Druids' Dream

Get ready to immerse yourself into Celtic mythology on the slot from NetEnt. Druid’s Dream is taking you into an enchanted forest to experience the tranquillity of the mesmerizing world of a druid and a druidess. A Win-Both-Ways mechanic, a Wild Charge feature, Respins with nudging symbols and a free spins round can lead to wins of up to 400 times your bet on every single spin.

Slot Details

Druid’s Dream is a video slot with five reels, four rows and 40 fixed pay lines. Wins are awarded both ways for three to five matching symbols on a line from left to right and from right to left. You can enter the enchanted forest on desktop or mobile from 0.20 to a huge 400 credits per spin. The game has low to medium volatility with an RTP of exactly 96.00%.

An enchanted forest scene is opening up when you load the game as you would expect from a druid, sorcerer or fairy tale slot. Sunrays are protruding the lush greenery, giving it together with the rising pixie dust a magical feeling. The super relaxed soundtrack could serve as a baby pacifier, it’s that tranquil.

The pay symbols start at the low end with crafted rune stones in blue, green, yellow and red colours, awarding (sit tight) a measly 0.3x to 0.6x your bet for a single five of a kind. Hit a full screen, and you’ll walk away with a “life-shattering” win of 12x to 24x your stake, and hold your breath, it is paid both ways, yet is still below 50x bet. Well, if you think the higher value symbols will give you a lot more, think again. You will find a strange orange rock ornamented with greenery, a bear paw drum, an owl and a wolf on the reels. Landing five on a row will pay each way 1x to 5x your stake.

There are single wilds on reels 1, 3 and 5 as well as stacks on reels 2 and 4 in the base game, offering the same payout as the wolf symbol and on top, performing the usual substitutions duties. Single wilds appear on reel 3 only during the respins and on reels 1 and 5 during the free spins. In turn, the stacked wilds are present on reels 2 and 4 in the respins but only on reel 3 during the free spins. Got that all? Best is to see it play out a few times.

A fairytale-looking druid and druidess appear at the bottom of the wild stack on reel 2 and the top of the wild stack on reel 4 respectively and act as the scatter. A roaring bear can land during the free spins on the wild stacks to award extra spins.

Druid’s Dream Slot Features

To be honest, after seeing the paytable, I was reluctant to carry on with the review. Who on earth will play an admittedly good looking slot with such low pays? I get it, NetEnt is trying to please recreational and hardcore players alike, but this one takes the biscuit, although you could throw in Butterfly Staxx 2 for good measure. Well, let’s get through it as there are a few things happening on the reels and most of it has to do with the stacked wilds.

Mixing up the confusing set-ups for the wilds in the base game, the respins and the free spins, are a few more features that can help you form winning combos or trigger the free spins. The first and most common occurrence is the Wild Charge and Respins feature. It will trigger when the wild stack lands on reel 2 with the druid at the bottom or on reel 4 with the druidess at the top. You will get a number of respins equal to the wilds in the stack, maximum three. The stacked wild charges up and locks in place for the free respins. One wild will uncharge on each respin. Wins are evaluated and paid after each respin.

It gets a little more confusing if you land a stacked wild on the reel (2 or 4) that did not trigger the respin. Called the Nudge feature, the stacked wild will nudge by one position on each remaining respin for a chance that the missing scatter might move into view. It will trigger the free spins if it does.

Now, for the grand or maybe not so grand finale. The Free Spins round is triggered when you have both, the druid and the druidess scatters, in view either outright on a spin or via the Nudge feature. You will get an initial 6 free spins and +1 for each still charged wild in view, taking the maximum to 12 free spins. During the round, all wilds and the druid/ess scatters will be locked in place for all free spins. Plus, stacked wilds can now appear on reels 3 and might contain a roaring bear, who will award +3 free spins, no limits.

Final Verdict

Not really sure how to rate this slot. Outright, I would give it one star, but then it is indeed well designed and has a few features that make things interesting if not pleasant to watch, although they won’t lead to any wins that are in any way life-changing. But then the slot is not designed for that, hence, what it does for its purpose as a recreational game, it does rather well. Personally, I won’t be immersing myself into Celtic mythology any time soon, well, at least not on this slot.

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