Spooktacular Bonanza

Spooktacular Bonanza Review

Booming Games invites you into a small, spooky village for a Halloween celebration that may give you goose bumps if not chills down your spine. Spooktacular Bonanza has all the ingredients you expect from these types of games, complete with jack-o'-lanterns glowing eerily in the night and a chilling soundtrack. Okay, perhaps we are exaggerating a little bit, as Spooktacular Bonanza slot offers plenty of nostalgic charm in addition to its spookiness.

Anyway, the game plays out on a 6x5 grid where 8 to 12+ matching symbols in view equal a win. This ‘scatter pay’ or ‘pay anywhere’ win system means there are no regular paylines, and the premium symbols consist of ghosts, spiders, witch’s hats, bats, and black cats. These award 10x to 100x your stake for 12+ in view, while 8-9 in view pays 1x to 10x your stake. The low-value royal symbols pay 2.5x to 8x your stake for 12+, and 0.25x to 0.75x for 8-9 symbol wins.

Spooktacular Bonanza Slot - Reels Screen

There are no Wild symbols in Spooktacular Bonanza, which is not uncommon for scatter pay games like this. However, you do get cascading reels to help you out, which means that any win can turn into a winning streak, as winning symbols are removed and replaced. That’s the base game in a nutshell for you, and the main aim is to land at least 4 bonus scatter symbols on the same spin or within the same cascading sequence.

This is how you unlock the game’s main attraction, which is the bonus round. The feature plays out similarly to the base game, but with multiplier symbols of up to x100 added to the mix. These multipliers accumulate and are added together at the end of cascades, which can lead to the Spooktacular Bonanza max win of 6,500x your stake. Boasting an above-average RTP of 96.6 %, Spooktacular Bonanza is a medium to high volatility game with a bonus buy option for eligible players.

Spooktacular Bonanza Features

You get plenty of cascading reels action in Spooktacular Bonanza Booming Games, and the cascading sequences are fueled by multiplier symbols in the bonus round. Let’s take a closer look at how it all works!

Cascading Reels

Winning symbols are removed from the grid, allowing existing and new symbols to drop down to fill the gaps. This process, known as Cascading Reels or Cascading Wins, repeats indefinitely as long as you keep winning. This allows for longer winning streaks in both the base game and the bonus round, all from a single spin.

Unlimited Free Spins Bonus Round

The Halloween pumpkin symbol is the bonus scatter, and landing 4+ in view triggers the Bonus Round. This awards a scatter payout of 2x, 5x, or 20x your stake from 4, 5, or 6 triggering scatters, respectively, before 10 free spins are granted. Landing 3+ bonus scatters during the bonus round awards +5 additional free spins. Bonus scatters accumulate in cascading sequences, both in the base game and in the bonus round.

Unlike in the base game, you’ll benefit from Random Multiplier symbols during the free spins feature, and these land with values ranging from x2 to x100 per symbol. Multiplier symbols accumulate per cascading sequence, with the sum of all the multiplier values boosting the total win as the cascading wins come to a stop. The multiplier symbols do not apply to scatter symbol wins. As the title of this section indicates, you can win an unlimited number of extra free spins via the retrigger feature.

Spooktacular Bonanza Slot - Free Spins

Spooktacular Bonanza Bonus Buy (not UK)

The yellow star on the left-hand side opens up the Bonus Buy menu, at least for eligible players. Click it, and you can pay 100x your stake to get 4+ triggering scatters on the spin that follows. Keep in mind that the triggering scatters pay just like when you trigger the bonus round organically in the base game, meaning at least a 2x your stake payout effectively discounts the buy price.

Theme & Graphics

The Spooktacular Bonanza game is a Halloween-themed release that plays out in a village at night. The moonlit, eerie houses are surrounded by gnarled trees, and the spooky soundtrack builds an atmosphere of mystery and unexpected happenings. The game grid is decorated with twisted branches, and ghosts, spiders, black cats, and bats haunt the reels. Glowing jack-o'-lanterns are placed in the foreground and serve as the bonus symbol on the grid.

Pros and Cons of Spooktacular Bonanza

Our Verdict

Booming Games has churned out Bonanza slots for pretty much any occasion already, including no less than two Christmas-themed installments. Spooktacular Bonanza is a fairly typical Halloween-themed game that offers well-known ingredients if you’ve followed this series. Of course, this whole series is riding the coattails of the trailblazing and ever-popular Sweet Bonanza by Pragmatic Play, so it’s hard to see it as anything other than a copycat range.

Booming has succeeded in creating a charmingly spooky atmosphere that will remind you of your trick and treat days as a kid. The soundtrack is enjoyable with its ghostly tunes, and the spin pace is decent with the turbo switched on. The cascading reels mechanic can lead to okay base game payouts, but overall, the main game is mostly about keeping your head above water until the next bonus round triggers.

Booming Games had a golden opportunity to make the base game more interesting by adding more features, but they seem content in following the simple recipe that made the source of inspiration such a massive success. Scatter pay wins and cascades are all you get, which may not be enough to keep experienced players interested for all that long. At least the 6,500x potential is more realistic than Sweet Bonanza’s advertised 21,100x, but Spooktacular Bonanza is a seasonal release that’s mostly relevant for a week or two per year.

The bonus round is admittedly exciting, as it tends to be in these types of games. I mean, they are popular for a reason, after all, and accumulating additive multipliers of up to x100 can lead to massive payouts from any given free spin. While I may give Spooktacular Bonanza slot a spin during Halloween, I prefer Sweet Bonanza most of the year. In addition, there are plenty of other follow-ups, clones, and copycats to explore, not least in Booming’s own series.