Game in Action
Screenshot of the Sherlock Holmes The Hunt for Blackwood Slot
IGT is well known for the licensed slots and this Sherlock Holmes one is one of them. It’s by no means the only slot that features the iconic Holmes, but it may very well be the best one. Graphically it’s totally convincing and IGT’s creatives have captured the atmosphere and the look of the movie very well with the symbols, colour palette and the feel of the slot. Even the soundtrack convinces.
You’ll be mostly seeing Holmes and Watson on the reels. Yes, Watson’s fiancée is there and that hapless policeman as well as a few Holmes paraphernalia. But Watson and Holmes pay better than any other symbol and they’re often stacked, showing up in the full glory when they are part of a winning combination.
Bonuses
For once IGT has not put the focus solely on the bonus game. Indeed, in the base game you’ll find two randomly triggered features that can both pack quite a punch. On any winning spin that has not triggered a bonus, it’s possible to randomly get a multiplier between 2x and 10x the value of the winning combination. You may not see this very often, but it’ll show up every once in a while so you won’t forget it’s an option.
The other randomly triggered feature in the base game is the teamwork feature. Here you’ll only need Holmes and Watson symbols on the reels, which then become a combined Holmes/Watson symbol. That is worth more than the two symbols separately and can result in some nice wins. Best of all: you can trigger it together with the multiplier feature.
The bonus game has several aspects to it. You’ll trigger it by spinning the bonus symbol onto reels 1, 3 and 5. You’ll then be taken to Sherlock’s room, where you pick five objects at random. You’ll be collecting coin prizes, but it’s also possible to collect additional picks. Behind each object you’ll also find the hunt symbol or the Blackwood symbol.
If you collect three hunt symbols, you’ll be triggering 10 free spins. If you collect four hunt symbols, you’ll get 15 free spins. Three Blackwood symbols mean you’ll trigger the Blackwood wheel. Four Blackwood symbols will result in a richer wheel.
Whichever bonus you end up with, it will begin once you’ve used all your picks and collected your coins in Sherlock’s room.
The Blackwood wheel bonus will see you in front of a bonus wheel. You’ll get 10 spins here. The wheel has three pointers and on each spin the pointers land either on a coin prize or on a Blackwood symbol (you start with 3). If you hit Blackwood, your pointer dies and becomes inactive. So you really don’t want to be hunting Blackwood here.
After three spins, one more Blackwood is added, one Sherlock and the coin prizes grow. Sherlock will pay out very nicely, but he will also reactivate all pointers that have been deactivated until that point. On spin number 8 another Blackwood and another Sherlock are added. Sherlock is now worth 1,000 coins alone.
Finally, if you manage to use your 10 spins to the end without all of your pointers dying, your winnings are immediately doubled.
The hunt bonus game is the other game you can trigger in Sherlock’s room. Here you’ll get 10 or 15 free spins. Behind the new set of reels you’ll see a map with locations where Blackwood has been spotted. It’s not that easy to make out, but whenever Holmes or Watson symbols land on one of those circles, they will turn wild and remain sticky for the duration of the free spins. Here, too, you’ll get your winnings doubled instantly, if you manage to collect all five wilds.
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Summary
If you want to know what we didn’t like about this slot, you’ll have to wait for a while, because we would need to seriously think on that. Granted, the RTP as given by IGT can be a bit lackluster. It really depends on the outcome of your bonus game and whether or not you get those random multipliers in the base game.
We’ve never had reason to complain here and were extremely entertained by this slot. It’s incredibly well done and without a doubt one of our favourite IGT slots.
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