Dr Zappo

Dr Zappo Review

Hacksaw Gaming is among the most creative studios in the industry, no doubt about that, but even they will resort to occasional reskin jobs. While Dr Zappo follows closely in the footsteps of Jaws of Justice, the new wacky wrapping fits the bouncy core mechanic like a glove. You get to meet a mad scientist and his charming monkey assistant, and the bonus round takes you right into their lab while the base game stays outside, close to an “eyescream” shop. Before we get to all the good stuff, let’s cover the basics.

Dr Zappo plays out on a 5x4 grid, just like the predecessor, and you win by landing matching symbols across 14 paylines. The 5 premium symbols consist of the mad scientist’s yelling head, a brain-exposed robot, a single-eye head in a glass jar, a bomb, and a ray gun. These pay 2x to 5x your stake for 5 of a kind, while the 5 lower-value royal symbols all pay 1x your stake for the same. The Wild symbol substitutes for pay symbols to help complete or improve line wins, while paying the same as the highest-value symbol should you land 5 wilds on a payline.

Dr Zappo Reels Screen

The star of this show is the eyeball symbol, however, since this symbol triggers the core feature of Dr Zappo whenever at least one appears on the bottom row. That is the only row eyeballs can appear on, but it does not happen all that often in the base game. When eyeballs land, they blast off vertically or diagonally, potentially bouncing off energy fields placed around the grid and transforming every symbol in their way into wilds or multiplier wilds of up to x200. Multipliers are added together if more than one wild multiplier is part of the win.

The bonus round comes in 3 tiers triggered independently by landing 3, 4, or 5 scatters in the base game. The first tier offers more frequent eyeball appearances, the second tier ensures eyeballs shoot off in different directions, and the third tier guarantees at least 1 eyeball symbol per free spin. Dr Zappo is a medium volatility slot game (3 out of 5), featuring a 96.31% RTP (with possible lower settings of 94.36%, 92.31%, and 86.22%), a 45% hit rate, a bet range of £0.10 to £100, and a max win of 10,000x your stake.

Dr Zappo Features

We have already given you a brief overview of the features above, and here, we will present all the details to give you complete clarity of how everything works. Before we do that, however, we remind you that the Dr Zappo free play demo is available at the top of this page. Head up there once you’ve read up on the game to sample all the features for yourself. Let’s get to it!

EyeBall Wilds & Multiplier Wilds

When Eyeball symbols appear on the bottom row, they blast off either vertically or diagonally to the left or right. Each affected symbol along the Eyeball’s path is turned into a Wild symbol. Some symbols may turn into Wilds with multipliers ranging from x2 to x200. If Eyeballs hit existing wilds, the wild is upgraded with a multiplier. If the wild already has a multiplier, the multiplier is upgraded when hit by an Eyeball. The multiplier wilds are additive, meaning they are added together before boosting the win if more than one multiplier wild is part of the same win.

Energy Fields

There are 3 Energy Fields covering reels 2 to 4 atop the grid and 2 middle rows on either side of the grid. If Eyeballs hit the top or side of the grid that these Energy Fields cover, they bounce off the grid to continue their path until they hit a part of the grid that is not charged with an energy field. This means that all vertical-shooting Eyeballs hitting the top of the grid on reels 2, 3, and 4 will bounce downwards again to turn the whole reel into multiplier wilds.

Free Spins Bonus Rounds

Landing 3 scatters during a base game spin triggers the Eyeconic Bonus Round, awarding 10 free spins. This bonus plays out similarly to the base game, but Eyeball symbols land more frequently. In this bonus round, as well as the next one, landing 2 or 3 scatter symbols on the same spin awards +2 or +4 additional free spins, respectively.

The No-Brainer Bonus Round triggers from 4 scatters on the same base game spin, also awarding 10 free spins. It plays out like the Eyeconic bonus, but with a guarantee that Eyeball symbols blast off in 2 different directions. To be clear, this does not mean that you are guaranteed to land 2 Eyeballs, but if 2 Eyeballs land, they will blast off in different directions.

Landing 5 scatters on the same base game spin triggers the Electrifying Hidden Epic Bonus Round, awarding 10 free spins. This feature plays out like the No-Brainer bonus, but with at least 1 Eyeball symbol guaranteed to land on every spin. Scatters do not appear in this bonus round, meaning no additional free spins can be won. This feature cannot be purchased in the bonus buy menu.

Dr Zappo Free Spins Win Screen

Bonus Buy (not UK)

The Bonus Buy menu is located down to the left, as usual, and it offers the following options for eligible players in Dr Zappo slot:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins - pay 3x your stake to boost your bonus round chances by 5x.
• ZigZag Zappo FeatureSpins - pay 100x your stake to get at least 2 Eyeball symbols.
• Eyeconic FS bonus - pay 50x your stake to trigger this bonus round.
• No-Brainer FS bonus - pay 200x your stake to trigger this bonus round.

Theme & Graphics

Dr Zappo takes you into the cartoonish world of the mad scientist and his brain-exposed monkey assistant. Apparently, the eccentric duo is taking a break from whatever they are cooking up in the bonus round lab, as the base game plays out in a colorful street with out-of-whack buildings and what looks like an ‘eyescream’ shop selling eyeballs on a stick. A single-eye dude on the left has just purchased one and seems quite happy about it too. The all-seeing eye sign marks the entrance to the lab where the bonus round plays out. The retro sci-fi vibe is strong in this game, and it kind of takes you back to those cartoon-filled Saturday mornings you probably had growing up.

Dr Zappo Free Play

Now that you fully understand what makes this game tick, you’re probably eager to sample the free Dr Zappo demo. We still hope you take the time to read our verdict below, though, as we would love to hear whether or not you agree with our conclusion in the comments field. Either way, playing the demo is the best way to get to know the game firsthand, and you can take full advantage of the bonus buy menu to see the main eyeball-bouncing feature in action, as well as 2 of the bonus rounds. When you feel satisfied with your Dr Zappo free play test session, casinos carrying this title await below the demo game.

Pros and Cons of Dr Zappo

Our Verdict

Dr Zappo definitely taps into the nostalgic Saturday-morning sci-fi cartoon vibe, and the visuals seem inspired by the popular Rick and Morty series. The wacky aesthetics and visuals set the stage for the core mechanic to shine as the main act, and eyeballs bouncing off the wall is a highly entertaining feature. However, it cannot be denied that Dr Zappo is close to being a reskin of Jaws of Justice. While this might raise an eyebrow with some players, I think the new wrapping does the feature more justice.

Hacksaw has given us so many original features and mechanics over the years that it’s hard to complain when they, once in a while, serve up a reskin job. Not least since the eye-catching main feature Dr Zappo is built around is so effective in converting symbols into wilds and multiplier wilds. It’s not a pure reskin job either, as the math model has been tweaked to a less volatile setting. This means that Dr Zappo is a tad more forgiving than the predecessor, offering a higher 45% hit rate but a slightly lower RTP. This should appeal to the casual crowd while still offering a solid 10,000x win cap.

That being said, the base game can feel like a grind between the eyeball-bouncing action, and you should know that the symbol values are significantly lower in Dr Zappo compared to Jaws of Justice. In practice, this means that the game offers frequent smaller wins in the base game, but you’ll most likely need eyeball symbols doing their thing to get anything worthwhile. The 100x price tag is an indicator of what 2 eyeballs are worth on average, but some additional features to spice up the base game would’ve been appreciated.

The bonus rounds follow the same escalated ladder from the previous game, with the Eyeconic feature turning up the heat with more frequent eyeballs. The multi-direction trajectory of the No-Brainer bonus ensures loads of symbols will be transformed when eyeballs hit, while the hard-to-trigger Hidden Epic bonus guarantees an eyeball per free spin. While I would love to see more of the eyeball-bouncing mechanic, I hope Hacksaw takes the time and effort to add some original twists next time, or at least make the base game a tad more fun between whatever will bounce off the grid then.