Black River Gold

Saddle up as Kane is back for another reel ride on the slot from Elk Studios. Black River Gold is taking you back to the Wild West around the turn of the 20th century as the intrepid explorer is still in search of hidden fortunes on an expanding reel set with up to 262,144 ways to win. Aiding you on your high-volatility slotting journey are cascading symbols in up to 4×4 mega sizes, a Wild Compass modifier, a unique Revolver feature and a free spins round that can lead to wins of up to 5,000 times your bet.

Slot Details

Black River Gold is a video slot with six reels, 4 – 8 rows and 4,096 to 262,144 ways to win. Pays are awarded for three to six adjacent matching symbols from left to right only. You can journey to the Wild West on desktop or mobile from 0.20 to 100 coins. The game has high volatility (9/10) with an RTP of 96.10%. You can use Betting Strategies and Autoplay to customize your play patterns and set up 10 to 100 consecutive spins.

After failing to find his fortune in the swamps of Lousiana, Kane, our intrepid explorer, is making a dash for the North ending up in the bitter cold regions around Yellowknife in search of the precious metal. A rugged mountain scene with the Black River valley in front provides a stunning insight into the vast wilderness of Northern Canada. A heartfelt soundtrack completes the slot design.

All pay symbols including the wild can appear in 1×1, 2×2, 3×3 and even 4×4 sizes. They start at the low end with the playing cards from J through to A, awarding 0.3x your bet for a single six of a kind. Following on the medium level are amulets, sheriff stars, whiskey glasses and pocket pistols. Hitting six across the reels will yield 0.8x your stake. The premiums are a turquoise ruby, a gold nugget, a shiny diamond and Kane himself. Pays for a six of a kind range from 2x to 3x your bet.

A blood-red rose is the wild symbol substituting for all regular pay symbols while safe door marked with ‘Bonus’ acts as the scatter. The game has two special symbols, a Wild Compass and a Revolver barrel, each triggering a feature.

Black River Gold Slot Features

Black River Gold is the fourth slot in the ELK Gold Series, which has taken Kane on exhilarating reel adventures in Ecuador, Tahiti, Louisiana and now Yellowknife. On each of the slots, the design team went to great length to include a range of unique modifiers and features. They generate extra symbols and wilds, explode a random number of symbols or hoover up symbols to create mega symbols.

Core to the gameplay is still the Avalanche mechanic that cascades symbols onto the default 6×4 grid at the start of a spin sequence. Any winning combos are first paid before they shatter and disappear to make room for new symbols to drop into place. After each winning avalanche, the expanding game mechanic activates, adding one row to the game window after every win and gradually increasing it from four rows and 4,096 ways until the maximum of eight rows and 262,144 ways to win. New on Black River Gold is an uneven number of ways to win when a mega symbol falls onto the top row.

In the base game, the grid resets to the default size and the round concludes when no new wins occur after a fresh avalanche. The total win is then paid before the next spin sequence starts.

The first modifier is the Wild Compass. Any time the compass lands it will turn any matching symbols straight across it into wild symbols. The compass can turn up to four times on an avalanche, if matching symbols are in each direction, turning up to 8 symbols into wilds. The compass will stay on the grid after winning avalanches and turn itself into a wild once it reaches the bottom row.

Big symbols landing with empty spaces underneath them will absorb smaller symbols until they reach an even horizontal resting state and turn then into a Revolver barrel with the collected symbols displayed in the bullet pouches. On the current and following avalanches, the Revolver will represent the initial big symbol and all absorbed symbols. If any symbol in the barrel becomes part of a winning combo, it will temporarily turn the Revolver into a mega size of that symbol, e.g. in the screenshot above the J completes a winning combo and will turn the Revolver into a 3×3 mega J.

Any used symbol in the Revolver barrel will be removed before the next avalanche. Multiple symbols can turn into a mega size on a single avalanche. The Revolver will turn wild if it absorbs five symbols or a wild. It will be removed from the grid once all symbols in the barrel have been used or after a spin sequence ends.

Having three, four, five or six scatters in view at the end of a spin sequence will trigger 10, 15, 20 or 25 Free Drops respectively, which can be indefinitely retriggered. The round starts with the grid in its default 6×4 size and any winning spin will increase it by one row until it reaches the maximum 6×8 format with 262,144 ways. It will not reset until the end of the feature. Any wilds landing on a free spin will stay on the screen and drop to the bottom where they will turn into sticky wilds until they become part of a winning combo.

Final Verdict

Well, that was quite an adventure. We knew early on that the Gold series will have minimum four slots and after reviewing Voodoo Gold earlier this year we were eagerly waiting for the next creation. And it turned out to be quite an exhilarating game with some bold features and modifiers that can deliver mega wins of up to 5,000 times bet. Question is now whether the intrepid explorer will retire after his fourth reel journey. Time will tell.

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