Old Drac  (Bigwinboard.com)

Old Drac: Slot Overview

Cover your jugular veins, gamblers; Hacksaw Gaming partner Backseat Gaming has rustled up the undead to add bite to its scatter-paying online slot Old Drac. Some say Bram Stoker's infamous novel 'Dracula' was inspired by Vlad the Impaler, who was born in 1431, so if there is a connection, Drac might well be pushing 600 years of age, which, on a human scale, is rather old indeed. By online slot standards, many of the features in Old Drac are relatively aged as well, as the game delivers a tried and true concoction of scatter pays, cascading wins, and multiplier symbols.

Old Drac's trip to Transylvania thrusts players into a nocturnal world of leafless trees, a big full moon, and a spikey fenced mansion. The old fella joins gamblers on their adventure, standing next to the gaming area, cane in hand, a big, wide, fanged grin on his face. Whilst not full-on 'Dracula: Dead and Loving It' comedy, Old Drac's eye-popping vampire and cuddly bat mean the game nevertheless leans more towards light-hearted creeps than take things serious horror like, say, Red Tiger's Dracula Awakening.

Since we're dealing with a scatter pays slot, winning combinations are created when 8 or more matching symbols land on the 6x5 play area in any position. The symbols making up winning combinations are removed from view, and the gaps they leave behind are filled by symbols cascading downwards. Cascades repeat until no new win is formed. If you're hunting for the best RTP, like a bloodsucker stalking its next victim, then that would be the 96.29% version, while the math model volatility is high. When picking a stake, the minimum is 10 c, and the maximum is $/€100.

Gems shaped like triangles, diamonds, pentagons, octagons, and hearts are Old Drac's lower-paying symbols, with rings, candles, cups, and bats making up the high pays. Winning combinations of 8 OAK pay 0.1x to 1.5x, while landing a 19+ OAK combo is worth 50x to 300x the bet.

Old Drac: Slot Features

Old Drac gets its bite from Garlic symbol multipliers, two bonus rounds - The Garlic Hunt and Drac Attack, both of which have a progressive feature, plus feature buys.

Total Win Bar and Garlic Symbols

All wins are collected above the grid in the Total Win Bar. Garlic symbols are multiplier symbols that reveal a value of x2 to x200. When no more wins occur on the reels, any multipliers from Garlic symbols are added together and applied to the amount in the Total Win Bar. Garlic symbols only activate if there is at least one winning combo on the grid.

The Garlic Hunt

10 Garlic Hunt free spins are awarded by landing 4 Drac scatters in the base game. In the bonus round, there is a progression ladder that increases the minimum possible multiplier values of Garlic symbols. The four levels on the ladder are x5, x10, x25, and x100 and are unlocked by landing an additional 2, 3, 3, and 5 Drac scatters, respectively. Each time a level advancement occurs, +5 free spins are granted.

Drac Attack

10 Drac Attach free spins are triggered by landing 5 Drac scatters in the main game. The mechanics are the same as The Garlic Hunt, except players start at a random level of 1 to 4 on the progression ladder.

Feature Buy

Old Drac's feature buy menu has BonusHunt FeatureSpins at 2x the bet to make each spin 3 times more likely to trigger a bonus, Garlic Blast FeatureSpins at 15x to guarantee Garlic symbols with x2 to x25 multipliers, or Garlic Mayhem FeatureSpins at 50x which guarantee Garlic symbols with x25 to x200 multipliers. It's also possible to buy The Garlic Hunt for 100x or Drac Attack for 200x.

Old Drac: Slot Verdict

Just as you can't teach an old dog new tricks (so they say), it would appear that you can't teach an old Dracula wildly new tricks either. Old Drac has some newer stuff going on, but for the most part, it follows a pathway laid down by the leaders of the scatter pays pack, such as Gates of Olympus. In the slot world, the scatter pays mechanic goes with multiplier symbols and cascades like macaroni and cheese. Developers can't get enough of this stuff, and so one would surmise, can gamblers, which would explain the proliferation of slots built around the combo.

Old Drac makes good use of this particular combination of features, too, though their inclusion means this isn't the most original slot. There has been an attempt at pushing the game in a newer direction when the bonus round is active, though. Instead of having a progressive total multiplier, Old Drac's levelling-up of the minimum multiplier values does put space between itself and Gates-style free spins features. This method changes the dynamic, so while the suspense of building an increasing total multiplier has been erased, having larger minimum multipliers makes for an interesting alternative. A potentially lucrative one as well, as Old Drac's 12,500x cap is more than double the limitation Pragmatic Play whacked on GOO.

Furthermore, unlike a scatter paying old timer such as Sweet Bonanza, Old Drac is willing to drop Garlic multiplier symbols not only in free spins but throughout the base game. It means that although Old Drac is built upon the foundations of other slots and could hardly be classed as pioneering, there are enough ticks in the pro column to persuade scatter paying enthusiasts to have a crack.