Black River Gold

Black River Gold from ELK Studios has a release date of 5th May 2020. This slot will take you back to the Wild West in the 20th century where you will meet Kane the Explorer and go in search of hidden treasures on expanding reels that offer up to 262,144 ways to win. Complete with cascading symbols, a wild compass, a totally unique revolver feature and free spins where you can win up to 5,000x your bet. So, if you are ready to join Kane, saddle up and let's get started.

Black River Gold slot from ELK Studios overview

If you are au fait with the predecessor to this game you will know that Kane the Explorer failed to find his fortune whilst in the swamps of Louisiana, and in this slot he will take you to the North where the regions are bitterly cold, in search of the precious treasure. The scene is set beautifully against the Rocky Mountain and the black River Valley to the front provides an excellent insight into the vast Wilds of North Canada.

The slot plays out over 6 reels, with 4 - 8 rows and offers from 4,096 to 260,114 ways you can win. In order to land a win, you need to have from three to six adjacent matching symbols going from left to right. When it comes to placing your bet, the minimum is 0.20 coins and the maximum 100 coins. This is a highly volatile game and offers a return to player of 96.1%. You can customise your play using the betting strategy and auto play which can be set from 10 – 100 consecutive spins.

Black River Gold Symbols

All the symbols in the game including the wild can appear in 1×1, 2×2, 3×3 and even 4×4 sizes. The lower symbols are the usual playing cards Jack through to Ace, and these will reward you with 0.3x your bet when you land 6 of a kind. The medium symbols are made up of the sheriff stars, amulets, pocket pistols and whiskey glasses. Landing 6 of these medium symbols will reward you with 0.8x your bet staked. When it comes to the premium symbols, you will come across a gold nugget, a shiny diamond, a turquoise ruby and Kain the Explorer himself. Landing 6 of a kind of these premium symbols will reward you with 2x to 3x your stake.

The wild in Black River Gold is represented by a blood red rose and can substitute for all your regular symbols to create winning combinations. The safe door with bonus written across it is the scatter. There are also two special symbols on offer in this game which are the wild compass and the barrel of a revolver and both will activate a feature.

Black River Gold Features

Black River Gold from ELK Studios is the 4th slot in their gold series. Kane has been on several journeys which had seen him adventure to Ecuador, Louisiana, Tahiti and now Yellowknife in Canada. On every one of the slots the design team at ELK have gone to great lengths to include several unique modifiers and features. The features can generate extra wild and symbols, cause random number of symbols to explode or see the symbols morph into mega symbols.

The Avalanche mechanic is central to the gameplay and creates cascading symbols onto a 6x4 grid at the start of every spin. If you land any winning combinations these are paid out prior to the symbols shattering and disappearing to allow new symbols to drop into their places. After any winning Avalanche, the expanding game mechanism will be activated. This adds one row to your game window after every win and you will see the initial four rows as well as the 4,096 ways to win increasing to eight rows and the maximum 262,144 ways to win.

One of the completely new features to this slot is an uneven number of ways in which you can win when a mega symbol lands on the top row. During play in the base game, the grid will reset and the round finishes when there are no new wins from a fresh Avalanche. Your total win is then paid out prior to the next spin sequence starting. The wild compass is the first modifier, and anytime you land the compass it turns any matching symbols across it into wilds. The compass can turn four times on any Avalanche, provided the matching symbols are in the right direction and if so, it can turn up to 8 symbols into wilds. The compass stays on the grid after winning Avalanches and once it reaches the bottom row it then turns into a wild.

The Gold Revolver feature sees big symbols land on the empty reel spaces underneath and these then absorb the smaller symbols so that they form horizontal resting places where they can turn into a Revolver barrel with the collected symbols cleverly displayed in the pouches of the bullet. On the current and following Avalanche's, the revolver represents the first big symbol and all the absorbed smaller symbols. If any symbols shown in the barrel become part of the winning combination, they temporarily turn the revolver into a giant symbol. Any of the use symbols in the revolver barrel are removed prior to the next Avalanche. Landing multiple symbols on a single Avalanche will see them turned into mega sized symbols. If the revolver absorbs 5 symbols or a wild it will turn completely wild and is removed from your grid when all =the symbols in the barrel had been used or after your spin ends.

If you manage to land 3, 4, and 5 or 6 scatters in view when your spin sequence ends you will activate 10, 15, 20 or 25 free drops respectively, which can all be retriggered indefinitely. The round will start with the grid in its 6x4 size and any winning spin increase it by one row until it reaches the maximum 6x8 format with 262,144 ways to win. It does not reset until the end of the feature and any wilds that land on a free spin will stay on your screen and move to the bottom where they in turn become sticky wilds until they become part of a winning combination.

Conclusion

Black River Gold will take you on quite an adventure, and it was obvious that ELK Studios going to continue their successful gold series. This is an exhilarating slot with some bold features and modifiers which can see you win up to 5,000 times your bet. I really enjoyed playing this slot, it is fast paced, full of action and offers some great win potential. I have no hesitation in recommending this lot to all players, and I hope but you can enjoy it as much as I did.