With a bit of the luck of the Irish you could hit the Stumpy McDoodles jackpot

Ireland has given us the likes of Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, John Hume, Michael Collins, Phil Lynott, Bob Geldof and many other incredible people. Yet, load up an Irish-themed slot and you are almost invariably met with Guinness, Leprechauns or Four Leafed Clovers, or more usually, all three.

Well, the new Stumpy McDoodles slot from Foxium Gaming is no different in that it is about as stereotypically an Irish slot game as you will get.

However, while Stumpy McDoodles may look like most other games, it is packed with some features that are rather rare and it is these features which make the slot well worth taking a closer look at. Which is what we did for the purposes of this review.

Overview

• Game: Stumpy McDoodles
• Developer: Foxium (for Microgaming)
• Reels: 5x4
• Pay Lines: 20 (non-selectable)
• Minimum Bet: 0.20
• Maximum Bet: 60.00
• Jackpot: 120,000
• Free Spins Bonus: Yes
• Other Bonuses: Yes
• Progressive: No
• Volatility: Medium

Presentation

The slots are set in the usual cheery green landscape where many people would assume Leprechauns live. The five reels are superimposed over this and there is a rather cheerful and gentle song playing as you play the slot. Complete with harps. It does make a change of pace from the Irish fiddle music you usually get on slots of this type.

The main controls of the reels are at the foot of the screen and the game plays nicely with slick and easy to follow animations. Symbols are stacked on the reels up to two symbols high, so it is possible to win across multiple lines to increase the value of a win.

There are a couple of features to do with how you play the slot that you should also note. The first is the Foxify feature, which can be accessed by clicking the button on the bottom right of the reels. When you activate this feature, you double the multiplier values in the base game and Free Spins, but it does increase the value of your bet on each spin by 50%. When activated you will see a rainbow appear across the reels.

The second of the additional features you can activate is the Buy Free Spins bonus, which is available at any time in the game. It costs you 50x the standard bet, but when you click on it, you will launch the 5 Free Spins bonus instantly. However, if you have the Foxify Feature in play, then this is deactivated when you hit the Buy Free Spins button.

What is on the reels?

There are nine standard symbols on the reels, plus the Wild and Scatter which are linked to the main bonus features of the slot as outlined below. There are five lower value symbols, which are the five playing card symbols from the 10 through to the Ace.

The four main higher value symbols are all based more on an irish theme and include a mug of what appears to be milk, a gold and emerald four-leafed clover, Penny McDoodles and the eponymous hero of the slot Stumpy McDoodles.

Wild features

The golden "W" symbol is the in game Wild in the Stumpy McDoodles slot and it appears anywhere across the five reels. It offers wins ranging from 50x your bet, up to 400x your stake if you can land five across the reels.

The Wild also serves as a substitute, replacing other standard symbols in the base game, however it does not offer a multiplier when landed as part of these wins.

Another Wild feature which can trigger at random on any base game spin is the Stumpy Random Wilds bonus. When triggered, a pot of gold appears at the side of the reels and will award a number of magical prizes. This comprises of between 3 to 8 Wilds being added to random positions on the reels and a win multiplier of between 2x and 5x the standard amounts applied to any wins you may land during the bonus.

If the bonus triggers after you have landed three Scatters on the first, third and fifth reels, and a Wild subsequently covers a Scatter, you will first receive any winnings from the Stumpy Random Wilds bonus, and then the Free Spins bonus will be triggered.

Free Spins features

The Scatter symbol is the key to the Free Spins bonus round, but it also triggers another bonus feature. If you land just two Scatters on the reels, then you trigger a Rainbow Respin, when the reel without a Scatter landed will respin once, with all other reels locked during the respin. This respin could see you land another Scatter to trigger Free Spins, or perhaps land some symbols to land a win instead.

Once you hit three Scatters the Free Spins bonus is triggered. During this bonus, you will also have the Coin Collection and Progressive Multiplier Features active during your five free spins. Each Free Spin you have will see you have the chance to collect coins. There are two types of coins available to collect, Wild Coins and Multiplier Coins. You also have one Shifting Wild symbol on the reel and you start free spins at a Multiplier Value of 1x. The shifting Wild symbol moves to a new position on each Free Spin.

The coins you collect can unlock a number of different bonuses including increasing the number of Shifting Wilds on the reels, awarding more Free Spins, or increasing the value of the Multiplier you have applied to any wins during the bonus round. Max out the coin collection and you can increase the multiplier to 3x and land 3 more Free Spins, as well as a large number of Shifting Wilds.

Best feature of the Stumpy McDoodles slot

There are so many different features on the Stumpy McDoodles Slot that it is hard to pick out just one. The fact you can buy Free Spins is always a positive I feel, but I would us that sparingly as many times the return you get from Free Spins does not outweigh the cost to trigger it. He Foxify bonus may be better value in the long run, but you do need to get some decent wins to make those extra value multipliers worth their while. For me, the Free Spins bonus is the best aspect of the slot, but it is only really great value when triggered as part of the base game, but that can take patience and a bit of the luck of the Irish needed in order to hit it.

Conclusion

There's an awful lot of features in the Stumpy McDoodles slot and they work together nicely. I would suggest that you use the Foxify and Buy Free Spins options sparingly as the value of wins you get with these bonuses is such that they rarely are worth the added cost of triggering them. Instead, enjoy the base game and try to trigger the bonus features as you usually do on a slot as then the wins do feel more rewarding. This is a slot packed with lots of things and what it lacks in originality, it does make up for with bonus features, however I feel the wins you land from those features are perhaps a little too tightfisted.

You can play Stumpy McDoodles slot at any of the Mega Moolah casinos.