Grug Make Fire

Grug Make Fire Review

Hacksaw takes you on a time-traveling excursion back to the unforgiving wilderness of the Stone Age in Grug Make Fire, a slot game where you get to meet what could be the world’s very first pyromaniac. Grug is a rugged caveman standing guard to the left of the reels, bearded, fist-clenching angry, and ready to light up your reels and your day with his newly discovered, or should we say tamed, power of fire. He may not always react too much to what’s happening on the reels, but when he does, it’s mostly to express frustration when things don’t go as expected.

Grug Make Fire plays out on a 5x4 grid with 14 paylines. You win when 3 to 5 matching symbols appear on at least one of these paylines, starting from the leftmost reel. You can play with bet levels ranging from €0.10 to €100 per spin, which should satisfy penny punters, high rollers, and anyone in between. The dinosaur symbols (and a bear) are the high-value premiums, awarding 2.5x to 10x your stake for 5 of a kind wins. The card suit royal symbols all pay 1x your stake for the same, while the Burning Wild symbol substitutes for any pay symbol and awards 10x your stake for 5 wilds on a payline.

Grug Make Fire Slot - Reels Screen

However, the Burning Wild symbol has more tricks up its sleeve in Grug Make Fire, and it’s the central symbol this game revolves around. Each Burning Wild that lands transforms symbols above it: royals turn wild, premiums turn multiplier wild, and scatters are upgraded to potentially award more free spins if the bonus round triggers. The regular Grug Find Food bonus round features even more Burning Wild action, with a higher hit rate of this symbol than the base game. The number of free spins is determined by the number displayed on each triggering scatter.

Things heat up even more in the Grug Fight Dino bonus round, where the number of winning symbols upgrades the 5-level feature with up to 4-5 Burnt Reels guaranteed per free spin. Combined with Burning Wilds, this can double burn symbols, boosting up to x200 multiplier wilds by x3 and adding more free spins to scatters. Grug Make Fire is a medium to high volatility slot game (scoring 4 out of 5 on the in-game scale), featuring an RTP of 96.19% (RTP ranges), a hit rate of 21.45%, and a max win of 10,000x your stake.

Grug Make Fire Features

Before we lay out the features for you in all their glorious details, we would like to remind you that you can check them all for yourself via the Grug Make Fire free play demo. You’ll find it at the top of this page, but we recommend you finish the review first. Let’s jump in!

Burning Wild Symbols

The Burning Wild symbol lands as a regular 1x1-sized wild before setting any pay and scatter symbols above it on the same reel on fire. Low-value symbols are turned into wilds while premium symbols turn into multiplier wilds with values ranging from x2 to x200. The multiplier wilds boost any win they are a part of, and if more than one multiplier wild is part of the same win, the multiplier values are added together before being applied.

Scatters & Burnt Scatters

Regular scatter symbols land with values ranging from 2 to 5, indicating how many free spins each scatter is worth. However, when a scatter symbol is lit on fire by the Burning Wild feature described above, it turns into a Burnt Scatter. Burnt Scatter symbols are upgraded to reveal values of 3 to 6, potentially awarding more free spins than a regular scatter.

Grug Find Food Bonus Round

You need to land exactly 3 scatters anywhere in view on the same base game spin to trigger the Grug Find Food Bonus Round, and depending on the values of each scatter, you get between 6 and 18 free spins. If you land a scatter symbol during the feature, 1 to 3 additional free spins are awarded, while burnt scatters award 2 to 4 additional free spins. The Grug Find Food Bonus Round plays out like the base game, but with a higher hit rate of Burning Wild symbols.

Grug Fight Dino Bonus Round

The Grug Fight Dino Bonus Round requires 4 scatter symbols in view on the same base game spin to trigger, awarding 8 to 24 free spins depending on the values of the triggering scatters. You get an increased hit rate of Burning Wilds also in this feature, but with the addition of a Wildlife Bar added below the grid. You level up this Wildlife Bar when you reach different winning symbol thresholds, and each level-up increases the number of Burnt Reels you get per free spin:

• Level 1 - unlocks after reaching 12 winning symbols, awarding 1 Burnt Reel per spin.
• Level 2 - unlocks after reaching 46 winning symbols, awarding 2 Burnt Reels per spin.
• Level 3 - unlocks after reaching 96 winning symbols, awarding 3 Burnt Reels per spin.
• Level 4 - unlocks after reaching 150 winning symbols, awarding 4-5 Burnt Reels per spin.

If you reach level 4, you get 4 or 5 Burnt Reels per free spin, and on all levels, the awarded Burnt Reel may trigger on a reel already burnt by the Burning Wild symbol. Burnt Reels work the same as when burned by the Burning Wild. However, reels already burned by the Burning Wild are upgraded when also affected by the awarded Burnt Reel. Wilds are upgraded with an x3 multiplier, while the multiplier value of multiplier wilds is boosted by x3. While regular scatters award between 1 and 5 additional free spins, twice-burnt scatters award 3 to 5 additional free spins.

Grug Make Fire Slot - Free Spins

Feature & Bonus Buy (not UK)

Eligible players will find the Feature & Bonus Buy menu via the yellow ‘Buy Bonus’ button down to the left, and it offers the following in the Grug Make Fire slot:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins - pay 5x your stake to 10x your bonus round chances.
• Grug Play FeatureSpins - pay 50x your stake to get at least 1 Burning Wild.
• Grug Find Food FS Bonus - costs 100x your stake to trigger.
• Grug Fight Dino FS Bonus - costs 200x your stake to trigger.

Theme & Graphics

Grug Make Fire offers a retro comic-book style take on the Stone Age theme, sacrificing realism for an angular, artistic rendering. Set against a prehistoric, volcanic wasteland, the grid is filled with mostly sharp-toothed dinosaurs. However, a roaring bear has been thrown into the mix for good measure. The fire-wielding caveman Grug keeps you company on the left-hand side of the grid, sometimes reacting with anger on near-miss teasers. He looks angry all the time, though, but is kind enough to announce the bonus rounds with his limited vocabulary. A flute-based soundtrack balances out the gritty visuals, adding a sense of ancient mystery to the primordial setting.

Grug Make Fire Free Play

Taking the free Grug Make Fire demo for a spin is the easiest way to gauge if this is a game you want to take to the real money level. The volatility can be as brutal as the prehistoric wasteland depicted, and it’s best to gain some real experience with the temperament of this release before you make up your mind. The good news is that you can easily sample all the features via the bonus buy menu, and the Grug Make Fire free play demo is available to play as much as you want without risking anything. After your session, you can check our recommended casinos confirmed to carry this title below the demo game.

Pros and Cons of Grug Make Fire

Our Verdict

Hacksaw has a knack for making games their own, always adding a unique touch to the visuals and presentation in a way that distinguishes them from any other provider. This is the hallmark of a high-quality developer, at least in my view, and you never get the sense that they’re resting on their laurels or resorting to formulaic design templates. That being said, Hacksaw is fond of multipliers and wild action thrown together in all sorts of ways, but they usually add their unique twist to make these features their own as well.

I’m not saying Grug Make Fire is their greatest effort to date, far from it, and some would perhaps even argue that this feels a bit like a shelf-filler release. While I can see where that’s coming from, it’s easy to forget that many providers simply churn out similar games year in and year out without ever coming close to the innovation Hacksaw has delivered so far. Still, even in a less than first-rate release like this, Hacksaw has taken the time and effort to be creative with it, both visually and in the feature department.

The Burning Wild feature is actually a pretty interesting innovation that may be underappreciated due to its similarity with “standard” expanding wilds. However, this feature not only expands to all positions above the triggering wild, but it also upgrades symbols to wilds or multiplier wilds. It even upgrades scatters for potentially more free spins. It might not shine as bright in the base game as some would prefer, although the 10,000x win cap is reachable in all stages of this game. However, you get a greater taste of it in the bonus rounds.

The Grug Find Food offers more frequent Burning Wilds, which is decent. However, the Grug Fight Dino feature is where the Grug Make Fire slot can truly light your fire. It’s a hit-or-miss bonus, though, and you need to quickly level up to escape feeling burned when it’s all over before you even blinked. However, when 4 or 5 Burnt Reels pop every spin, with double-burning action going strong, it’s a high-payout spectacle that’s well worth the wait. Grug Make Fire is not as explosive as many other Hacksaw slots. Instead, it’s more of a slow burner that rewards a more patient approach.