These Witches will Charm you
This is the first ever review of a video slot for the free slot section here on the G2G that was made by suppliers Side City Studios.
After half an hour of playing it, I knocked on the Manish’ door and demanded that we make sure to review lots more made by them. The Charms and Witches slot is one of the most fun slot I’ve played in a while and ticks all the boxes when it comes to theme, graphics, features and originality. Here’s why we liked it so much.
A red-hot video slot from chilly Canada
If you’ve never heard of the game supplier Side City Studios, who created the Charms and Witches slot, don’t be too surprised. They’re a Montreal-based company who specialise in land-based casino slots for the North American market.
Other online slots of theirs include Buccaneer’s Bay, Fortunes of the Amazons and Fiesta Cubana though we may hear more from them given they were recently acquired by NYX Gaming Group. You’ve probably heard of NextGen (part of NYX) or at least some of their slots made by their subsidiary companies, such as Glorious Empire and Foxin Wins.
Side City Studios are an example of ‘small is beautiful’
That’s because their close-knit team has the imagination to provide great slots. My contact at Side City Studios tells me that one key aspect of the few online slots they’ve made is that they’re not only available on mobile but mobile-optimised with special HTML5-optimising. Charms and Witches are, of course, available on desktop, too.
Suitably scary symbols and sound effects
The suggestion is that the pretty, young blonde witch who’s one of the symbols on the reels is taking her first steps in the murky and mysterious world of witchcraft.
If that’s the case, where do I sign up to become part of it?
The accompanying sound effects are of a very pretty eerie nature. I actually felt a little on edge from it as I played the slot. Then again, if you’re playing a game about the dark arts you don’t expect friendly laughter and birds chirping, do you?
No prizes for guessing what sort of symbols appear in the Charms and Witches slot. Black cat, witch’s hat, frog, rat, raven, cauldron, pointed shoe, pumpkin dressed in a scarecrow’s clothes (ok, I didn’t expect this one) and the pretty witch already mentioned.
Now for the best part. When you secure a win on some of the symbols, they shift shape and turn into something else. Presumably as a result of some sort of spell. So this is what we get:
- Pretty blonde – Turns into black-haired witch figure.
- Rat – Grey-haired man with a yellow tie.
- Crow holding a key – Black-haired man resembling Dracula.
- Frog – Slightly creepy older blonde man with a green jacket. A real fashion victim.
There’s also a Wild, a Scatter symbol which is a dangerous-looking bat and ‘Pick me’ symbols that have a green potion.
I wouldn’t recommend drinking that.
More on the last three symbols and what they do below.
‘Pick me feature’ the pick of the bonuses
Playing Charms and Witches was a load of fun because it has some truly unique features I’ve either never seen before or rarely see in all the slots I’ve tried out. I’ll tell you about them all in the time it takes to decide which is your favourite witch in ‘The Witches of Eastwick.’
Mine is Michelle Pfeiffer.
Wilds
Substitute for all symbols except Scatter and bonus symbols and double all your wins.
The Scary Bats
Reminding me of the Fairy Feature in Hook’s Heroes, some scary bats fly across the reels and turn random symbols into Wilds to help you secure wins.
Free Spins
Three Scatters and it’s free spins time. You get 10 of them and all prizes are doubled. Free spins can be re-triggered.
Gamble Feature
Each and every win gives you the chance to gamble your wins. You can double up by guessing whether the card will be red or black or quadruple your win by choosing which is the suit of the next card.
This is a really quick way to turn wins into big wins. That said like as with all aspects of witchcraft, it comes fraught with danger. Call wrong and you lose what you’d won.
If you want to gamble, just click on the icon displaying a club/heart just above the spin symbol after any win.
Pick me Feature
Remember those ‘Pick Me’ symbols with the dodgy green liquid? Get three of those and you’ll have the chance to pick one of them. You can get:
- A cash prize.
- A cash prize plus the chance to pick a second one.
- The chance to receive the cash prizes behind all three of the symbols.
A ‘charming’ slot destined for greatness
You’ll know by now that I’m as fond of this slot as a witch is of her pointy hat, broom and black cat.
Unlike most of the other new slot releases from indie studio slot developers, this one could prove to be a mainstream success rivalling those blockbuster slots made by the big-spenders at NetEnt and Yggdrasil.
With cool graphics and sound effects exploring the Halloween and witchcraft theme, there’s a lot of spooky stuff going on that keeps me entertained.
It certainly doesn’t let itself down where it really matters, either. If you somehow get 5 Wild symbols you can win up to 3,000 coins because all wins assisted by Wilds are doubled. The features are original and appear frequently enough to make sure you’re never far away from a big win. Yeah, this could prove to be a real favourite in India’s best online casinos.
You can try it out for fun from the last of October but to turn those big wins from the ‘Pick Me feature’ and free spins into real money wins, you’ll first have to open an account.
Best do so before the blonde witch turns you into a frog.