Turning Totems

Turning Totems Slot Review

A spear-carrying figure in a feathered headdress stands at the edge of a sunbaked canyon, cacti flowering purple against faceted red-orange rock. That’s the world Turning Totems drops you into, and for a game of this vintage the cartoonish 3D rendering still looks better than a lot of what ships today. Few slots this old are built with this much discipline: nearly everything the game does grows out of a single rule, and it holds together because of it.

Thunderkick made it, and it sits alongside Esqueleto Explosivo 3, Flame Busters and Fruit Warp in a back catalogue that has always preferred odd characters to generic royalty. The specifics are a 5×3 grid with a carved totem head atop every reel, 11 fixed paylines paying both ways, a 96.1% RTP and low volatility. The snakes, wilds and respins all feed one another, so a single snake can quietly set off a chain of events.

The Base Game and Its Totems

Five reels, three rows and 11 fixed paylines, with wins counted from both directions. Because the lines pay two ways, a three-symbol combination reads left to right or right to left. Only the highest win per payline, in each direction, is paid, so a line can’t collect twice for the same symbols.

That two-way setup does a lot of quiet work on a low-volatility game. It halves the distance any combination needs to travel. A pair of matching symbols sitting on reels one and two is already live, whichever side of the grid the win starts from.

The practical effects of the two-way lines are worth listing, because they touch everything else in the game:

• Combinations pay from the leftmost reel or the rightmost reel
• Only the highest combination on each line counts, in each direction
• All wins are paid in the selected currency, according to the pay table

Bets can’t be altered once a round is under way, and autoplay is on hand if you’d rather let the canyon take over for a while. The wild substitutes for every symbol except the Thunder Snake, and a payline made entirely of wilds pays at a higher rate than a normal line. Most wilds you’ll see arrive asleep, and waking them is what the rest of the game is about.

The grid carries its own bit of theatre. Each reel is topped with a carved totem head, and when a reel turns electric the whole of it lights up against that warm backdrop of cacti with purple blooms, red rock and hazy mesas behind. For a game of this age, the presentation still does its job handsomely.

Thunder Reels, Snakes and Sleeping Wilds

Every feature in Turning Totems hangs off a single chain of cause and effect, and it’s worth setting out the whole system in one place:

• Thunder Snake – turns the reel it lands on into a Thunder Reel for the rest of the game round
• Thunder Reel – stays charged, and wakes any Sleeping Wild that lands on it
• Sleeping Wild – a normal symbol anywhere else, a full wild on a charged reel
• One or two charged reels on a spin – one respin at the same bet
• Three or more charged reels on a spin – the bonus game of five free spins
• All respins – played with the same bet as the spin that triggered them

The Thunder Snake

The Thunder Snake doesn’t pay anything itself. Its job is to strike the reel it lands on and turn that reel into a Thunder Reel, which stays charged for the remainder of the game round. One snake, one lit reel. It’s a simple rule, and everything else in the game hangs off it.

The charge doesn’t fade between spins within the round, which is the detail that makes the mechanic matter. A reel struck in the first spin of a round is still live several respins later. That’s what gives a single snake a value well beyond the symbol itself.

Sleeping Wilds

Then there’s the Sleeping Wild. As the name suggests, it dozes through the game as a normal symbol most of the time. Land one on a Thunder Reel, though, and it wakes up and acts as a full wild for the rest of the round.

That’s the whole relationship in one line: snakes light the reels, and lit reels wake the wilds. The two features are useless in isolation and useful together, which is more design discipline than plenty of slots manage.

Respins

Any spin that charges reels without reaching three awards one respin, played at the same bet as the triggering spin. So a lone snake isn’t a dud: it buys another chance to add a second or third Thunder Reel, with everything already lit staying lit.

The respin chain is where the base game gets its pulse. Every charged reel carries forward, so each respin starts from a better position than the spin before it. A round can ladder its way up from one snake to a fully charged board without the bonus ever triggering, and the two-way paylines pay out along the way.

The bet question is settled by the round, not the spin. Because every respin carries the triggering spin’s stake, a long chain of them costs nothing extra to ride out. There’s no decision to make mid-chain, which suits the game’s unhurried temperament.

The Bonus Game

Reach three or more Thunder Reels on a single spin and the bonus game triggers, awarding five free spins. That’s a deliberately modest number, and it makes sense given what’s already on the board: the Thunder Reels stay charged for the round, so you’re spinning with at least three live reels.

Every Sleeping Wild that lands on a charged reel during those spins wakes immediately. The bonus round in practice runs on three facts:

• Five free spins, awarded by any spin reaching three or more Thunder Reels
• All Thunder Reels present at the trigger stay charged throughout
• Sleeping Wilds landing on those reels act as wilds straight away

Free spins play out with the charged reels doing the heavy lifting. A wild that wakes on a lit reel stays wild for the rest of the round, so the first two free spins can feel like setup and the last three like payoff, depending on where the Sleeping Wilds land. No retrigger cap is stated for the bonus game.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.1/10

Turning Totems plays like a slow storm moving over the canyon. A snake lights one reel, a respin buys another attempt, and every spin starts from a slightly better board than the last. That build is the whole reason to choose it: watching the game click together piece by piece is quietly absorbing, and the two-way lines keep small wins arriving while the storm gathers.

The strength is the economy of it. Four features that are really one system, nothing wasted, every part feeding the next, and the game still makes that loop feel worth following a decade on. The weakness is the destination. Five free spins is a thin reward for all that gathering, and low volatility keeps the payoff modest even on a fully lit board.

So it suits players who enjoy the machinery as much as the result, happy with steady, small returns from a game that never pretends to be a jackpot chase. Anyone who needs a five-figure ceiling will find this canyon pays in drizzle, not floods. For everyone else, the totems still turn nicely.

Turning Totems FAQs

• What is the RTP of Turning Totems?

  Turning Totems runs at a 96.1% RTP, which is a solid mark for a low-volatility game.
• Is Turning Totems high volatility?

  No. Turning Totems is a low-volatility slot, so wins tend to be smaller and steadier rather than rare and large.
• How many paylines does Turning Totems have?

  The game has 11 fixed paylines with two-way wins, meaning combinations pay from left to right and right to left. Only the highest win per payline in each direction is paid.
• What is the grid size of Turning Totems?

  Turning Totems plays on a 5×3 grid: five reels with three symbol positions each, every reel topped by a carved totem head.
• How does the bonus game trigger in Turning Totems?

  A spin that brings the number of Thunder Reels to three or more awards a bonus game of five free spins. Spins that charge reels without reaching three award one respin instead.
• What does the Thunder Snake do?

  The Thunder Snake turns the reel it lands on into a Thunder Reel, which stays charged for the rest of the game round. It doesn’t pay anything itself, and the wild can’t substitute for it.
• How does the Sleeping Wild work?

  The Sleeping Wild acts as a normal symbol until it lands on a Thunder Reel, where it wakes up and acts as a wild for the remainder of the round. A payline of only wilds pays at a higher rate than a normal line.
• Who makes Turning Totems?

  Thunderkick, the Swedish studio behind titles like Esqueleto Explosivo and Fruit Warp.