s a poor fit for anyone who wants the base reels to entertain on their own. The lanterns stay lit either way, and the coffins are worth the walk through the mist.

Haunted Reels FAQs

• What is the RTP of Haunted Reels?

  The RTP is 97%, comfortably above the industry average and unusually generous for a seasonal Halloween release.
• Is Haunted Reels high volatility?

  Overall it’s rated mid to high. The bonus buy menu lets you choose your own: the Green game is low volatility, the Red game is medium and the Purple game is very high.
• What is the grid size of Haunted Reels?

  It’s a 5×5 grid with 25 cells in play, and wins are formed by ways starting from the first reel rather than by fixed paylines.
• How do you trigger the bonus game in Haunted Reels?

  Land 3, 4 or 5 Bonus symbols (the jack-o’-lanterns) anywhere on the reels. They award 5, 7 or 10 free spins respectively and don’t pay anything on their own.
• What does collecting five multipliers do in Haunted Reels?

  Multipliers of x2, x3, x5 or x10 that land in the bonus game fly to a collection area. Once you’ve collected five, they activate and fly onto the symbols on the grid at random at the end of the round, boosting the win. In the Purple bonus game, collecting five yields ten instead, and the Double Shot scatters them twice.
• Can you buy the bonus on Haunted Reels?

  Yes. There are three purchasable bonus games: Green, Red and Purple. Green is the standard round, Red restricts the pre-chosen symbol to the high symbols, and Purple doubles a full multiplier collection to ten.
• What do the coffins do in the Haunted Reels bonus game?

  Coffins sit on the spinning reels during free spins. When the reels stop, some open or explode at random, revealing a ‘+1 free spin’ symbol, a multiplier, or the symbol chosen in advance at the start of the round.
• When is Haunted Reels released?

  Haunted Reels’ release date is 15 October 2024.
• Who makes Haunted Reels?

  Haunted Reels is made by BGaming.