In November 2018, Yggdrasil has treated us to yet another amazing video slot inspired by voodoo and executed with the appropriate dose of spookiness. The main character is Baron Samedi, one of the spirits of the dead of Haitian Voodoo. While the followers of this syncretic religion believe spirits are intermediaries between the God and mortals, Yggdrasil’s Baron tries to act as one between the player and fortunes they dream of. Instead of using voodoo curses and black magic, he does so with Voodoo Respins, free spins with 3 features active on each, and 36 different Feature cards.
The game area is designed to look like a wooden table storing different tools-of-the-trade a voodooistwould be likely to use. There are 25 paylines paying from left to right and a symbol collection which consists of scary-looking Baron Samedi as the highest-paying icon, Maman Brijit who is another death spirit and the Baron’s consort, Red and Green Voodoo Dolls, gems of different colours, the Wild symbol that substitutes for regular ones and the Mystery symbol which turns into one random icon at the end of each spin. While the latter appears only while spinning on the house, the Free Spin symbol shows up exclusively during the base game.
One can play for a minimum of €0.10 and a maximum of €125 per round by setting coin value between €0.004 and €5.There’s an Autoplay functionality with the number of automatic spins going up to infinity and an option to interrupt on a chosen minimum win or a specific cash increase/decrease amount. Players are additionally offered to adjust sound effects and volume as well as the spinning speed.
Having launched the game, you’ll get your initial set of collectible Feature cards. There are 4 types of Feature cards with different strengths, and the stronger the card, the smaller the collection. You can view your card collection at any time by clicking the deck displayed on the right. Roman numerals are used to indicate the card’s strength, I being the lowest and IV the highest and most difficult to collect.
Cards may display super-stacked symbols (Green Voodoo Doll, Mystery symbol, Baron, Wild), 3, 5, 7 or 9 Mystery icons added to the reels, 1-4 additional Mystery reels, multipliers of 2x-10x, all low-paying symbols converted into Red Gem icon or their high symbol equivalent, all high or all low paying symbols transformed into Wilds, 5-of-a-kind win on the centre row with Green Gem, Red Gem, Brijit or Baron, 2-8 random Wilds added to the reels, 1-5 Wilds added to the best reel positions, and 1, 2 or 3 reels turned Wild.
Landing 2 Free Spin symbols launches Voodoo Respin and with each re-spin the player is dealt 3 Feature cards. The respective features are applied to that particular spin and added to the player’s collection. The same special symbol is tasked with triggering Free Spin mode, with 7 spins plus 50 coins awarded for 3 Free Spin icons, 12 spins plus 375 coins for 4, and 15 spins plus 25,000 coins for 5. Each free spin comes with a set of three collectible Feature cards. Once the player completes a collection, they’ll get 3 free spins with the respective card locked in the first position and applying the feature during the entire free spin session.
Baron Samedi slot has an interesting theme and uses a creative, highly engaging mechanism that differentiates the game to all we’ve seen thus far. Betting limits are wide enough and RTP well above the average. Players will have to settle for modest wins until triggering either re-spins or free spins and benefiting from the awarded Feature cards. That’s when you can expect to see a more significant impact toyour bottom line, especially if lucky enough to land 5 triggering icons and win 25,000 coins plus 15 feature-enriched spins. Completing card collections requires a bit of patience and eagerness to finalize them can easily result in long gaming sessions you’ll find hard to end.
