Evil Eyes

Evil Eyes: Slot Overview

It's been said that the eyes are windows to the soul. If this is true, then the soul bubbling beneath Hacksaw Gaming's slot, Evil Eyes, could be a dark, churning miasma of diabolical despair, beginning as it does with a brief back story stating, 'The Shade has trapped you in their gaze, and for you there is no escape.' If you haven't dashed to the latrine to evacuate your bowels in fear but are instead intrigued by the prospect of mixing the rush of terror with online slot gaming, then Evil Eyes might be for you. As well as hair-raising visuals, hair-raising gaming is provided by features such as an Evil Spread mechanic, plus bonus rounds - Wicked Night and The Graveyard.

Evil Eyes most definitely sits in the darker section of Hacksaw Gaming's portfolio, alongside slots such as Rotten, Hand of Anubis, and Dark Summoning, to name but three. A skull-faced entity, The Shade presumably, hangs out to the side of the reels in a cool blue, misty cemetery of gnarled trees and gravestones. All very spooky stuff indeed, which Hacksaw Gaming has a knack for putting together, contrasting sharply with the adorable stuff the studio is equally capable of making, such as Canny the Can games and so on.

As Evil Eyes loads, a 4 H's out of 5 meter indicates medium-high volatility. Once loaded, heading to the paytable reveals the RTP where the highest possible return is 96.24%, though lower return models have also been made. From there, we go to bet selection, picking a stake of 10 c to $/€100 per game round, with five bonus buys a click or two away. Played on a 5x5 gaming grid, Evil Eyes has a ways-to-win system, providing no less than 3,125 ways to line combinations up on.

The five greyed-out, smudgy symbols are Evil Eyes' low pays, while its high pays are skeletons, crows, wolves, spiders, and a character symbol. Lines of 5 OAK lows award 0.5 times the bet, increasing to 0.8 to 4 times the bet for 5 matching premiums in a win. The game might not have wild symbols helping create combinations, but it has Evil Eye symbols, literally.

Evil Eyes: Slot Features

Evil Eyes' evil-ish features are The Evil Eye symbol, the Evil Spread, Wicked Night, Wicked Epic Drop, The Graveyard free spins, and bonus buys.

The Evil Eye and the Evil Spread

If the Evil Eye symbol lands underneath a winning symbol, it triggers the Evil Spread feature. First, the Evil Eye highlights all symbols of the win. Next, it points up, down, left, or right, and the win spreads to the end of the grid in the chosen direction, replacing symbols in its path with the winning symbol. If the Evil Spread crosses the Evil Eye, the Evil Eye converts to the winning symbol. If the Evil Spread activates to the right, there is a chance it activates again downwards. The Evil Eye symbol only lands on the middle reel, and only one of them may land at a time.

Wicked Night

Hitting 3 scatter symbols in the base game triggers this feature with an initial 3 lives. For Wicked Night, only non-paying symbols, Evil Eye symbols, and multiplier scatters appear on the grid. Each time an Evil Eye hits, it looks up, down, left, or right, collecting all multiplier symbols in the direction of its gaze. These multiplier symbols are added to reel multipliers above the grid. Evil Eyes can land anywhere, and more than one can hit at the same time. If an Evil Eye gazes at another Evil Eye, it reveals an adding multiplier for all reel multipliers above the grid. Each spin consumes a life, but landing a new Evil Eye resets the count. When all 3 lives have been consumed without a reset, the reel multiplier values are awarded. Multiplier symbols can have additive values of x1 to x100, or multiplicative values of x2 to x10.

Wicked Epic Drop

This feature may randomly trigger at the start of any base game spin. When it does, play moves to the Wicked Night feature for one single spin. The spin lands at least 3 Evil Eyes, 4 multipliers, and at least 1 multiplier will be collected.

The Graveyard

Hitting 4 FS scatter symbols awards 10 The Graveyard free spins. In this feature, low symbols that have been part of a win and spread by the Evil Spread are removed from the reel strips for the rest of the round. Hitting 2 FS scatter symbols awards an extra +2 free spins, or 3 landed FS scatters awards +4 extra free spins.

Bonus Buy

Five bonus buys are available in Evil Eyes:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins - 3x the bet, each spin is 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus game.
• I Spy With My Evil Eye FeatureSpins - 50x the bet, at least 3 Evil Eyes and 4 multipliers land. At least 1 multiplier will be collected.
• An Eye For An Evil Eye FeatureSpins - 50x the bet, guarantees a win that an Evil Eye lands on every spin.
• Wicked Night - 100x the bet.
• The Graveyard - 200x the bet.

Evil Eyes: Slot Verdict

There's a bit of all sorts going on in Evil Eyes. It's a real witch's cauldron of old ideas, new ideas, and freaky eyeballs brought together to scare the undies off unsuspecting players. Memory triggers are interesting things, and Evil Eyes led to thoughts of Chaos Crew's links to the Wicked Night round, Cursed Crypt's spreading effect, as well as Octo Attack's Ink Stain action. Very likely players will form their own remembrances and connections. In typical Hacksaw Gaming fashion, the studio hasn't just rehashed old ideas but twisted the past into something not seen before, and while there are throwbacks, they aren't exactly like Evil Eyes, making it one to view for fans of the studio's work.

Also, in typical Hacksaw Gaming fashion, Evil Eyes is a game that can explode at a moment's notice. Being able to hit the 12,500x max win in all game modes is a testament to its features' destructive power. It does so for much of the time without using any form of multiplier system (outside of the Wicked Night area), relying instead on trying to get loads of high-paying symbols on the grid through the Evil Spread mechanic then linking them with thousands of ways to win. A lot is riding on the initial positions of spreading pay symbols and the direction the Evil Spread spreads them. Sometimes, it's in an unproductive direction, and not much happens. Other times, it ends up covering a good portion of the board. The Wicked Night feature feels a little out of place, but it makes use of the Evil Eye gaze, so it fits okay while padding the whole game out.

What else is there to say other than Evil Eyes is another high-quality Hacksaw Gaming production which builds on the past while dragging players kicking and screaming, maybe even frothing with terror-induced lunacy, into new, terrifying territory.