Spectre Estate slot: Call the Ghostbusters before you play this new game

Microgaming have produced some cracking 'scary' slot games over the years. My two favourites were the slot game Halloween, based on the John Carpenter seminal horror movie of the same name and the fantastic Lost Vegas, which allowed you to play as either a survivor, or a zombie, with different features enabled for each game mode.

Well there's a new game you can add to that list now in the shape of the spooky Spectre Estate from Just For The Win. This 5x4 reel, higher variance slot features Feature Symbols at the top of each of the five reels which can have a significant impact on how the slot plays out.

So does this new slot from Microgaming which has just been released generally into casinos today, hit the mark? Or is the game a spook-tacular miss? We decided to take a closer look to find out.

Overview

• Game: Spectre Estate
• Developer: Just For The Win (for Microgaming)
• Reels: 5x4
• Pay Lines: 40 (non-selectable)
• Minimum Bet: 0.10.
• Maximum Bet: 100.00
• Jackpot: 2219x
• Free Spins Bonus: Yes
• Other Bonuses: Yes
• Progressive: No
• Volatility: High

Presentation

Set in one of the large grand rooms of the Spectre Estate, this new Just For The Win slot takes us on a trip into the darker realms. With a somewhat dramatic and eerie soundtrack playing while you spin the reels, the game has a feel of a "Rocky Horror" type slot, but perhaps without some of the flamboyancy that comes with that particular film and stage show.

The five reels are located in the centre screen inside what appears to be a large framework of some kind. The controls are to the right of the reels and at the top of each reel is a Featured Symbol space, the importance of which will be explained later in the review.

The backdrop is decorated in a predominantly dark blue colour giving the slot a somewhat monotone feel apart from the occasional symbol on the reel which are slightly brighter. Overall, the effect of this is pretty good and the music does fit the game very nicely.

What is on the reels?

There are just nine symbols on the main reels, two of which are main feature symbols in the game and the remaining seven see four lower value symbols, which are the playing card suits. These offer prizes from 0.2x your bet up to 2x your bet across the pay lines, however it should be noted here that symbols can be stacked so you do stand a chance of winning across multiple pay lines on a spin (and indeed, that is the way to land the better value wins in the game).

The three higher value standard symbols include the rather worried looking chap, who I think is meant to be some kind of paranormal investigator, the lady with the pink hair looking at her phone and the Spectre Estate sign. Wins on these symbols range from 0.5x your bet up to 8x your bet but you can of course win these across multiple lines too.

Wild features

There is one Wild symbol in the game, but it can appear on the reels either singly or stacked up to four symbols high. You can land this symbol anywhere across the reels and it awards the highest value prizes if landed on the reels on a pay line of between 0.8x and 8x your bet.

However, that is not the end of the Wild symbols in the game and you can trigger more of them on the reels thanks to the Feature Symbol, which is also linked in with the main Free Spins and other bonus features of the game as we will explore in the section below.

Free Spins features

The main bonus feature of the slot is the Feature Symbols, which are the five symbols at the top of each reel which spin and change with each spin of the game. Each of these symbols will change into a different item on each spin and these can be:

• An Expanding Wild symbol which will expand any Wilds on the reel to cover the reel completely.
• A Wilds + symbol which will add extra Wild symbols to the reels.
• A Wild x2 symbol , which sees any Wild symbols on the reel become Wild Multipliers with a 2x multiplier on any win
• A Wild x3 symbol, as above but this time the multiplier is 3x the standard win
• A Respin Icon - If you land a feature spot with any of the Wild bonuses outlined above then you will trigger a free Respin with all the Wild features triggered active for that bonus spin.
• 2x Bet - Land this Feature symbol and you win a prize of 2x your total bet immediately.
• 1x Bet - As above, but this time the cash prize you win is 1x your bet. Both the 1x and 2x Bet prizes are in addition to any prizes won on the qualifying spin.
• Free Spins - Land the Free Spins on the Feature Symbol spot and you are awarded 8 Free Spins and every additional Free Spins spot on the Feature Reels awards an additional 2 extra Free Spins. Furthermore, any Feature Spots activate when the Free Spins triggers or during the bonus round will remain active for the duration of the Free Spins bonus.
• +2 Free Spins - During Free Spins you can also land a +2 Free Spins bonus on the Feature reel, which when landed on an inactive reel awards an additional 2 Free Spins.

As you can see the Free Spins bonus is triggered through the triggering of Feature Symbols in the base game which is why there is no Scatter symbol on the reels.

Best feature of the Spectre Estate slot

The Spectre Estate slot is all about the Feature Symbols and although there are only one per reel in the game, they have a massive influence on how the game plays out. The wins in the base game without utilising these features are pretty mundane, although you can land some decent value multiple line wins, but it is when you get into the different bonuses offered by the Feature Symbols that the game really does come to life and starts to offer you a bit more excitement.

Conclusion

Just For The Win have produced some very interesting slots of late for Microgaming and this is another and one that moves away from a standard slot template and offers something a little more imaginative. The 5x4 reel set is a nice option, as is the stacked symbols on the reels but it is the Feature Symbol aspect of the slot that it will live or die by and I think it is a nice innovation and certainly adds appeal to the game, although I would have perhaps like to have seen these bonuses a little easier to trigger, especially the Free Spins bonus round which is somewhat hard to land.