The Shimmering Woods slot by Play'n Go is a bit corny in appearance, following the gentle almost fairy tale appearance of numerous other forest-themed slots of yesterday. Take for example possibly the most famous, IGT's old Pixies of the Forest slot or if you're still a youngster, Red Tiger's Sylvan Spirits slot and unfortunately the lamentable tripe that is Wonder Woods slot by Just For The Win. Then you get the idea here, cartoon artwork, soft classical music and of course a forest background. So can we add some shimmer to our bankroll here or will we leave simmering with rage instead?
There are 243-ways on The Shimmering Woods slot therefore 5 reels of 3 rows, although these can be effectively expanded to 7776 ways via the in-play modifier we'll get to shortly. For now, the symbols are single tiles in a cascade format which means they can stack too, with winning ones removed. The 5-of-a-kind pays are 3x stake Diamond, 2x Emerald, 1.5x Sapphire, 1x Ruby with five card values of either 0.4 or 0.3x for a full way. White Gem Wilds can appear and also pay 3x bet for a 5OAK plus a Shimmering Gem scatter appears on all reels.
Every time you play, any one symbol including Wild is selected to split into two when it lands. Each winning tumble within a spin will also increase the multiplier by 1x, no limit. These split symbols are what can increase the reels to a maximum of 7776 ways and are why the basic 5OAK pays are so low!
You need 3 Shimmering Gem scatters to trigger, on reels 1, 3 and 5. These can split on a random basis and you get better modifiers accordingly. The basic 3 scatters will award 10 spins with one splitting symbol per spin, 4 gives 13 with 2, 5 gives 16 with 3 and 6 gives you 19 with 4. Retriggers award for 3 scatters +3 spins with +1 splitting symbol, 4 awards 6 with 2, 5 awards 9 with 3 and finally 6 grants 12 more spins with 4 symbols splitting. As said, splitting symbols can create a limit of 7776 ways here, so some potential exists especially when taking into account the increasing multiplier within each spin.
You could say The Shimmering Woods slot is a poor man's Megaways but despite the inane appearance and annoying sounds, the mechanic isn't that bad. It's tiresome to watch and listen to and has a 96.20% RTP which somewhat makes up for those facts, plus we can land some big wins on occasion in the base game. The bonus isn't as frequent as on some Play'n Go slots but is usually quite fun to behold and we are told there's potential here for up to 25,000x our bet! Don't let avoiding this game be a case of not seeing the woods for the trees...
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