PigsVille

PigsVille: Slot Overview

If you've ever wondered what a city populated by our porcine brothers and sisters might be like, wonder no more. Software provider Stakelogic has gone and created PigsVille, an online slot set in a town lived in entirely by pigs. Well, it's presumably lived in only by pigs; you don't really see anyone in the background apart from a pig floating across the sky. Pigs drive by on motorbikes, too, though, which is a more common sight than you might think in online slots. For instance, Stakelogic itself dropped the pigs on bikes slot Wild Hogs not that long before PigsVille appeared on the scene. In fact, in a not-so-shocking plot twist, PigsVille is basically a clone of Wild Hogs, boasting virtually the same stats, figures, and features.

PigsVille splits its time between a base game urban scene and a bonus round rural one. There are two main types of bonus rounds - free spins and a trail feature. More on these later. PigsVille might be a blood relative of Wilds Hogs, but its game world is much lighter. Gone is the heavy, burning, cindered landscape, replaced with something a lot breezier. As a result, Wild Hogs' rough, take no crap demeanour has been replaced with a more cheerful Muppet Babies attitude. Neither is better than the other per se, to each their own and all that.

In the base game and free spins, PigsVille's gaming space is a 6-reel grid matrix with up to 6 rows appearing on each reel, providing up to 46,656 ways to win. As before, players can theoretically expect a default RTP of 96.01%, while the math model volatility is high. Bets of 20 c to $/€100 per spin may be placed, and three bonus buys are available, as well.

For symbols, the pays start with J to A royals as the lows, an icing biscuit, a cupcake, a doughnut, and a toffee apple as the mids, then four jovial piggy characters as the 4 high pays. A winning line made from 5 low pays awards 0.2 to 0.3 times the bet, 5 matching mids awards 0.8x the bet, and 5 matching high pays awards 2 to 8 times the bet. Wilds may land on all but the leftmost reel. Wilds substitute all symbols except the bonus scatter. Winning symbols are removed from the grid by a tumble feature, which fills gaps by dropping symbols from above. Tumble runs end when no new is created.

PigsVille: Slot Features

Wilds may appear on the grid through three wild modifier features, and players should look out for Bonus Wheels, free spins, a Bonus Trail, and a Super Bonus Trail.

Wild Modifiers

Wild modifiers trigger at random, and when they do, one of these effects takes place. Like regular wilds, they never appear on the leftmost reel:

• Spawning wilds – creates up to 5 random multipliers from x2 to x5 in value.
• Expanding wilds – up to x3 expanding wilds are placed on the grid.
• Wild streak – offers several wilds on a single row or multiple rows of reels.

Bonus Wheel & Super Bonus Wheel

Landing 3 scatter symbols on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5 triggers the Bonus Wheel, or landing 4 scatter symbols triggers the Super Bonus Wheel. The Bonus Wheel awards free spins, the Bonus Trail or the Super Bonus Trail. The Super Wheel offers the same but with better chances of getting the Super Bonus Trail or free spins with higher values.

Free Spins

When won, players are granted 6 to 15 free spins. For free spins, all low-value symbols are removed from the base reels. Landing 3 or 4 scatters triggers another Bonus Wheel.

Bonus Trail & Super Bonus Trail

This feature is made up of a trail that players move around collecting multiplier values, starting with 3 lives. On each game round, a number is revealed, and the player's token moves that number of positions along the trail. Landing on a number adds that value to an overall bet multiplier known as the win bank. Landing on the same position twice or getting an X on the mini reel loses a life. When all lives are lost, the value of the multiplier bank is awarded. Landing on a mystery position triggers the Golden reel, revealing one of these:

• A number – this number is added to all values on the board. In the Super Trail, this value is added to each board position at the start of each new move.
• Three Hearts – one life is returned. This result will not appear if all lives are active.
• Three Toffee Apples – 3 positions on the board have their value increased by x2 to x100. In the Super Bonus Trail, this value is added to three random positions at the start of each move.
• Three Lamps – resets the board and removes all marked-for-death positions.
• Three Treasure Chests – a multiplier value of x10 to x500 is paid instantly. In the Super Bonus Trail, this value is persistent, repeatedly awarded for each game round.

Buy Bonus

From the buy bonus, players can buy the Bonus Wheel for 100x the bet, the Bonus Trail for 150x the bet, or the Super Trail for 250x the bet.

PigsVille: Slot Verdict

Wild Hogs was a pretty solid game to review, and so was PigsVille. Obviously, the impact has lessened the second time around, and the two game worlds could hardly be any different. The actors in Wild Hogs were like rascally piggy wiggies that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and are determined to raise heck wherever they ride their choppers. The pigs in PigsVille, by contrast, are like the ones who studied hard, got a white-collar job in the city, made a bit of bread, raised a family in a neat middle-class pigsty in a respectable suburb, had a middle-aged crisis, then went out and bought motorbikes and joined a motorbike club for respectable middle-class pigs.

Beyond the skin, players get basically the same thrills and spills as before. Free spins benefit from low-pay symbols removed from the reels, which is no bad thing on a game grid with so many possible ways to win. The bonus trails, again, are like a less sophisticated version of the Dead Man's Trail bonus round from Relax Gaming. But they're not bad bonuses, either of them, really. The super version is, of course, the most desirable one due to the persistence of some of its features. As for winning potential, the same 5,000x the bet win cap applies as in the previous game.

Whilst PigsVille is technically as good as Wild Hogs, it wasn't as entertaining to play on the whole. Part of the reason why is that enthusiasm was dinged by the repeat nature of many of the features, a situation amplified by the way the gentler, lower-key audiovisuals of PigsVille's more pleasant piggy game world had less impact (for better or worse) than Wild Hogs.