Arcader Slot Review
'Arcader' is a bit of a trip back in time with old style symbols mixed in with more up to date bonus games. It's produced by Thunderkick who are based in Sweden and were founded by a team packed with years of gaming and gaming development experience with all their work done in-house.
This is a five reel game with three rows and a total of 15 paylines that you can choose to activate or not. In the background there's a starry sky and the surface of a planet that looks a bit cheesy to me. Bets per spin range from £0.20 to £100, simply choose a stake you feel comfortable with.
To set your stake and to view the rules for the game press the first of the control buttons at the bottom of the screen. There's also the ability to set up to 5000 automated spins in the autoplay feature though the main control buttons do allow you to simply set 10 at a time.
The symbols used in the game have a traditional feel to them and again bring back a few memories. There's the good old bells, watermelons, cherries, sevens, bars, plums and oranges that remind me of all those games my pocket money went on as a child. When I did win a few bob it didn't get spend on fruit believe me, well some fruitgums perhaps.
They look a bit different from the old days though as they've been given a pixellated look. That brings back more memories of the computer games that were popular in the 70s. Back in those days we thought those were the bees knees, even ping pong was the most exciting game in the world for a few years. How times have changed but these symbols do bring back a few memories or just prove I'm getting old, probably the latter.
The soundtrack isn't too bad and when you do get a win there's a voice coming out with words such as "nice" and "awesome." It sounds a bit like the computer off a 70s or 80's sci-fi spaceship.
Despite the old style symbols there is a wild, an arrow expander (more about that in a moment) and two scatters. The wild is simply a W symbol and the two scatters are a B (Bonus) and an M (Mystery).
Bonus Features
You might be asking what an expander is when it's out. Well it's simply another way of saying expanding wild really. It expands to fill the entire reel if there's the possibility that will result in a winning combination. It only matches one symbol but you'll be glad to hear that it'll always plump for the most valuable winning combination that's available.
If you can land three or more of the green 'B' symbol anywhere on the reels then it's free spins time. Three will earn you nine free spins with a 1x multiplier If four get you the same number of free spins but with a 3x multiplier and five sees you still getting nine free spins but the multiplier zooms up to 9x. Even better is the fact that one position on the second, third and fourth reels might be turned into a sticky wild and will remain so for the duration of your free spins.
To get into the Mystery Round you need three or more of the 'M' symbols to appear anywhere on the reels. This is simply a Pick 'Em round and you need to choose from a grid of symbols and each of those is worth a cash prize. if you've been lucky enough to get four of five scatter symbols triggering the bonus round then you get a 2x or 6x multiplier respectively. You can carry on picking symbols until the red 'X' is revealed.
Conclusion
There's plenty to enjoy about this game and its look is an attractive if not rather simple one. The bonus games can be profitable and the theoretical return to players is 96.1%.