The last thing you need is a dead canary on your hands when you’re deep in a mine, hammering away at the rock face to recover valuable minerals. The birds were traditionally brought down by miners as a form of natural protection. As long as it continues to sing, it seems like everything is OK. If the canary collapses, it’s possible that there’s something poisonous in the air and you should remove the fudge immediately. The inverse is true in Dead Canary. You may increase your winnings in Nolimit City’s online slot machine by causing the deaths of as many canaries (virtual ones, of course) as possible. Let’s have a look if everyone has their hard hat on, their picks are in good shape, and they aren’t afraid of close quarters.
Nolimit City has gone underground for an online slot before. Similar to its predecessors, Dead Canary takes inspiration from games like Fire in the Hole xBomb and Misery Mining, from which it branches out in various ways. All of these shows have had one thing in common: a really intense atmosphere. Dead Canary’s chamber is reminiscent of a grotto; the only other visual elements are some pebbles and a yellow pool.
Not the most graphically impressive Nolimit City release, but the gameplay grid in Dead Canary is fascinating. The game advertises six reels, initially set up as 3-3-2-2-1-1 then unlocking more places to allow for a maximum configuration of 3-4-3-4-3-4. It may take a spin or two to acquire a feel for the layout, but in order to win, you need at least three symbols to land on three consecutive reels, beginning with the first reel. The cascade function eliminates winning combinations and replaces them with newly collapsed symbols. Every time you win, detonate an x-Bomb adjacent to a barrier, or use the Wild Mining function, a previously blocked row will become available. When the barrier is removed and the symbol is destroyed, or when the barrier is removed to expose a scatter, the lower multipliers are triggered.
Players may select base bets ranging from 20 p/c to £/€100 per spin, with a default RTP of 96.02%, or activate the xBet to increase their stake by 40%. By paying the price, you can break through the initial barrier and guarantee a scatter on every spin. Dead Canary is a dynamic slot with several bonus features and frequent action, but it is quite unpredictable, so don’t bank on anything spectacular happening frequently. Dead Canary’s ten regular symbols include the standard 10-A playing card ranks, a grappling hook, flask, compass, rat, and the mining guy for higher payouts. If you get six of a kind, you’ll receive between 2 and 7.5 times your wager for regular symbols and between 1 and 1.5 times your wager for premium symbols.
The Slot Features of the Dead Canary
Dead Canary has a lot going on, but it’s not too difficult to learn once you understand how the basic grid works. Extras are included below.
Extreme Mining
The Wild Mining bonus game starts when there is no winning combination but 3, 4, or 5 of the same pay symbol are aligned diagonally. When the triggering symbols are taken out, the vacant spaces are filled with wild symbols. One, two, or three Wild bombs are awarded for landing 3, 4, or 5 triggering symbols, accordingly. Explosions of wild bombs boost the next collapse’s win multiplier by 1. With the exception of xBomb symbols, every other symbol is a bomb. If a scatter is blown away, it will reappear on the following collapse, but in a completely random location.
Wild Multiplier xBomb
Wild xBombs may replace any other icon bar the Scatters. Win multipliers are increased by +1 for the subsequent collapse when xBombs explode adjacent symbols in a cross pattern (excluding scatters and other xBombs, of course). Before the next collapse, every xBomb will go off.
Bingo Canary Free Turns
If a scatter symbol lands behind a barrier, it will stay dormant until the barrier is removed. Canary Free Spins are activated by landing three of either the Silver or Gold cage scatter symbols. There are now four locked vaults in the four corners of the 4x4x4x4 grid where free spins are played. Explosions of xBombs are used to gain access to vaults. Each cage that was activated during the free games will retain its 3 health points. Canaries on vaults will relocate to a new location at random, and you’ll receive three additional spins. The Silver cage variant can gather in an x pattern from one position away, whereas the Gold cage version may do so from the full row, with scatters having an initial value of x1. Anything in the area around the vaults is likewise stored there. After being paid its value when a scatter loses all three of its hit points, the bird is reborn with the same number of hit points. The round’s unique icons are as follows:
Coins, when gathered, increase the value of the dispersion.
Collecting a multiplier may increase the value of a scatter by a factor of two or three.
Explodes and modifies x-shaped symbols; the bomb. Explosions both unlock safes and eliminate one health point from scatters. Dropping a bomb on a roulette wheel makes it spin once again.
Using this ability raises Silver scatters to Gold scatters and grants a health point to the upgraded symbols.
All nearby canaries take one damage from the gas.
A dwarf is a collectible creature that provides an additional health point. When gathered, the Scatter adds its value to the sum of all other scatters’ values from the current spin onward until it is destroyed. If it dies, it will come back as a canary.
One-scatter collection of rats grants an additional hit point. Until it dies, a rat’s value on a spin will be combined with that of all other scatters. After passing on, a rat is reborn as a canary.
At the conclusion of a spin, the sum of the canary value and any unlocked Vault values is paid out.
No Cap on City Rewards
If you’re playing in a market where it’s available, you may purchase the extra round with the Nolimit City extra. Regular Canary Free Spins cost 68x the stake, while Golden Canary Free Spins cost 500x the bet. The third alternative is a roll-of-the-dice for 284x the original price. When you purchase free games, the scatter symbols will appear anywhere on the screen.
The Slot Verdict: A Dying Canary
Dead Canary follows in the footsteps of Nolimit City’s other underground mining games, all of which were hefty experiences. There are certain commonalities between the three games. Among these is the prevalence of extra features and the ability to unlock more reels in the game’s main grid. Dead Canary goes even farther, where the grid’s nearly leaning quality may make it difficult to understand how victories are produced and, at times, why a victory occurred in the first place. The falling, sliding aspect of the collapse feature was reminiscent of the slot machine Cluster Slide by ELK Studios. You’ll get accustomed to it, and the fresh perspective on the action is fun to experiment with.
When we talk about action, the core game actually had a lot of it. There were plenty of wins and losses, but the payoff amounts were unexpectedly low, even at the end of a moderately long game session. This wasn’t so bad under normal conditions, but turning on xBet significantly increased the rate at which the game consumed available funds. However, when the xBet was used, the free-spins bonus appeared far more frequently. The first 500 spins were played in the standard mode, triggering free spins three times, and the maximum payout was about 70x. This is based on a log of the first thousand or so spins. The subsequent 500 spins were played with xBet enabled, leading to the activation of a handful of free spins and a maximum payout of 183x. The stated frequency of free spins is 1 in 197 spins, so it seems like a lot of triggers. However, this is only a tiny sample size, so the true frequency may be higher or lower in the wild.
If canaries didn’t have to die to give their values in the bonus round, players would have a better chance of winning. There was a lot of activity in the bonus rounds as well, including landing, collecting, gassing, unlocking, multiplying, and so on, but the payoff wasn’t always great. One of the reasons is that if those canaries don’t die, you’re out of luck. You need to land a good hit and then pray that the bird is nuked or gassed so you may collect, in contrast to ordinary hold ‘n wins, which award everything that hits. It’s analogous to the fortunes made by commodities dealers when war drives up commodity prices. Canary Free Spins reminded me of the slot machine from Push Gaming called Mad Cars, in which the vehicle symbols may be rather lucrative if they cross the finish line. So, you know, this can be a real tease.
Of course, this is Nolimit City, so anybody familiar with their output knows better than to anticipate gold to start dripping out of rocks like a shaken beer can at the slightest provocation. Dead Canary is another very imaginative game unlike any other, similar to the laborious nature of mining. It has the potential to annoy, but also to reward to the tune of 65,000 times the initial wager. Dead Canary is a risk if you’re looking for a challenge or just want to try out another innovative slot machine from Nolimit City.