Classic Novomatic design
Slots from Novomatic have a distinct look and that’s certainly true of Bat Stax. With a graveyard shrouded in mist in the background, you’ll see A to 10 royals alongside a spider, a black cat and a distinguished looking owl which offers payouts of up to 25 times your total stake per payline.
Wizard Hat wilds
The wizard’s hat is the wild. This can appear on all 5 reels and replace all the standard symbols. The wild can be very lucrative too. Land 2, 3, 4 or 5 of them on a payline and you’ll conjure up a payout of 0.25, 2, 20 or 50 times your stake.
Overlay bats
On any spin you could see a bat overlaid on top of a standard symbol. Land 3 or more of these on the same spin and you’ll trigger the transforming Bat Stax. The reels that include the overlaid bat symbols will be filled with standard bat symbols. These pay 2.5, 5 or 50 times your stake if you land 3, 4 or 5 in combination. 3, 4 or 5 overlaid bats means 3, 4 or 5 reels full of standard bats.
Free spins
The other main extra on offer in Bat Stax is the Free Games feature. It’s triggered in the usual manner by landing 3, 4 or 5 scatters (in this case, the pumpkin) on the same spin. You can then look forward to 10, 15 or 25 free spins. The overlaid bats are in play during the bonus round.
Here you only need to 2 rather than 3 bats to trigger an expansion. Even better is that reels 1 and 2 will be filled with standard bats regardless of where the overlaid bats landed. Bats also award a re-spin with the stacked bats held. You can also win up to 25 more free spins to take your total to 50 potentially.
Halloween horror with 1,000 x stake wins
The Halloween horror that is Bat Stax is well put together. The visuals are backed by a classically creepy backing track. Like many Novomatic slots, the gameplay here is straightforward. It’s none the worse for that though. As far as variance goes, we’re in the medium range with top wins of 1,000 times your stake on every spin.
There aren’t many surprises here but if you like Novomatic games, you’ll find the usual goodies in Bat Stax. If you want a horror themed slot game that offers more in the way of features and payouts, Halloween Jack from Net Entertainment would be my pick.