Eager Beavers

Eager Beavers: Slot Overview

Swedish software provider Thunderkick has employed the services of one of the animal kingdom's most industrious creatures to craft its online slot, Eager Beavers. Beavers, with their strong teeth and dam-building tendencies, are the stars of a game that also has a focus on building the height of its reels and the number of ways to win, quite drastically so in some cases. While attempting to construct stuff, keep your eyes out for the Cash Bonus Game, a coin win round with prize symbols as well as a few special symbols it can deploy when feeling malevolent.

Beavers are famous for building things around water, and this is where Thunderkick has placed Eager Beavers. It's a sunny day in the forest, where water cascades over a tall, wooden pole structure. If you've ever wondered why beavers build dams, it's apparently to create deep water areas they can use as protection from predators. The critters live in beaver lodges in ponds that can only be entered by underwater access points. This then keeps them safe from wolves and bears. Clever.

Eager Beavers is a quite cleverly designed slot, too, possessing a 6-reel game area that randomly drops 2, 3, 4, or 5 symbols on each reel on each spin. This translates to a starting number of ways to win of 64 to 7,776. However, due to the dynamic nature of the mechanic, if all reach full height, then 1,000,000 ways to win are active. Quite a spread and a highly volatile math model influences how the action unfolds on the screen. The RTP clocks in at 94.29%, and the bet range players may choose from is 10 c on the lowest side up to $/€100 on the highest.

Jack, Queen, King and Ace start the list of pay symbols off, followed by 4 gem-like fruits, plus 4 beaver character symbols. Combinations of 6 matching royals are worth 0.4x the bet, fruit pay up to 0.5x the bet, and identical beavers are worth 1 to 5 times the bet for 6 OAK winning combinations. Wilds substitute for any regular pay symbol, and 6 of them in a win pay 5x the bet.

Eager Beavers: Slot Features

Eager Beavers' general run of pay goes like so: Matching symbols on at least 3 adjacent reels creates winning combinations. Winning symbols are removed and replaced by new symbols, plus, a new symbol is added to the top of each reel that was involved in the winning combination. Reels can grow up to 10 positions high at the most. This process continues as long as there is a new win.

Special Wild Features

When a Special Wild feature symbol is part of a winning way, its corresponding Special Wild feature triggers - Either the Wild Splash feature m which is represented by a fish, or the Wild Fall feature is represented by a log. Special Wild features do not affect scatters, wilds, or other Special Wilds:

• Wild Splash - randomly picks one of the symbols in view and transforms all instances of it into wilds.
• Wild Fall - causes a random number of wilds to drop into the game area. Wilds can appear as single wilds or in stacks.

Wild Rapids

This feature activates randomly, placing a random number of wild symbols at the top of one or more reels. Wilds can appear as single wilds or in stacks.

Cash Bonus Game

Landing 3 scatter symbols triggers the Cash Bonus Game. When the feature starts, the ordinary reels are replaced by special reels that land either Cash Value symbols worth 1x to 100x the bet or Collect, Super Collect, Upgrade, Super Upgrade, Build, and Super Build symbols. Symbols are dropped onto every available reel position:

• The Collect symbol collects all Cash Value symbols on the current reel, while the Super Collect collects all Cash Collect symbols on all reels. Collect Cash Value symbols are removed from the game area so new symbols may land.
• The Upgrade symbol multiplies all Cash Value symbols on its reel by x2, x3, x4, or x5, while the Super Upgrade multiplies all Cash Value symbols on all reels by one of those multiplier values.
• The Build symbol increases its reel's height by a random number of empty positions, while the Super Build increases all reels' height in this way. The max reel height is 10.

Buy Feature

Players may buy the Cash Bonus Game for the cost of 100 times their bet. The RTP when buying the feature is 94.46%.

Bet+

There are three options available from the Bet+, with RTP values ranging from 94.35 % to 94.44%.

• Bonus Boost - 1.3x the bet, each spin is 2 times more likely to trigger the bonus game.
• Bonus Boost Plus - 2.2x the bet, each spin is 5 times more likely to trigger the bonus game.
• Bonus Boost Ultra - 3.5 the bet, each spin is 10 times more likely to trigger the bonus game.

Eager Beavers: Slot Verdict

The saying, 'busy as a beaver', is used to describe someone who works hard and fast to complete jobs and reach goals. The funny thing about Eager Beavers is that for a lot of the time, maybe most of the time, it's like the opposite of 'busy as a beaver'. Dead spins were common, low, go nowhere wins as well. Occasionally, a sweet little repeat win sequence occurred, adding extra positions to the winning reels, opening up the game area, but they were fairly few and far between. The Bet+ is there to potentially speed things along, admittedly. However, it didn't take long to agree with the 'high' rating of Eager Beavers' math model, and be a little intimidated by it.

Bonus rounds were pretty frustrating as well. It's hard to recall bought ones that ended up with positive results. Most rounds tended to drop in masses of 1x or 2x coins, maybe a 5x at best. Special symbols were a little rare, and when they did hit, they were often disappointingly impotent as well. For example, getting a Collect symbol on a reel with a single 1x, or getting a Build symbol, which adds a few positions to a reel then fills them with 1x coins. Even a bonus round building 80+ positions ended up as a 94x the bet win. This is a negative sample, and others may have better luck, of course, but compared to ELK Studios' beaver slot, Dam Beavers, Eager Beavers just didn't make losing as much fun. Or winning, for that matter.

But hey, the game has a 10,000x the stake cap, and you can see potential in its huge number of ways to win and the goodies its bonus round is able to let loose. So sure, Eager Beavers has the technical ability to fire, and its beaver theme has a sweetness, but maybe prep for a challenge if attempting to crack open this dam.