Novomatic has really upped its game when it comes to the look and sound of its slot games in recent months and Feather Frenzy continues the upward tick. The setting here is a forest where a quartet of birds are hosting their very own forest fiesta. On the plain white reels, you’ll see a collection of lower value fruit symbols including grapes, cherries, lemons and melons.
More rewarding are the 4 higher value bird symbols. The best of this quartet is the flamboyant blue bird. Land 2, 3, 4 or 5 of these in combination and you can look forward to a payout of 0.25, 2.5, 10 or 100 times your total stake. Joining the standard symbols is the diamond which is the wild. This substitutes for everything apart from the golden egg scatter and can appear on all 5 reels.
Land 3, 4 or 5 of that golden egg scatter on the same spin and you’ll trigger the game’s Free Games feature. Your reward is 10, 15 or 25 free spins. Look out for the keys symbol which appears on the middle 3 reels during the free spins round. These can unlock caged birds and, in the process, deliver cash prizes – up to 100 times your stake. The prize is repeated for each key on show.
This is a much more jolly and lively slot game than we expected. That’s certainly the case with the sounds and visuals. It’s bright and colourful and the salsa style backing track gives the game a real party feel. There’s nothing especially sophisticated about the gameplay which is very straightforward. The Free Games feature has its charms though thanks to the keys which can deliver some big awards.
This isn’t as volatile a game as some from the Novomatic catalogue. The medium variance offers a balanced range of payouts. You can win 2,000 times your stake on each spin or free spin when you fill the reels with the flamboyant blue bird – if you add in the cash prizes (up to 100 times your stake) from each caged bird in the feature, big wins can follow.
The limited range of extras means it’s not something that we’ll be rushing back to again and again but for some simple entertainment, you won’t go too far wrong with Feather Frenzy. I prefer other more volatile offerings from Novomatic such as Eye of the Dragon or From Dusk Till Dawn.