Buggin Slot
- High Rating of 9,3 out of 10
- 10,000 maximum payout
- Merging Wilds and Multipliers
- Super Bonus feature
- 500x to buy the Super Bonus
- The low 94% RTP pulls down the overall rating, even though it's a fun game.
Play Buggin Slot Machine Free & Comprehensive Review
Introduction
Elk Studios is taking their job very seriously and they are working hard on expanding their slots offer. Recently we had a chance to see a few new titles in their portfolio, and now it’s time for their latest addition, Buggin. As you can already guess this slot is inspired by bugs, which have a cute and cartoon-like appearance on the reels.
But underneath the gentle exterior is a dire slot with high volatility and the potential for payouts of up to 10,000x the stake. The game has a great set of bonus rounds where you can get free drops, extra wilds and high win multipliers. All of this combined translates to a very fun and interesting slot that can deliver big payouts on your screen.
How to Play Buggin
For this slot, the Elk Studios designers went with a modern 7×7 grid. The game uses a cluster pays payment system where you need at least 5 matching symbols, connected horizontally or vertically. The bets in Buggin start at $0.20 and can go up to $100 per spin. To set your bet to the desired size click on the coins button and choose your stake. To set the reels in motion simply hit the Spin button.
A Decade of Playing Slots
Elk Studios and their slots caught my attention early on. I really liked their earlier releases and knew that this provider was destined for great things. They kept on releasing great new games over the years and today are a popular name in the online gambling industry. They keep on working hard and expand their game collection on a regular basis. What I like the most about their games is the fact that they are original. Elk Studios is focused on creating unique slots that attract a regular audience and I know they will keep doing a great job for years to come.
My Own Experience Playing Buggin
Buggin is a relatively new game, but I did manage to give it a few tries at my favourite safe casinos. I really liked the gameplay and I was amazed by the bonus rounds. I still need to work up a bigger balance to try the X-iter bonus buy features and see what kind of results I manage to land. But I did manage to spin in the Super Bonus once so far. The result was quite good, landing a 600x payout. It could have been much more but for starters I was happy with the payout. I’ll definitely try the game a few more times and hope to get much bigger wins in the feature.
Bonus Features and Payouts
I think everyone will agree that most of the new releases by Elk Studios have complicated features. There’s a lot going on across the reels, so you really should go over the bonus rules first to understand what you are seeing.
As I mentioned before this is a cluster pays slot. When a win lands on the reels all of the symbols that are involved explode and are removed from the screen. You can also land big symbols covering a 2×2 or a 3×3 grid on the screen. They count as 4 and 9 symbols accordingly.
The Wild symbol will replace any paying symbol on the screen. The Wild can also come with a win multiplier attached. If more wilds contribute to a payout their multipliers are added together.
If a wild symbol contributes to a win it will not be removed from the screen. Instead, it will merge with another wild symbol on the reels, merging also their multiplier values. If the wild is part of several winning clusters it will be added to several wild mergers.
On top of the reels, you have a progress meter. It’s filled each time a win is formed on the reels. Once the meter becomes full a Feature Wild is triggered and the meter is reset. Once no more wins land the feature wild is released on the reels.
The feature wild can target one paying symbol and increase it to a 2×2 or 3×3 symbol.
The Multiplying Wild can all its value to all of the regular wilds on the screen, which at the moment are not part of any win.
The Random Wild can spread to at least 2 positions on the screen and replace the symbols with wilds.
The Removing Wild will remove one of the lowest-paying symbols from the screen.
The Upgrading Wild on the other hand will choose one of the lower-value symbols and upgrade them to a higher-paying one.
Free Spins Bonus
To trigger the feature in Buggin you need to land 3 bonus symbols on the reels. In return, you get 7 free spins. During the feature, the regular wilds remain on the screen as Sticky Wilds.
If you trigger the feature with 3 bonus symbols and one of them is the super bonus symbol, you get the Super Bonus. Here you also get 7 free spins, where all feature wilds are unlocked when they are collected for the first time. The next free spin starts with the feature wilds added to the reels.
If you want you can instantly buy the bonus round via the X-iter button for a price of 100x the stake. You can also buy the Super Bonus for a hefty price of 500x the stake.
Comparison with Other slots
For me, a perfect comparison of Buggin would be with Pirots and Pirots 2 by Elk Studios. These are two great slots from this provider with an amazing set of bonus features. You can give them a try and compare them to Buggin to see which one you like more.
Benefits and Drawbacks
Like most other Elk Studios slots the biggest benefit of the game lies in the bonus round. Here thanks to the merging of the Wilds and the multipliers you can get some pretty big wins. But the biggest drawback for me is the high price to buy the Super Bonus. I think that 500x the stake is just too high for this feature. Somewhere in the range of 250x to 300x the stake would be much more affordable to players.
Our Conclusion
Buggin is certainly an interesting Elk Studios slot with a lot to offer. It’s a game that will need some getting used to, as the features are a bit complicated. But once you learn how everything works and you land some nice hits on the screen you can easily keep coming back to the reels of Buggin. But if you’re serious about chasing that mega payout you will need a bigger bankroll to back you up. It can take a lot of money to chase the super bonus payouts and considering how much it costs you can easily end up with a big loss. Try the game at our recommended real money brands and see how you do.
Author: Nicky Smith
I love slot machines, play and test slots nearly daily, and have done for over ten years. read about me here.