18+ Only. Play Responsibly.
One square remained on reel two.
That was all.
Three buffalo Wilds were already stacked vertically across it, each animal staring out of its golden frame with the calm expression of something that had discovered it could solve most spatial problems by becoming larger.
The fourth position still contained a Q.
I had €188.60 left.
The stake was €2.
I considered changing it.
I didn’t.
The Q had survived two spins in circumstances that were becoming increasingly unsuitable for alphabetic life.
I pressed spin again.
To explain why a single green letter had become the most closely watched animal in the American West, I had to go back about forty minutes.
Wild Herd Stampede Stacks had opened on an enormous sunlit plain surrounded by red cliffs, yellow grass and enough wildlife to make the five reels look like the only fenced area for several hundred miles.
Buffalo.
Horses.
Wolves.
Eagles.
Snakes.
The snake seemed particularly optimistic. Everything else on the screen either flew, stampeded or had the shoulders required to move a small wagon. The snake had arrived with no visible plan beyond being orange.
I set the stake to €2.
The left side immediately displayed GRAND 20,000.00.
Below it sat 400.00, 80.00 and 30.00.
I left those alone.
There was already enough to watch above the reels, where a buffalo stood at the beginning of a long trail marked with multipliers. Along the bottom, each reel had four tiny buffalo-shaped spaces waiting to be filled.
The first golden totem landed on reel four.
Then nothing happened.
A horse landed beside it on the next spin.
The horse received no statue.
An eagle produced a small line win and received no statue.
A snake appeared twice and, correctly, received absolutely no encouragement.
Seven spins later another golden buffalo dropped onto reel two.
That one stayed in its little meter below the reel.
A few spins after that, reel two received another.
Then a third.
I had started with €250. By the time the third buffalo was glowing beneath the second reel, the balance had wandered into the low €220s and reel two had become considerably more important than the other four.
Reel one could discover electricity for all I cared.
Reel two needed one buffalo.
Two FREE SPINS symbols landed together.
They did not open anything.
They disappeared, but something moved along the trail above the reels.
A little buffalo had advanced.
Fine.
The prairie had apparently established two separate migration routes.
I continued at €2.
The totem meters became a beautifully uneven mess. Reel five had two. Reel four had three. Reel one had one. Reel three appeared to have rejected buffalo entirely.
Reel two remained on three.
The horses kept landing there.
The wolves kept landing there.
At one point a golden buffalo appeared on reel three while reel two produced a K.
I stared at the K for the duration of the win count beside it.
There were five reels available.
The buffalo had chosen incorrectly.
Then reel two finally flashed gold.
The fourth totem dropped.
The little collection beneath the reel filled, the reel itself lit up and a buffalo Wild appeared inside it.
One.
Not four.
The herd had apparently decided to enter through a doorway.
Next spin, another buffalo Wild joined it.
They stayed.
The reel now contained two buffalo, an eagle and a Q.
The eagle looked temporary.
Another spin.
Three buffalo.
One Q.
That was where we came in.
€188.60.
€2 stake.
One green Q occupying the final available square.
I pressed spin.
The reels stopped.
The Q was gone.
The fourth buffalo had arrived.
Reel two became a complete vertical column of Wild buffalo, four enormous red-orange heads stacked on top of one another as though the Great Plains had developed a lift.
A horse line crossed through them.
Then another.
An eagle connected.
An A connected.
€46.80 rolled onto the win display.
The balance climbed back over €230.
On the next spin the buffalo disappeared.
Reel two returned to ordinary wildlife.
I immediately wanted the entire unreasonable structure back.
So I kept spinning.
The lower meters began rebuilding elsewhere, but the upper trail was now moving too.
Two FREE SPINS symbols landed again.
Another step.
Later, another pair.
Another step.
The buffalo above the reels kept marching from 1x toward 2x, then 3x, then 4x.
The base game took small bites while it happened.
€8.40 from horses.
€5.20 from wolves.
€12 from an eagle line that used two Wilds.
None of it lasted very long.
The trail did.
Another pair of FREE SPINS symbols landed with a buffalo between them, which seemed unnecessarily theatrical for something that still refused to begin.
The marker moved again.
I did not touch the stake.
By then changing from €2 would have meant abandoning a herd halfway across the prairie, and the screen had spent too long arranging this migration for me to start introducing new denominations.
The next Scatter pair finally pushed the trail into 5x.
A lock burst open above the reels.
The buffalo reached the glowing section.
Now I needed the symbols that had spent the previous half hour arriving in pairs to develop one additional friend.
Six spins later, the first FREE SPINS symbol landed on reel one.
The second landed on reel three.
Reel five slowed.
Wolf.
Horse.
FREE SPINS.
Three.
The prairie darkened behind the reels.
SUPER FREE SPINS appeared across the middle.
5x waited above them.
Five spins.
The first produced two random Wilds and a row of horses that suddenly became far more valuable than horses had any right to become after forty minutes of mostly standing around.
€28.
The multiplier stepped to 6x.
Second spin.
Buffalo on reels one and four.
A Wild on three.
The eagle connected through the middle.
€51.60.
7x.
Third spin gave me nothing.
A snake.
Another snake.
A wolf.
One Wild landed where no useful line wanted it.
The multiplier moved to 8x anyway.
Even failure was apparently feeding the buffalo.
Fourth spin.
A Wild dropped onto reel two.
Another hit reel five.
Three buffalo landed between them.
The screen filled with red manes, horns and gold frames.
The win counter passed €50.
Kept going.
€86.40.
9x.
One spin remained.
The reels turned.
Horse.
Buffalo.
Eagle.
Wolf.
Then the Wilds appeared.
One on reel one.
One on reel three.
The symbols rearranged themselves into several lines that had no business surviving five different species.
The counter started.
€40.
€90.
€160.
The buffalo animation charged along the top while the numbers kept climbing.
€238.
€301.20.
The five Super Free Spins finished at €467.20.
My balance stood at €598.40.
I left the €2 stake exactly where it had been.
The ordinary prairie returned.
Reel two was no longer full of buffalo.
The multiplier trail had quietened.
The horses, wolves, eagle and snake all came back as though the previous five spins had been perfectly normal wildlife management.
One golden buffalo totem landed beneath reel four.
I let it sit there.
Four tiny spaces waited below that reel.
One was occupied.
Above them, a buffalo stared across the grass.
After what his relatives had just done to reel two, three empty spaces did not look like much room at all.
Next up: Clover Fortunes, appearing without context or adult supervision.