Nothing to do with the Sunday night ITV safari drama, Wild at Heart is in fact a love-themed video slot from Novomatic. Played using a 5 reel, 20 payline game engine, it comes with a bonus round that awards 15 free spins. You’ll be given the chance to collect hearts and in the process, win multipliers of between 3x and 15x. The more you gamble, the bigger the potential rewards. Stakes start from 40p per spin.
The design here is a little unusual, even for a Novomatic game – the symbols look like tattoos you’d find on a hipster’s forearm. Joining the lower value A to 10 symbols are a snake and dagger and a rose which both award 1, 5 or 25 times your total stake if you land 3, 4 or 5 in combination. The top standard symbol is the diamond which pays 2, 10 or 50 times your stake. More lucrative still is the tiger which is the wild – it offers bumper awards of 5, 25 or 250 times your stake. It replaces everything apart from the heart tattoo which is the bonus.
Land the bonus on reels 1, 3 and 5 on the same spin to trigger the Free Games with Hearts feature – you’ll then be awarded 15 free spins. Before they play out, you have a choice to make. The goal is to try and collect heart symbols. You can try and collect 3, 5, 7, 10 or 15 of them.
If you manage to land the same number of hearts during the free spins as the number you chose to collect then that figure is turned into a multiplier. Go for the max and your free spin wins would rocket courtesy of the 15x boost.
Wild at Heart has the potential to be a pretty volatile game – we found the variance to be on the high side of medium. The base game action is just what you’d expect. The free spins round offers the best potential. The more you’re prepared to gamble collecting hearts, the bigger the rewards on offer. It can of course be a risky proposition. We’d aim for the high-end multipliers but if you’re feeling more cautious, opt for something more doable.
The design in Wild at Heart isn’t that flash. The tattoo style symbols are a little unusual, as are the blasts of electric guitar that accompany wins. The free spins round make this a playable game though. If you’re feeling lucky, Wild at Heart lives up to its name. If you like volatile Novomatic games, there’s plenty to choose from with Dragon’s Deep recommended.