Bone Raiders – Relax Gaming – Online Slot Review & Rating

Bone Radiers Slot Game Details

Software Provider:

Relax Gaming

RTP:

96.10

Volatility:

High

Type of Casino Game:

Slots

Reels:

Paylines:

243

Minimum Bet:

0.10

maximum bet:

100

maximum payout:

10,000x

scatter:

YES

Bonus Game:

YES

Free Spins:

YES

Multiplier:

YES

INTRODUCTION

Here at Casino Bloke we play quite a lot of slots – that’s not a surprise given how many we’ve reviewed so far. Sometimes, we even get the sense that there’s nothing really new under the sun. Most slots start to look like one another after a while, and by now we’ve gotten used to most features, gameplay elements, and styles of fruit machines. Every now and then, though, a game like Bone Raiders comes up to remind us that there is still a lot of room for innovation.

Put bluntly, this fun little casino game plays unlike anything else we’ve come across in the past. In many ways, it’s a trailblazer in terms of how different slot games can be, forgoing most conventions of the genre to try something entirely different. It’s fun to look at and fun to play – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

For now, let’s start with the graphics. Bone Raiders is about a group of adorable little walking skeletons raiding bones – or something like that. Look, the plot is not as important as the fact that this slot has a sense of style. It’s rocking a sort of cartoony style that makes everything look like its carved out of stone, so it easily stands out from the crowd.

The really interesting part only comes up in the bonus round, though, so bear with us as we dive into the game loop.

bone radiers Media Gallery

HOW TO PLAY BONE RAIDERS

If our introduction got you a bit excited, we’ll have to disappoint you at first. The base game is fairly standard as far as slot machines go, so bear with us as we cover these first steps.

Bone Raiders is played on a fairly common setup of 5 reels and 3 rows. It doesn’t really use fixed paylines, though – the goal is to hit 3 or more matching symbols on 3 or more adjacent reels, starting with the leftmost one. This adds up to a grand total of 243 ways to win. Nothing too crazy in this department.

That said, Relax Gaming threw in some free respins and increasing multipliers into the mix. Basically, every time you win, you get a free respin. This effect can be chained for as long as you keep winning, which can result in some impressive wins if you’re lucky enough to win a few times in a row. Moreover, every time you win, a win multiplier starts affecting any future wins during the same round. This multiplier is doubled for consecutive wins, resulting in exponential returns if you string together multiple wins.

Essentially, the first win has a 1x multiplier, the second one comes in with 2x, the third one moves up to 4x, then 8x – you get the picture.

It’s fun stuff, but nothing too unique yet. It’s time we got into the all-important bonus round.

Bone Raiders Bonus Game

IF you hit 3 Bonus symbols on reels 2, 3, and 4, you trigger the bonus round. We’re still on familiar ground.

Once you do, though, the game area transforms into a massive 7×7 grid. This is where things get interesting.

At the beginning, only the centre 3×3 area is active while the rest of the grid is covered in blockers. The bonus symbols that triggered the feature are turned into one of 4 possible feature symbols. Each of these has a unique effect, which immediately activates.

If the effect hits a blocker, the blocker is removed and the position frees up until the end of the round. If it hits an existing coin symbol, the symbol’s value is doubled. Keep this in mind as it will remain relevant until the end of the bonus round.

The game then turns into a sort of Hold & Win feature, only more interesting. Basically, there are no more reels, rows, or paylines. Only feature symbols can appear at this stage, activating more positions or increasing existing rewards.

You initially get 3 “spins”, or opportunities for feature symbols to appear. Whenever they do, they do their thing and then turn into a single coin symbol. These coins then tend to get doubled, quadrupled, and increased even further as the bonus round progresses.

The round ends once you go through 3 spins in a row with no new feature symbols. All of the coins on the grid are then added together and paid out as one big instant win.

Feature Symbols

As you may have gathered by now, the 4 feature symbols appearing in the bonus round are very important. Here’s what each of them does.

The Cannon shoots at a random number of positions a random number of times.
The Compass targets an entire vertical, horizontal, or diagonal line
The Bomb affects its surrounding square-shaped area
The Magic Staff repeatedly targets a single position

Interestingly, there’s no way of telling how big or effective any of these can be. We’ve seen Bombs literally cover the entire grid, and we’ve also seen Cannons only shoot once. You never know quite what you’re going to get. That said, the Compass seems to be the most consistent, while the Cannon and Magic Staff can be real wild cards.

Feature Buy

Another bit of good news – you can trigger the bonus round any time you want for 70x the bet. Just click the ‘Buy’ button in the lower right corner.

Casino Bloke Best tips for Bone Radiers Slot

1Removing 20 blockers gives you a +1 maximum spin before you end the bonus round. This maxes out at 4, when the entire board is cleared.
2The Magic Staff may initially seem a bit weak compared to something like the Bomb. However, remember the value of exponential growth. A single staff hitting the same place a few times can pretty much pay for the entire Feature Buy.
3The more blockers you unlock, the more likely you are to have the bonus last longer. However, the more coins are on the board, the smaller the chances of another feature symbol landing to extend the bonus round.
4Repeatedly buying the bonus round is not only a fun way to play Bone Raiders, but it's also statistically optimal because it increases RTP to 96.50%