Freak Show Revelation: Slot Overview
Step right up, step right up, software provider Sneaky Slots has erected a tent for inquisitive viewers to be amazed, astounded, and astonished by the bizarre sights contained within. Anyway, that’s our best P. T. Barnum impression to introduce Freak Show Revelation, the second online slot to shamble loose from software provider Sneaky Slot’s workshop. The first release, Nip Tuck, burst at the seams with originality, teeing up anticipation for more of the same. A name like Freak Show Revelation does set the anticipation bar high, too, so let’s find out if the rest of the game can follow through on the boast.
A grainy, monochrome big top circus is the spot for the base game, which is like watching an old film shot during a much earlier era. An era when gentleman scholars were coming up with all sorts of weird and wonderful pseudoscientific explanations for how the world works, like phrenology, using bumps on one’s head to predict personality traits and mental abilities. Or, a time when people wanted to be freaked out by looking at unusual specimens of humanity. Back in those days, you couldn’t just type a kink into a search engine and return a billion or more hits. Instead, the curious could seek out ‘freak shows’ to see unusual sights such as heavily tattooed individuals, amongst other things. It’s those days that Freak Show Revelation resides in, a time capsule to a less sensitive time, with not just freaky connotations, but diabolical ones, too.
In the base game, a 5×3 matrix hosts the show, where 20 paylines evaluate winning combinations of 3 or more of a kind from the leftmost reel. Tickets to the show cost $/€0.10 to $/€40 per spin, and Sneaky Boosts or Sneaky Features may be bought. The ringmaster of this show is a highly volatile math model, generating a theoretical RTP value of 95.77%.
Freak Show Revelation’s low pay symbols are the letters F, R, E, A, and K, worth 3x the bet for 5 OAK, while its high pays, called Freak symbols, are five characters paying 6x to 20x the bet when landing 5 matching premiums in a line.
Freak Show Revelation: Slot Features
The show is made up of Host symbols and features, xBombs, four bonus games, Sneaky Boosts, and feature buys.
Host
The Host symbol is wild and substitutes for all paying symbols. When the Host lands, one of the three following features is randomly triggered:
- The Generous Host – expands to cover the entire reel.
- Host Multiplier – a multiplier of x5 to x50 appears above the reels, which is applied to all wins at the end of the round.
- Host Cash – the host counts all Freak symbols on the reels, including itself. This value is multiplied by the current bet. In addition, the Host multiplies the formed amount by a random multiplier of x2 to x10.
Up to 5 Host symbols may land on a spin, one per reel. The Host cannot land on the reels along with xBomb or scatter symbols.
xBomb
xBomb Wilds can land on the middle three reels to substitute for all symbols except Hosts or scatters. When it lands, it pays before destroying all adjacent symbols and increasing the multiplier for the next collapse. Line wins unchanged by an xBomb in the current spin, and respin are paid twice.
Bonus Games
Landing 3 scatter symbols in the base game activates the bonus round, where players choose Heaven Spins or Hell Respins to enter Act I. However, landing 4 scatters in the base game or 1 scatter during an Act I bonus activates the Act II super bonus, where super versions are available.
- Heaven Spins – start with 10 free spins, with a greater frequency of Host activations, which activate in the same order as in the base game. Landing a scatter adds +3 spins to the current amount and upgrades to Super Heaven Spins.
- Super Heaven Spins – when not activated through Heaven Spins, 10 free spins are awarded. A Host is guaranteed to land at least once on each spin. Scatters do not appear in this feature.
- Hell Respins – starts with 3 respins where only multiplier symbols of x1 to x10, Blanks, scatters, or Hosts land. When multipliers land, they add their value to the multiplier at the top of the reel, which starts at x1. When a Host lands, it doubles the reel multiplier. Multipliers are applied before Hosts on the same spin. Landing a Multiplier or a Host always awards +1 respin no matter how many hit. At the end of the feature, the reel multipliers are added up and awarded. Hitting a scatter upgrades to Super Hell Respins and awards +2 free spins, and all collected multipliers transfer over.
- Super Hell Respins – when not activated through Hell Respins, players are awarded 4 respins. In this version, the rules are more or less the same except scatters do not appear, and when a Host hits, it triples the reel multiplier.
Sneaky Boost, Sneaky Symbol & Sneaky Features
Players may activate the Sneaky Boost or Super Sneaky Boost for 2x or 5x the bet, respectively. When Sneaky Boost is active, landing 1 or 2 Sneaky symbols triggers the bonus round. When the Super Sneaky Boost is active, landing 1 Super Sneak symbol triggers the bonus feature, while landing 2 of them triggers the super bonus feature. Players may also buy the bonus for 100x, the super bonus for 500x, or a Host activation for 15x the bet.
Freak Show Revelation: Slot Verdict
Loading a Sneaky Slots game is like cracking open a blind box, not knowing what toy might be hidden inside. Each of the three slots so far has been not only wildly different from each other, but also wildly different from the bulk of other games out there. Is this a testament to the studio’s creativity, a rub-off effect of working with Nolimit City, or a combination of the two? So far, the sibling studios’ obvious touch has been quite light, given Sneaky Studios has licensed Nolimit City’s xMechanics. Nip Tuck had none, Gopnik dropped xNudge Wilds, while Freak Show Revelation makes do with just one, the xBomb, and that didn’t land with great regularity in the review. Credit to Sneaky Slots for showing restraint to let the individual charms and quirks of Freak Show Revelation shine through brighter.
The bizarre Host is an example of a quirk, which can lead to one of three features when it lands. It didn’t happen often, but landing more than one Host at a time was generally better, but even on their own, the associated effects could be fruitful. It might have been nice if the Heaven Spins features added persistence to generated multipliers, rather than just more frequent Hosts, and the base game could be slow going. The potential influence of outside studios isn’t entirely absent from Freak Show Revelation, either. Its two respins features, for example, feel like they’ve come from a Hacksaw Gaming slot. Chaos Crew, for instance, also collected multiplier values at the top of reels before awarding the total value at the end of the round. Again, the Host comes to the rescue here, and it can be shockingly good at doubling or tripling a reel value into something decent when the going’s good.
Get the full reveal, and Freak Show Revelation has max potential of 13,000x the bet tucked away in the back of the tent. So, whilst it might not be as mechanically daring as the previous two slots, Freak Show Revelation’s mix of specific features and bizarre theme nevertheless makes it an oddity worth investigating for players with a curious disposition.