Workshop Wonders

Workshop Wonders Slot Review

Snow settles on the rooftops of a village at night, a shooting star crosses the sky above the toy workshop, and an elf in striped socks pops out of a gift box clutching a firework. High 5 Games have made something genuinely odd of the setting: Workshop Wonders is a slot where the bonus depends on aim rather than a scatter count, with targets drifting above the columns and elves shooting them down.

It runs on a 5×5 grid, and the RTP starts at 90% and climbs to 97.2% as symbols are added or upgraded. That inventive streak puts it in company with St. Nick’s Pop and Win and Da Vinci DeluxeWays, both of which also find ways around the standard route to a bonus round. The seasonal dressing is the charm; the aiming is the game.

Base Game and the Target Symbols

The base game plays out on a 5×5 grid of columns, and the thing to watch sits above it rather than on it. At the start of a spin, if no target symbol is floating above any of the five columns, one may appear at random above column one or column five. It never lands on the reels itself. It’s a marker, not a paying symbol.

Once it appears, the target moves. One that spawns above column one marches one column to the right on every subsequent spin and disappears after passing column five. One that spawns above column five does the same in reverse, drifting left until it walks off column one. Either way, the clock is ticking from the moment it arrives.

Destroying a target is what starts the bonus, and there are three ways to do it:

• A shot fired by an elf that passes reel six on a column with a target above it
• A Santa symbol landing on a column with a target above it
• A Santa landing on a position with a tree symbol, on a column adjacent to one with a target above it

The elf is the workhorse of the three. He sits at the bottom of the board, and his shots travel up the columns. A target only falls when a shot passes reel six on its column, so a target on a far column needs the elf’s aim to line up first.

Santa is the rarer, more direct route. The tree-assisted version is the sneakiest of all, paying out a destroy for a Santa that never touches the target’s column. Adjacency is enough, which makes the tree symbols worth watching even when they look like filler on the board.

Symbols and Values

The paying cast is a toy-box line-up: snowmen, trees, toy trucks and rocking horses, with gift bags filling grid cells across the board and collecting as the spins go by. The snowman carries the paying weight in the base game, and its values sit on specific reels:

• On reels two, three, four and five, the snowman appears with values of 0.5x or 1x the total bet
• On reel six, the snowman appears with a richer value, again as a multiple of the total bet
• Gift bags occupy grid cells and build across spins rather than paying a fixed line win

The game’s theoretical return starts at 90.0% and increases up to 97.2% as symbols are added or upgraded, which makes the collecting feel like more than decoration.

Free Games Bonus

Destroy a target and the Free Games Bonus begins with ten free games. The round plays on completely different reels: six of them, each running horizontally across the screen, stacked in vertical ascending order with reel one at the bottom and reel six at the top. The board effectively turns on its side, and nothing about the base game’s geometry carries over.

Symbol placement matters more than usual here, because each character is restricted to certain reels:

• Elves and Santa appear only on reel one
• Snowman and tree symbols appear only on reels two, three, four, five and six
• The toy truck appears only on reels four, five and six
• The rocking horse appears only on reels five and six

The pattern is deliberate. The characters that do the destroying, the elves and Santa, all live on the bottom reel, so every bonus spin begins with the shooters at the foundation of the board and the prizes stacked above them.

The snowman keeps its paying role, again carrying values as multiples of the total bet, with reel six at the very top hosting the richer version. Free games play automatically once triggered, so the round runs itself from the first shot to the last. All you’re watching for is where the value lands and whether an elf can reach it.

Triple Shot Power-up

One tile changes the elf’s behaviour. Land an elf on the triple shot power-up and it fires on the adjacent columns as well, widening each shot from a single column to three. On a board where the elf’s aim is the only thing that brings a target down, that spread covers three times the ground.

The power-up turns the elf from a sniper into a scattergun, and because the bonus round’s prizes are stacked up the reels the elf can reach more of them per shot. Picking up the tile is the difference between picking off one column and sweeping the middle of the board. It’s a small mechanic with an outsized effect on how a round plays out.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.8/10

Playing Workshop Wonders means watching the columns more than the reels. A target drifts along the top of the board and every spin bends around one question: will something bring it down before it walks off the edge? The pull is the aiming puzzle, and the snowy village around it is genuinely lovely to sit in while you wait.

The strongest idea is the bonus round, which tips the whole board on its side and stacks the shooters on the bottom reel with the prizes above them. The weakness is the RTP range: 97.2% is the ceiling and 90% is the floor, and the floor is a poor game by any measure.

It’s one for players who enjoy a slow build and a bit of aim in their Christmas wrapping, and less so for anyone who wants fast, frequent bonus rounds. Let the snow fall and give the elf time to line up his shot.

Workshop Wonders FAQs

• What is the RTP of Workshop Wonders?

  The RTP starts at 90.0% and increases up to 97.2% as symbols are added or upgraded, so 97.2% is the top configuration.
• What is the grid size of Workshop Wonders?

  The base game uses a 5×5 grid. The Free Games Bonus switches to six reels that each run horizontally across the screen, stacked vertically from reel 1 at the bottom to reel 6 at the top.
• When is Workshop Wonders released?

  Workshop Wonders’ release date is 8 December 2022.
• Who makes Workshop Wonders?

  Workshop Wonders is made by High 5 Games.
• How do you trigger the Free Games Bonus in Workshop Wonders?

  A target symbol appears above a column and moves one column per spin. Destroy it with an elf’s shot passing reel six on that column, a Santa landing on that column, or a Santa landing on a tree adjacent to that column, and the bonus starts.
• How many free games does the bonus award?

  Destroying a target awards 10 free games, played automatically on the bonus round’s six horizontal reels.
• What does the Triple Shot power-up do?

  When an elf lands on the triple shot power-up tile, the elf shoots on the adjacent columns as well as its own, covering three columns instead of one.
• Which symbols appear only on reel 1 in the bonus?

  Elves and Santa appear only on reel 1. Snowmen and trees sit on reels 2 to 6, the toy truck on reels 4 to 6, and the rocking horse on reels 5 and 6.