A gentle looking woodland can deliver some volatile action in Beetle Jewels, a bug-themed slot from iSoftBet. Goodies lurking in this forest include free spins complete with special expanding symbols that can fill multiple reels and deliver some mighty rewards. Play, on desktop, mobile and tablet devices, from between 10p and £10 per spin.
iSoftBet are among the front-runners when it comes to design and Beetle Jewels is another cracking looking game – a mysterious woodland forms the backdrop to the reels which are filled with lower value A to 10 playing cards and a quartet of brightly coloured beetles. The most lucrative of the standard symbols is the red and blue bug who’ll get you a payout equal to 1, 10, 100 or 500 times your total stake if you manage to land 2, 3, 4 or 5 of them on a single payline.
Rounding out the symbols is the purple and blue insect in the golden circle – this critter acts as both a wild and a scatter. As well as offering rewards of 2, 20 or 200 times your total stake, it also substitutes for all other symbols. Land 3 or more of them on the same spin and you’ll trigger the Free Spins feature.
Here you’ll be awarded 10 free spins. You’ll notice above the main reel set a single spinning reel – the symbol that lands here can morph onto the main reels and fill multiple reels with the same matching symbols. These symbols don’t even have to be on adjacent reels to create a winning combination either. Just like the base game, 3 or more scatters will trigger another round of 10 free spins, complete with the expanding symbols.
With the hum of the forest, chirp of the crickets and a soothing soundtrack, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Beetle Jewels is a genteel affair. We found it to be anything but (medium to high). Sure, the base game isn’t the most innovative – the game really sparkles once you trigger the Free Spins feature though.
The expanding symbols can deliver some hugely impressive results. We didn’t find the feature easy to trigger but we struck it lucky when we did, pocketing almost 650 times our stake from a single set of free spins on one occasion.
Combining high-end visuals, a classy soundtrack and a potentially explosive feature round, Beetle Jewels offered far more thrills than we expected. If you’re after high-end design, a quality feature round and a nature theme, then you won’t go far wrong here. Alternatively, iSoftBet’s Forest Mania is highly recommended.
