The backdrop looks anything but terrifying when you first fire up this Big Time Gaming release, and it comes across as a baroque painting with the castle in question sitting quietly on the hill. The sky is blue with the sunlight streaming through the clouds, but horror is lurking right underneath the idyllic facade like the beast of a math model it’s built upon.
Day shifts to night in an instant when the Holy Water feature triggers, and the characters all look like they’re keeping some sinister secret from being revealed too early. The bonus round plays out inside the castle, with a thunderstorm raging and the characters transformed to vampires. They can transform to wilds too, which increases the win multiplier, and we quite enjoyed the tension this game provides in the build-up.
The4 character premium symbolspay between 0.6 and 50 x your stake for 6 of a kind wins, and you also getWild symbolsthat step in for pay symbols to help complete wins. TheHoly Water featuremay trigger at any given time, and you’ll then see a bottle of holy water being smashed onto the grid.
The holy waterconverts 2+ positions containing premium character symbols into wilds, and each wild created also adds+1 to the global win multiplierfor the current spin. The win calculation happens after the wild transformation, and everything resets for the next spin in the base game.
You need3+ Silver Castle Scattersin view to trigger the regular Bonus Round, and you win12 free spinsplus3 additional spins per additional triggering scatterabove the minimum of 3. If aGold Castle Scatteris part of the triggering scatters, you get theEnhanced Bonus Roundinstead.
You get theHoly Water feature on every bonus round spineither way, and themultiplier never resetsin both bonus round tiers. The multiplier starts at x1 and increases by+1 for each wild transformationin the regular bonus round. Itstarts at x2 in the Enhanced versionhowever, and increases by+2 per wild transformation.
In either version you win+6 extra spinsif the multiplier reaches x20, and non-UK players, and anyone eligible, can purchase both bonus round tiers via theBonus Buy menu. The regular feature will set you back70x your stake, while the Enhanced bonus round costs200x your stake.
The game also comes with BTG’sWin Exchange feature, and you can thus exchangeany win of 100x or morefor 12 free spins. If you winbetween 25 and 99 x your stake, you can choose togamblethe winnings to win 12 free spins. The gamble plays out like a wheel spin, and landing on green means you win. Land on the red segment however, and you lose all you gambled for.
You get to see the Holy Water feature in the base game, before we purchase the Enhanced Free Spins round close to the 1-minute mark. The feature plays out for the remainder of the 5:32-minute highlights video, and you can see for yourself how we fared by hitting the play button below.
First of all, we really enjoyed the understated horror you get in the base game, and the tension it creates. Instead of the typical thunderstorm backdrop you’d expect from a “castle of terror”, the sky looks like something out of a glossy postcard. The random Holy Water feature gives you a taste of what’s to come however, and we also like how the characters shift like night and day into their vampire alter egos.
Big Time Gaming has created one of the best Halloween slots this year, that much seems clear, but it’s not really fair to call this a seasonal release either. It’s a solid installment in thevampire genre, although the61,720x win capseems far-fetched. Only the top-tier symbol pays a decent amount, but anything is possible if the bonus round multiplier reaches a decent level. We didn’t really miss the Megaways engine either, and this is a must try for dracula/horror fans.
Pros
Cons
Baron Bloodmore- is a high volatility vampire release from Thunderkick, and you get 3×3 sized mystery symbols in the base game. They appear on every bonus round spin, and there is also streak respins round with 3 modifiers. The max win is a solid 25,000x your stake.
Book Of The Undead- is a horror installment in the ‘book of’ mechanic genre, and this 1x2Gaming release takes you to a castle in Transylvania. The game revolves around the scatter pay expanding symbol bonus round, and you can win up to 5,100x your stake.
Immortal Romance- is the undying classic from Microgaming, and it has withstood the test of time like few other releases out there. The game revolves around the 4 characters, and each come with a unique backstory. The Wild Desire feature can crack the 12,150x win cap at any time, and you get 4 character-driven bonus rounds.
