Infective Wild is the name of an online casino game from developer Pragmatic Play, which brought up the idea that slots are one of the few places where the word 'infective' can be a positive. Here, it brings to mind spreading wilds, or something along those lines, rather than diseases or corrupted organisms migrating from one host to another. Fortunately, Infective Wild is all about the former rather than the latter, meaning there is indeed spreading wild-type action to be found within. It has also got a free spins round where wilds are sticky and a bonus buy.
It would appear Infective Wild is geared toward Halloween-inclined players, but after seeing what it can do, the theme is somewhat irrelevant, as the game can easily be enjoyed at any time of the year. A pumpkin-headed fellow, not the most friendly sort of chap, jiggles next to the reels on the right side of the screen, holding a crystal-topped staff and bizarrely letting steam escape from his collar. Glowing skulls, a pumpkin, graves, bats, and leafless trees make up much of the rest of the view in what is pretty stock Halloween stuff. If you're not quaking in your boots with fear, then why don't we proceed.
Next up is bet selection, where we find a rather low-roller unfriend minimum bet of 40 p/c going up all the way to $/€240 per spin for those with deeper pockets, and whilst there's no ante bet, Infective Wild does offer a feature buy. It also offers highly volatile gaming, and after perceiving the way bonus buys play out, including a smile-erasing return of exactly zero dollars and zero cents, yeah, Infective Wild is a volatile number. It produces an RTP of 96.09% as a default and is played on a 5-reel 4-row gaming panel with 40 paylines for win evaluations.
Winning combinations of symbols must start from the leftmost side of the grid in Infective Wild and fall along adjacent reels. Ten to ace card ranks make up the low pays, while a potion bottle, a gravestone, a cauldron, a witch's hat, a raven, and a cat make up the highs. Should you be lucky enough to hit a 5-of-a-kind winning line, then the payouts equate to 4 to 6 times the bet for the royals and 12 to 60 times the bet for the picture symbols. One more symbol for here is the pumpkin wild, present on all reels. Hitting a 5 OAK wild win awards 60x the bet, and wilds substitute for any symbol in the game, except for scatters.
The title feature here is the Infective Wild mechanism itself, which spreads wild substitution abilities amongst certain symbols, while the other extras are free spins with sticky wilds and a bonus buy facility.
When a wild symbol hits, if it is connected to a cat or raven symbol horizontally or vertically, the Infective Wild feature triggers. The connected cat or raven symbols are given the ability to be wild, and if those altered symbols are connected to other symbols of their type, horizontally or vertically, they are also made wild.
Scatters appear on reels 1, 3 and 5, and when 3 of them land, free spins are triggered. First, a grid of 8 cells spins, each revealing the number 1, 2, or 3. All numbers are tallied up when the cells stop spinning, awarding the number of free spins. During free spins, wilds that land on reels 1, 2, 3, or 4 are stuck in place until the feature comes to an end. Sticky wilds are Infective Wilds, so they make cat and raven symbols that hit next to them wild, but these cat and raven symbols do not stick. Free spins cannot be retriggered.
Players are able to buy the free spins feature for the cost of 100 times the bet. When buying free spins, the RTP is a little bit less than normal, dropping to 96.06%.
Catch Infective Wild on a good day, and you know what? The gaming is pretty infectious. When a studio gets it right, there's something special about sticky wilds that can really get the adrenal gland pumping. Balanced on a scale of goods and bads, Infective Wild is a game which manages, largely, to get it right. Its maker, Pragmatic Play, has a knack for creating games that are an absolute hoot when they get on a repeat win streak, which is probably at least part of the reason why so many Pragmatic Play slots are such darlings of the streamer set, amongst others. Repeat wins are the name of the game in Infective Wild, too, and are quite a thrill ride when it all comes together.
How it does so is easy, in theory. Jam a bunch of sticky wilds up on the board during free spins and watch them infect adjacent ravens and cats. As we said, easy, in theory. In practice, it's unlikely to always be so straightforward, and Infective Wild is certainly a slot which can punish the unlucky. Another concern, or hesitation, let's say, is that Infective Wild doesn't power up its sticky wilds with multipliers like The Dog House or Wild West Gold. Both of those slots went on to receive Megaways makeovers, and it didn't take a massive stretch of the imagination to picture Infective Wild getting the treatment as well. Factoring in what Infective Wild already does on a Megaways gaming board is an interesting thought experiment. As it is, Infective Wild is capable of wilding out payouts up to a win cap of 5,000x the bet.
It's not all smooth sailing, though. Infective Wild can be a cruel game when it isn't playing ball. Such is the reality of taking a punt, though, and when Infective Wild is in a giving mood, its sticky, spreading, infectious wild feature is a good one which certain gamblers are likely to want to get on board with.
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