Wild Unicorns

Wild Unicorns: Slot Overview

Unicorns are pretty well known in this day and age, but it might be surprising to find out just how far back they go. So sayeth the Internet that the earliest description of a unicorn in Greek literature was from the historian Ctesias (c. 400 BCE), who described a white-bodied creature the size of a horse with blue eyes and a horn on its forehead one cubit long. We have Britannica.com to thank for this, which goes on to state, 'The actual animal behind Ctesias's description was probably the Indian rhinoceros.

Oh well, it's nice to dream, and gamblers who would like to close their lids and visualise a fantastical wonderland could try first playing Wild Unicorns from developer Big Time Gaming as inspiration. Wild Unicorns trips way out there where fantasy becomes reality, sort of, where willing participants wander through a wondrous forest rife with majestic trees, sunlight filtering through the branches, where butterflies flit, and a stone path leads… somewhere magical, no doubt. It's all so very enchanting, and after the last few BTG games – Max Megaways 2, Big Bad Bison Megaways, Vegas Rush, etc. it was something of a shock. Not a bad shock, but just a surprise to see this side of the studio emerge in such high definition, too.

First things first and Wild Unicorns is not a Megaways-powered online slot. It is, however, played on a 6-reel grid, with 4 rows of symbols and 4,096 ways to win. Landing a win triggers the reaction feature, which removes winning symbols from the reels and lets others drop down to fill any empty spaces. Running off a highly volatile math model, the game generates an overall RTP of 96.53%, or 96.55%, when using the bonus buy. Whether buying a bonus or not, a base bet of 20 p/c to $/€20 may be selected.

BTG does like their gem-styled card royals, and the usual 9-A ranks show up in Wild Unicorns as the low pays. For high pays, a four-leaf clover, a horseshoe, a mushroom, and a diamond are used. Diamonds pay out on 2 OAK or more, whereas the rest need at least 3 to create a win. Hit a 6-of-a-kind winning way, and Wild Unicorns pay out 0.2x to 0.25x for the royals and 0.3 to 5 times the bet for the premiums.

Wild Unicorns: Slot Features

Helping create winning ways is Wild Unicorns' wild symbol, which substitutes for regular pay symbols and is connected to the Unicorn feature. As well as this is free spins with a rising win multiplier, the Win Exchange, and the bonus buy.

Wild

Wilds substitute for all symbols except scatters and Unicorns. Each Unicorn that appears moves up, down, left, or right, adding wilds in all available positions in the direction it moves, except on reels 1 and 6. Wilds, too, only appear on the four central reels. Up to 3 of the added wilds may be a Multiplier Wild, with values of up to x10. Wins with a Multiplier Wild are multiplied by the displayed multiplier.

Free Spins

Scatter symbols appear only on reels 1 and 2. Landing 2 scatters awards 8 free spins, plus 4 free spins for each scatter beyond the second. An unlimited win multiplier is active during free spins. It begins on x1 and increases by +1 after each reaction. Hitting 2 scatters in any position awards 4 additional free spins, plus 2 free spins for each scatter beyond the second. During free spins, a Unicorn is guaranteed to land on every spin.

Win Exchange & Bonus Buy

Whenever players win 75 times the bet or more, they have the option of exchanging 75 times the bet for 8 free spins. When winning between 25 and 75 times the bet, players can gamble the amount for the chance to win 8 free spins on a red and green segmented wheel. Otherwise, via the bonus buy, players may buy 8 free spins for 75 times their bet.

Wild Unicorns: Slot Verdict

Sometimes you get so used to reviewing the same sort of things over and again on repeat that when something totally unexpected lands, it's like waking up from a particularly deep slumber and being slapped across the cheek with a wet fish. Wild Unicorns just came at us out of nowhere, revealing a side of Big Time Gaming who could have guessed at. There are clues hidden in the back catalogue when looking hard and deep. Wild Flower and Castle of Terror contain very faint threads, but that link could just be us seeing what we want to see, like an online slot case of pareidolia.

However we ended up in this part of the woods, here we are, and what a dreamy part of the woods it is. So much so it feels like players might elect to play Wild Unicorns for its theme as much, if not more, than anything else. The features themselves are nothing hugely special, particularly by the high standards Big Time Gaming has set itself. Dunno, spreading wilds on the middle three reels is nothing major to write home about, but they do have extra kick since there are so many ways to win, rather than relying on a low number of paylines. When a Unicorn does hit, there was a stronger desire to see it run horizontally rather than vertically to bring as much of the board into play. Nice that Unicorns are guaranteed to hit on each free spin where they are regular occurrences, can't say the same for the multiplier version, which was a lot rarer.

Once the pixie dust settled, the resulting thoughts and emotions ran along similar lines as when reviewing Big Bad Bison. Not bad, quite good at points, but far from being Big Time Gaming's best, most influential work. Unicorn enthusiasts might well be all over it, though.