If you're the sort of person who can't help but chuckle when celebs wear the same clothes to a red carpet event, you better get ready to experience a few deep gut laughs. Or shake your head in disbelief over developer Pragmatic Play's rip-off of ELK Studios' highway slot Route 777 in a 'new' game titled Runaway 7s. And we're not talking about a slot with one or two similarities here. Runaway 7s is like Pragmatic Play raising a middle finger to their competitor while mouthing 'yeah, and?' at them. Or a disgruntled former ELK employee was trying to get revenge when their NDA ran out. Who knows? Anyways, settle in for some next-level slot imitation.
It starts with the visuals, and like the slot Runaway 7s is trying to be, it's set in a desolate North American-type environment, but one based on a train track rather than a strip of highway. This thematic switch actually ends up being funnier than if Pragmatic Play just went with the Route 66 thing, as if they were trying (but not really trying) to be different. Runaway 7s has even got that screen above its gaming panel depicting pixelated images. At this point, there was little more to do than gasp and giggle at the audacity of it all.
The default RTP is a bit higher, that's something, where Runaway 7s generates a return of 96.5% when playing normally or 96.51% when buying either of the two features. The math model is highly volatile (5 out of 5 rated), and players may stake $/€1 to $/€100 per spin, base bet, so it's not super wallet-friendly for some budgets.
Runaways 7s is played on a 3x3 arranged gaming grid with 17 ways to win - only three-of-a-kind wins are possible when talking about regular payouts. Its symbols are a BAR, plum, orange, cherries, purple 7, orange 7, white 7, and a triple 7. Payouts when landing winning combinations of these symbols range from 0.5 to 70 times the bet, and Runaway 7s does not have wild symbols.
It does have a scatter symbol, with a train on it, which is used to trigger free spins and a wheel feature. Plus, there's also a Respins feature.
When exactly the same symbols land on reels 1 and 2, a total of 5 respins are awarded. On each respin, reels 1 and 2 nudge down one position, while reel 3 spins normally. Payouts are made when any wins are formed on each respin. If free spins are triggered during a respin, they play out, and when complete, play moves back to the remaining respins. If free spins and respins trigger on the same base game spin, only free spins will be activated.
Hitting 3 scatters in the base game or on a respin awards 5 free spins. While the free spins feature is running, landing 2 scatters awards 5 to 15 additional free spins, whereas hitting 3 scatters triggers the Wheel feature. After the Wheel feature has been played, free spins will resume.
The Wheel feature is played on a grid of 4x3 symbols, each showing 3 levels. A wheel spins and stops on one of the following symbols or on STOP. Each time the wheel stops on a symbol, the next level is activated:
The feature ends when one of the symbols reaches level 3, or STOP is revealed. Then, the highest level reached by each symbol is awarded.
Via the two feature buy options, players can trigger respins for 20x the bet or free spins for 50x the bet.
Bewildering right? That a studio could so blatantly copy someone else's creation. Runaway 7s sits alongside the Starblast/Crystal Sun - Starburst debacle or the InfiniReels/Infinity Reels dust-up. There must be a reason behind it: kickbacks for ELK Studios or … something? If there's no explanation, the situation is even more bizarre. A studio of Pragmatic Play's standing, experience, and extensive back catalogue stooping to mirror another studio's slot as if the team didn't have the gumption, or couldn't be bothered, to come up with its own ideas. Surely not.
Anyhoo, enough of the Nancy Drew stuff, how did Runaway 7s fare? Well, it fared about as well as Route 777 did, but without the exciting burnt rubber, scorching asphalt, pedal to the metal, pinball, Americana feel the original slot had. From a gameplay perspective, it's basically identical, meaning it might be a match for players looking for a 3-reel slot with more meat on its bones than a game of this type might usually have. The meat being respins possibly upping the base game thrills and spills, and free spins where access to the Wheel feature may be gained. Even the max win is the same, at 4,000x the bet, though what's new is the two feature buys, which are fairly reasonably priced when compared to a lot of other feature buys out there.
Oh well, let's chalk Runaway 7s up as one of online gambling's more baffling moments. It's as if someone at Stakelogic had a bet with someone at Pragmatic Play as to who could produce the most blatant rip-off. This is a made-up, far-fetched scenario, of course - just thinking out loud here, but if we pretend there was a bet like that, then Pragmatic Play would surely be collecting on the wager now.
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