Dr. Cranko's Lab

Dr. Cranko's Lab Review

SpinOn's latest creation invites you into Dr. Cranko’s Lab, a slot game centered around a mad scientist developing strange hybrid creatures with his mysterious elixirs. The Saturday-morning-cartoon aesthetic is charming and evokes a sense of nostalgia, and Dr. Cranko himself certainly looks the part. Underneath the boiling potions and eerie green glow lies a feature-heavy game engine centered around what is known as Gonzo mechanic multipliers.

Before we get into all that, however, let’s cover the basics. You start by choosing your bet level, which ranges from €0.20 to €20 per spin in Dr. Cranko's Lab slot. You win by landing matching symbols across up to 20 paylines, starting from the leftmost reel on the 5x3 grid. Dr. Cranko is the highest-value symbol, followed by a hybrid creature, a mouse with its brain exposed, a brain, goggles, a glass container, and a syringe. The symbols pay 2.5x to 125x your stake for 5 of a kind and 5x to 250x your stake for 6 of a kind.

While the default grid size is 5x3, Dr. Cranko can randomly add a 6th reel to the grid, which is when you can land 6 of a kind wins. Wild symbols can appear on reels 2 to 6 and substitute for regular pay symbols to help complete or improve wins. Wilds hold no value of their own in Dr. Cranko's Lab slot. The Avalanche mechanic removes and replaces winning symbols, which also progress you along the multiplier trail seen above the reels. In the base game, the multiplier trail tops out at x5, but it can go as high as x30 in the super bonus round.

Dr. Cranko's Lab Reels Screen

The multiplier trail of the regular bonus round increases depending on the number of triggering scatters, topping out at x15, x20, and x25, respectively. In addition to the random extra reel, Dr. Cranko's Lab also features random sticky wild respins and symbol transformations. All random features can trigger both in the base game and in the bonus rounds. Dr. Cranko's Lab is a medium to high volatility slot game with a 94% RTP and a max win of 7,500x your stake.

Dr. Cranko's Lab Features

There are a fair amount of features to cover, and we’ll make everything crystal clear for you below. We also recommend that you test Dr. Cranko's Lab free play demo game, located at the top of this page. This way, you know how the features work in practice too, after reading about them. Let’s get started!

Avalanche Wins Multiplier Trail

Winning symbols are removed from the grid and replaced by remaining and new symbols dropping down to the lowest possible positions. If at least one new winning combination is created, the Avalanche mechanic repeats. This goes on as long as you keep winning, meaning indefinite winning streaks are possible per round. Each consecutive Avalanche win progresses you along the Multiplier Trail seen above the grid. The first win activates the x1 multiplier, then x2, x3, and finally x5 for all subsequent wins in the same Avalanche sequence.

Sticky Wild Respin

The Sticky Wilds feature triggers randomly during the base game or bonus round, but only with the default 5x3 grid size. You then get a sticky wild randomly placed on reels 2, 3, 4, or 5, and a respin removes all symbols except the sticky wild and scatter symbols. The sticky wild is turned into a regular wild symbol that drops one position down, and a new sticky wild is placed in its original position for the respin. The sticky wild is not removed if it’s part of a win.

Low Symbol Transformation

Just like the Sticky Wilds feature, the Low Transform feature may trigger randomly in the base game and bonus round, but only on a non-winning spin with a 5x3 grid size. The lowest-value symbol present is then removed from the reels, and on the next Avalanche, all symbols lower than or equal to the removed symbol are transformed into higher-value symbols.

Additional Reel

The Additional Reel feature can trigger randomly during the base game and the bonus round, adding a 6th reel to the grid. When this feature triggers, the 6th reel remains in place for the duration of the Avalanche sequence. You cannot trigger the Sticky Wild or Low Transformation features when the 6th reel is active. The 6x3 grid allows for larger 6 of a kind wins that are not available with the default 5x3 grid.

Free Spins Bonus Round

Scatter symbols can land on all 5 reels, and you need 3, 4, or 5 on the same spin or within the same Avalanche sequence to trigger the Bonus Round in Dr. Cranko's Lab slot. This awards 5, 7, or 10 free spins, respectively, and you win the same amount of additional free spins if you land 3, 4, or 5 scatters on the same free spin or within the same Avalanche sequence during the bonus round. The Avalanche multipliers are upgraded as follows:

• 5 free spins come with Avalanche multipliers of x3, x6, x9, and x15.
• 7 free spins come with Avalanche multipliers of x6, x9, x12, and x20.
• 10 free spins come with Avalanche multipliers of x9, x12, x15, and x25.

Super Free Spins Bonus Round

In the base game, you earn 1 point when 2 scatter symbols appear on the same spin or within the same Avalanche sequence. These points are collected in the meter attached to the right-hand side of the grid, and you need 20 points to fill this ‘Dr. Cranko's Super Free Spins’ meter. When the meter is full, the Super Bonus Round will trigger when you land at least 3 scatters instead of the regular bonus round. You get 10 free spins with Avalanche multipliers of x12, x15, x18, and x30.

Dr. Cranko's Lab Free Spins Gameplay

SpinOn+ Bonus Buy (not UK)

Eligible players will find the Bonus Buy menu by clicking on the white SpinOn+ button down in the right corner. You can purchase 5, 7, or 10 free spins for 15x, 35x, and 70x your stake, respectively. These bonus rounds come with the upgraded Avalanche multipliers as described above. You can also purchase 10 Dr. Cranko's Super Free Spins for 90x your stake to benefit from the highest possible Avalanche multipliers.

Theme & Graphics

Dr. Cranko's Lab slot looks exactly like what it sounds like, taking you into the neon-soaked lab of a mad professor standing on his hoverboard with wild eyes and even wilder hair. His big eyeballs are studying some elixirs intensely, and you can see batches of the green potions cooking around the lab. Symbols include Dr. Cranko himself, syringes, brains, a scared mouse, and some kind of hybrid creature. The wacky theme is complemented by an eerie atmosphere created by the synth-based soundtrack.

Dr. Cranko's Lab Free Play

Now that you understand the features of this game, the time has come to consider testing the free Dr. Cranko's Lab demo. Don’t worry, as you don’t have to travel far to get started. Simply head to the top of this review page and hit that big play demo for free button. You can use the SpinOn+ bonus buy menu to check how the bonus rounds play out and, not least, the super bonus round with the highest multipliers. When your Dr. Cranko's Lab free play session is over, casinos carrying this title await below the demo.

Pros and Cons of Dr. Cranko's Lab

Our Verdict

SpinOn has whipped up a colorful, high-energy experiment in Dr. Cranko's Lab, and they have certainly managed to cram in a lot of features. While the “mad scientist” trope is well-trodden ground in the iGaming world, the theme works well for a game like this. The eerie neon-green lab pops off the screen with its boiling elixirs, and the professor himself looks about as wacky and eccentric as they come. The only thing that’s missing here is a turbo spins option, but the pace is decent even without it. You can always double-click to stop the reels short anyway.

The Gonzo multiplier mechanic is hardly new, hence the name, but SpinOn has wisely added plenty more features to spice up the Dr. Cranko's Lab experience. Still, the base game centers heavily on multiplier-boosted avalanche wins for any meaningful returns. With a hit rate of 32.84%, you will run into small to decent top-up wins quite frequently, and the game doesn't really feel as volatile as it says on the tin. The random features do not come along all that often, though, but they can make a solid impact when they do.

The added 6th reel can significantly boost payouts if you’re lucky enough to land 6 of a kind wins, with the top Dr. Cranko symbol awarding 125x for 5 of a kind and a solid 250x for 6 of a kind. The sticky wild respins feature is more effective than it may seem when you read about it, as wilds in general are crucial for connecting wins and progressing you along the multiplier trail for those boosted wins. The symbol transformation feature comes in handy as well, but it’s still not as effective in delivering payouts as the sticky wild respin feature.

The bonus round is where Dr. Cranko’s Lab slot really demonstrates what it’s made of, with an increasingly higher multiplier range depending on how many free spins you win. Even the lowest multiplier range is fairly decent, topping out at x15, but the feature does have a high ‘hit or miss’ factor that can disappoint as well as reward. Of course, everything is dialed up a notch in the super bonus, but it can take a while to fill the meter. Fans of the Gonzo multiplier mechanic should have plenty to sink their teeth into here, and Dr. Cranko’s Lab is a pretty solid game overall.