Description
With five reels and 17 Paylines, Birds on a Wire Slot from operator Thunderkick is not to be confused with the Goldie Hawn movie or the Leonard Cohen song! This chirpy game replaces the standard slot format with three rows of five cutie-pie birds on electric wires against a green backdrop of trees and fields beneath a blue sky.
Whirl the reels to move along to the next bit of the wire, as 15 new birds take their places. This dropping symbols feature allows for consistent wins, plus multipliers of up to 5x apply, or up to 20x in the bonus round.
How to play
As usual, stakes vary from a minuscule 10p all the way up to £100 a spin, so you can play for as little or as much as the fancy takes. Just choose and click on whatever bets you wish to place. Then pick Spin or Autoplay and you’re away.
To kick off with, birds swoop through the air while the game’s rules are explained, before the creatures land on three different pylon wires.
In all, there are seven different bird icons, in red, black, blue, orange, pink, brown and green. You’ll find an owl and a parrot among them, while the hen, yielding 12x stake, is the most lucrative icon.
Birds on a Wire Slot special features
Special symbols
A cardboard box with a cartoon-style pair of yellow eyes peeping out is the Scatter. Meanwhile, a pear-shaped, yellow-striped large dark bird serves as the Wild. This does its usual thing of replacing all icons save the Scatter.
Bonus features
Free spins
The eyes in the Scatter symbol described above turn out to be those of a cat. Land three boxes and the feline emerges to frighten off the birdies, activating this round and awarding you 10 free goes.
Landing any extra Scatter gives you a further couple of freebies, up to a maximum of 34.
As mentioned, there are some high-octane multipliers here of up to 20x stake, rising in multiples of four, so get some momentum going and you could win big.
Rounding off this feature is the ‘Inwinity’ perk you’ll also find in sibling Thunderkick offering Barber Shop Uncut. It essentially means that should your final free whirl not deliver a winner, those reels just keeping turning until you do have one.
Dropping symbols
These crop up in both the free spins round and the base game every time you bag a winning combination. The birds that made up the formation are then ‘electrified’ or zapped into oblivion, vanishing in a flurry of feathers, while new feathered friends replace them. (We know this shouldn’t be funny, but actually it’s hilarious.) Fresh combos then become possible, with your multiplier in the base game rising from 1x up to an attractive 5x with each win that follows.
Return to Player (RTP)
Birds on a Wire Slot has an RTP or Return to Player of 96%, marginally below the Thunderkick norm – and do bear in mind that this is a high-volatility game.
Verdict
You should find Birds on a Wire® offers everything you’d want from a slots package, from clever design, top-notch imagery, entertainment value and great sound effects to excellent winning potential and a fantastic free spins round.
And while it may take a little more getting used to than some, it’s packed with Thunderkick’s trademark inventiveness, quirkiness and creativity. All in all, it’s an impressive addition to this operator’s stable, so give it a go, playing for free first time around.
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