Day 17 - Ritual - Slot Review

On Day 17, we’re back to picking games from a small new studio we haven’t played before, and I picked Ritual by Paperclip Gaming.

It’s a 5x4 slot with a max multiplier potential of x10,000, and yes, it’s extremely volatile.

The mechanic here is all about the reel multipliers. In the bonus modes, every spin, each reel lights up one position with a random backer multiplier. If a winning combination forms on that position, the backer multiplier gets added to the reel multiplier at the top of the game. The backer multipliers can be 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x, 9x, 10x, 25x, 50x, 75x or 100x. The reel multipliers apply to every win that happens within those reels, and the total is the sum of all the reel multipliers above 1x.

The music is very good, but it’s not the right fit for this game’s math. The base game has little to no excitement, and the only goal is to hit one of the bonus rounds. When you combine a boring base game with sleepy music, you’re left with boring gameplay.

There are two bonus rounds:

The Offering (3 Bonus symbols): Base game rules apply, but the reel multipliers are persistent, so they carry over from spin to spin. Landing 3 more Bonus symbols retriggers 5 extra free spins. The Ritual (4 Bonus symbols): Same rules as The Offering, except the minimum backer multiplier is 10x, so every backer you hit is worth at least that.

There’s also Extra Chance, a side bet that costs 3x the bet and increases your chances of entering a free spins feature.

In the first 700 spins of our session, the game traumatised me with not even a single x10 win. It was the longest bad run I’ve had since the start of the project.

Then, in my last 300 spins, I first triggered The Ritual, but that bonus paid only x50. Less than 20 spins later I triggered it again, and oh man, the long wait finally paid off. I banked a x839 win from that bonus and turned things around.

Before the 1,000 spins ended, I also triggered The Offering twice, and one of them paid x100, which was decent.

This game is purely designed for bonus buys, and that’s where the fun sits. If I ever play it again, it’ll only be to buy The Ritual bonus.

Is it 1000 Spins APPROVED? YES, but would I play the base game again? BIG NO.