Get ready for some huffing and a puffing in Greedy Wolf, Pragmatic Play's retelling of the classic The Three Little Pigs fable. Many are probably familiar, but if not, it's a story that teaches a lesson about the benefits of hard work. Where the first two pigs rushed the house-building process so they could get back to playing around, the third one took his time to construct a brick house, thereby avoiding the wolf's jaws, who could not blow his house down. This is a tale that has been retold countless times in the past. Let's see how Pragmatic Play's version measures up.
Heavily based on SG Gaming's land-based slot Huff n' Puff, Greedy Wolf is set in a fairy tale world of meadows, butterflies, mountains, a stream with a swan, a white fence, the works. Pragmatic Play has laid it on thick to create an idyllic location that evokes memories of the famous story. The little pigs can be seen running about in the distance, no doubt up to some sort of mischief, and at times, the wolf starts chasing them. In the middle of the screen is a 5-reel, 4-row game panel stuck to the side of what is presumably one of the pigs' houses.
Greedy Wolf has been designed to be played on mobile, tablet, or desktop devices and accepts bets of 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin. Or it may be possible to activate the Ante Bet, which increases the stake by 25%, thereby triggering the bonus round when 5 scatter symbols land instead of the normal 6. This affects RTP, which, when playing in the default mode is 96.48%, rising to 96.51% with the Ante Bet active. Be aware that Greedy Wolf also has two lower RTP models, while volatility has been rated at medium-high (3.5 out of 5).
A total of 20 paylines cross the grid, and regular symbols pay from left to right. For the lower pays we get J-A card ranks and two tools, paying 3 to 5 times the bet for a five-symbol line, then there are three little pigs and the wolf as the high pays. Each looks about as happy as it gets, including the wolf who looks more like a lapdog than a fearful beast. Anyway, landing five premium symbols across a payline is worth 10 to 20 times the stake. Eking out a bit more is the wild symbol, as landing five wilds on a line pay 25x the bet. Wilds appear on all reels and can replace any pay symbol to help complete a win.
Greedy Wolf comes with a bonus round, triggered when the required number of scatters hit, as well as three base game modifiers – Greedy Wolf Wild, 3 Little Pigs Wilds and Respins, plus Guaranteed Wins.
On the central reel only, fully stacked and expanded wolf symbols can randomly land. When this occurs, all pig symbols in view are transformed into wolf symbols. The game pays after the transformations have taken place.
On random spins, wilds may be added to reels 1, 2, or 3, and a win evaluation occurs. Then, the wolf comes along to move wilds one position to the right and trigger a respin, or blow the wilds off the screen to end the feature. Respins continue until there is nowhere for the wilds to move or they have been blown away.
On random non-winning spins, the wolf can appear and blow all the symbols away. New symbols fall from the top, guaranteeing a win of at least 20x the bet or landing enough scatters to trigger free spins.
Landing 6 scatters, or 5 when the Ante Bet is active awards 6 free spins. Triggering scatter symbols have straw frames placed around the position they landed, and if scatters land during the feature, they also get frames placed on their positions. If a cell already has a frame, it is upgraded from straw to wood, then bricks, then castle. Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatters awards an additional 1, 2, or 4 free spins, respectively. At the end of free spins, the framed positions are converted into houses. The wolf appears and blows the houses away to reveal money prizes. Prizes are higher based on the type of house.
Well, there's a bit of huffin' and a puffin' going on in Greedy Wolf, but not hurricane levels of air movement. It's got polish, bright looks, a ton of animations, several features, and there's an amusing interplay between wolf and piggies. However, it also feels like one of those games Pragmatic Play could design in their sleep with two hands tied behind their backs. The game makes good use of its characters, though, who climb ladders to add wilds or appear on screen to literally blow things away. When it comes to theme use, Greedy Wolf gives Quickspin's classic Big Bad Wolf a run for its money and does so in a charming manner.
This made it easy to get caught up in the flow when the features were firing. At the beginning of the review, features were quite rare for a while, and the game lost some of its sheen. However, once they started popping, along with the cute way characters add some of the features, it was easy to settle back for a few rib-ticklers. Free spins were a letdown, though. We'd recently reviewed Wild Chapo Dream Drop, which uses a similar system of marking positions on the reels when scatter symbols hit. On the final free spin of Wild Chapo Dream Drop, the marked positions are filled with wilds and/or wild multipliers, which multiply each other. As such, the results can be quite startling. In Greedy Wolf, you just get cash prizes. That's fine, but they didn't tend to have major values, and even having a ton of marked positions just wasn't super exciting. Nor is Greedy Wolf's max win of 3,000x the bet.
Greedy Wolf would probably fit the bill if a bubbly retelling of the Three Little Pigs fable is all you are looking for. However, if you want a bit more bite, a bit more huff 'n' puff, then a game like Big Bad Wolf Megaways and its ten times+ greater potential might be a better option.
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