A lush, green rainforest forms the backdrop to the reels in Epic Ape - joining the lower value A to 9 values are an assortment of creepy crawlies and wild animals. You’ll see frogs and chameleons which award 200 coins if you land 6 of them on successive reels as well as panthers and leopards which pay up to 250 coins.
Appropriately enough, the best standard symbol is the magnificent gorilla. Land 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 of these in combination and you can look forward to a payout of 40, 150, 200, 250 or 300 coins. The gorilla can land fully stacked on all 6 reels to further boost your winning chances.
Also helping your hopes of creating a successful combination is the shimmering diamond which is the wild - it replaces all other symbols bar the scatter in the base game. It has some added properties in the feature round too.
To trigger that Free Games feature, you’ll need to land 3, 4, 5 or 6 of the free spins scatter on the same spin. You’ll then be awarded 8, 15, 25 or 100 free spins. The diamond can land anywhere on reels 2 through 6 during the feature. As well as offering the usual substitutions, it also boost payouts with random multipliers of 2x, 3x and 5x.
You can re-trigger more free spins too. Land 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 scatters and another 5, 8, 15, 25 or 100 free spins will be added to your total. The good thing is that you can retrigger an unlimited amount of extra free spins!
Epic Ape is a relatively simple game. A couple of things make it stand out though - first is the unusual 6 reel, 4,096 ways to win game engine which serves up plenty of action. Second is the free spins round - we’ve seen multiplier wilds before but they work especially well here.
The top gameplay combined with above average design makes this jungle trek a very playable one. Get lucky with those multiplier wilds in the feature and Epic Ape can live up to its name. If you like volatile offerings with 6 reels and 4,096 ways to win, you have Raging Rhino by WMS and Buffalo Blitz by Playtech.