Wild Catcher Slot
The Wild Catcher video slot brings the beauty of the American West, and culture of the native people to desktop computers and mobile devices. Although the topic has been covered many times before, there’s a big market for games like this, and Wild Streak Gaming have picked classic symbols such as tomahawks, wolves, drums and Indian braves to make it appeal to fans of the Old West and its peoples.
Set out over odd-sized reels, this slot does without standard paylines and opts to give spinners an impressive 576 ways to line up symbols for a win. Any 3 of a kind, in any places on adjacent reels from the left side is all that’s needed, although special wild and scatter icons will give you further opportunities to scalp the casinos of their money.
Wild Streak Gaming is based in Las Vegas, the home of gambling, and generally produces slots for third party clients such as Aristocrat, Bally and WMS. It shows in some of the design features, such as the style of the playing card symbols and realistic quality of the pictures, so players who think it looks familiar will be right. It’s no bad thing though, and the Wild Catcher video slot shares the same high returns, fair play and reliability that comes as standard with Wild Streak Gaming slots, whether they are released under their own name, or for other brands.
On the Trail of Winning Lines
The dramatic mountains of the Western desert sit behind the 5 reels of this game, but those reels are not in your typical 3-row format, as the outer ones contain 3 symbols each while the 3 inner reels are 4 symbol positions high. To add to the Native American atmosphere, there’s a rough wooden framework surrounding them, plus decorative dream catchers are hanging from either side.
Colourful playing card icons 9, 10 and J are the least valuable, although as a result, these are the ones that will tend to appear more frequently. Landing any matching symbols across reels 1, 2 and 3 will be worth a win of 5 coins, while 4 of a kind pays 10 coins and a prize of 5 coins is paid out when either of these runs right across all 5 reels. The Q or K are both worth up to 100 coins and the A returns a maximum of 200.
We then move up to the Indian-themed pictures such as the tomahawks and drum, that are each worth 20, 50, or 250x the coin value, while a grey wolf pays 40, 100, or 500. The white horse, with red warpaint applied to it, pays out 800 coins when it’s in view across all 5 reels, while an arrow head is valued at a maximum of 1000. A serious-looking Indian brave pays you 200 coins when he’s on reels 1, 2 and 3, and there’s 500 paid when he’s also on reel 4, but the top prize of 2000 coins is yours to claim when this symbol lands right across the game.
Scouting out Bonus Features
A night time view of the landscape is a wild symbol that can act as any other, completing win-lines if it’s able to fill in the gaps in a continuous run of matching symbols, or extending a win across extra reels for a bigger reward. But it doesn’t spin down a reel in the standard way, and instead is randomly placed in between 2 and 7 places across the middle 3 reels before any spin. These wilds stay in place while the reels spin and once everything comes to a rest any wins will be paid.
Another unusual feature is that the arrow head is also the trigger for a free spins bonus round, so once any wins have been awarded for landing this symbol across 3, 4, or 5 reels, you are then granted 10, 20, or 30 bonus games respectively. There’s even more wild symbols added during the feature spins, and they can be retriggered by more winning combinations from the arrow head symbol.
Feeling Brave?
It’s been fully certified for fair play by independent testing labs, so punters won’t have to be particularly brave to stake real cash on the game although free Wild Catcher video slots have been provided for test spins.
It’s easier to just place wagers and start collecting prizes, and of course, the more coins in play, the bigger those prizes are going to be. The minimum bet is 0.40 and high rollers will be able to place maximum stakes of 100.00 per spin, which is going to lead them to some massive rewards when the right symbols land in place.
Up to 100 autoplay spins can be set off, and the other option that players can control is to activate the soundtrack or not. While there’s the pleasing sound of Indian pipes being played in the background, it can get a little overwhelmed by the beeps and bells that accompany each spin of the reels, so fortunately there’s always the mute button.
Going Native with Western Slots
There’s a rich variety of Western themed online slot machines available, and punters who like the genre will be spoilt for choice. A couple that come highly recommended though are Pistoleras, from Microgaming and Indian Gold, which has a similar appearance to Wild Catcher.
Pistoleras however, is all about beautiful women and their impressive weaponry. It’s set in a saloon and serves up features such as high-paying bonus symbols that are worth instant wins of up to 25,000 coins, plus a free spins round with stacked symbols, where all payouts are tripled. There’s a side game where players get to shoot at targets to reveal even more prizes in this hugely popular game.
Indian Gold has a few similar icons across the reels, including crossed tomahawks and a drum, but it’s also got golden totem poles that launch a free spins round, plus piles of gold which are wild and help to create extra win-lines.
Tepee or not Tepee, that is the Question
Although the theme and much of the design features of the Wild Catcher video slot have been seen many times before, there’s still enough here to make it stand out from the typical Native American themed games. Having 576 ways to land combinations is a pretty neat feature, but we really liked the wild symbols that get added before every spin, and while this is no guarantee of a prize, it makes this a game where frequent wins can occur.
Of course, many of these will be on the small side, as the casinos and game developers still need to pay their bills, but most gamblers prefer to get lots of wins rather than wait for ages to claim a prize.
So if you’re looking for a slot that delivers great results, can be played on Android devices, iPhones and iPads as well as desktop computers, while all the while looking great across all platforms, then perhaps Wild Catcher is one worth taking a closer look at.
