Can you hear that mighty cry echoing across the savannah? It's Big Roar, the majestic new slot game by Indigo Magic, one of the accomplished Bragg Studios. The game takes you to the African wild, home of some of the biggest beasts in the world, and lets you play as the fierce king of the jungle. Are you alpha enough to rule a pride of lions?
The first impression is of a game that is very neatly designed with excellent animal artwork and a pleasant musical score that invokes the finer sides of life in the untamed wild. The reels spin over a nicely executed carved wood panel with intricate regional decorations, even buttons have ethnic pattern backgrounds, and animal symbol backgrounds are coded by color to make symbols easily distinguishable.
Soon, however, tension starts mounting as lion wilds start landing and the stakes get higher. Wilds can appear anywhere, but on reel 3, they may land stacked all over it with a magnificent display of the king of the jungle. This significantly increases the chances of scoring a winning combo - and this is where things can get really serious.
Selectable paylines
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First things first, your opening move before any spins would be to select the number of paylines you want to play on. The game offers you two options, switchable at any time before the spin: five or ten. They seem balanced in the sense that choosing five paylines lowers wins frequency but increases their value, while ten paylines do just the opposite. This way you can adapt the game to your tastes and preferences, and strategically affect its results. Do you feel lucky? Go for five paylines. Do you want to play it safer? Then ten paylines are just right for you.
Free games and repeat pay
This is the primary feature of the game: land a wild winning combo to receive 5 free games, during which the line count gets doubled automatically. The value won this way gets recorded on the baobab tree scatters and establishes the scatter repeat pay values you might score later in the phase. To trigger the repeat pay mechanics, land baobab scatters in this phase and each will instantly pay out your current scatter repay value.
How about increasing that value for bigger wins? You can do that too. Simply land more wild wins in this phase and their values will be added to the repeat pay value on the left, increasing your consequent wins. On top of this, each wild win during free games will re-trigger them and award you with 5 extra free spins.
What's more, the game has a buy bonus option that works with both payline options and triggers a wild lion win that starts the free games phase. And that's still not all: in this phase too, all paylines are doubled, creating even more chances at landing those coveted wild lion wins. Can you hear the roar now?
Scratch to win
Not scratch tickets, though, but scratch symbols depicting a lion claw tearing at the reels. These symbols appear on outer reels only during free games and deliver monstrous jackpots by combining the wins above the first and the last reel. Strike left and right by landing them on both reels at the same time to secure a win worthy of a king. This seems to be the least frequent but the most lucrative way to win in this game, and - especially when playing on 5 lines - could dish out over 1000x your bet on a single spin.
Our final verdict
As you can see, Big Roar employs some nicely synergizing features that help you score hefty wins - again and again - such as the repeat pay mechanics. This latter really shines in combination with the stacked wild, it's instantly understandable, a delight to chase and a pleasure to trigger. Despite relatively high volatility, free games seem frequent enough to attract casual players, and high-rollers will definitely enjoy the game's potential for bestial combos and savage jackpots. Either way, any player will surely appreciate the narrative journey of a lion climbing to the top of the food chain and the beastly power that can be unleashed with each spin in Big Roar.
Visit the game page for more information.
