Santa LinKing

Inspired is a gaming studio that has been producing online slot games for many years. The studio's most famous game, however, is Reel King. If you are unfamiliar with this game, you are one of the few gamers to have managed to go through your whole career without finding it. It is undoubtedly a game that falls into the classic category of slots and appeals to gamers from the old guard and the new. Now that the festive season has properly hit, the Inspired studio is back with what is essentially a Christmas version of the game. We can assure you that the transformation is purely cosmetic, with no real changes to how the game is played or its statistics. Therefore, if you like Reel King, you'll probably enjoy Santa LinKing just as much.

Santa LinKing Overview

The features for this game begin with the Santa LinKing feature. Find six-coin symbols on the reels, and this bonus will activate. This is essentially a hold-and-win feature, meaning players are given three re-spins to try and land as many new coin icons as possible. However, every time a new coin lands, your re-spins are recharged to three. The other main feature in this game is the Santa King feature. During this feature, Santa appears and collects coin symbols on their reels. Then, Santa spins a set of 3 reels containing only Colourful Presents symbols. It continues spinning the reels and providing rewards until a non-winning spin is found. All features will be explained in more detail later in the review.

Santa LinKing Theme and Symbols

This game has a pretty straightforward Christmas theme. As an adapted game, however, this slot didn't need to be created from scratch. Instead, the designers have basically covered the screen in snow, changed the background and added a few sprigs of mistletoe. If you were feeling critical, you could say that this is just a classic game with a lazy new cover wrapped up to be marketed as a new product. However, so many studios do this, and players know by now that this is the deal. Who can blame Inspired for wanting to get more eyes on their games by leveraging a bit of the holiday spirit?

The background for this game is a repeated snowflake motif that sits atop a ground-level image of a snowy hill flanked by fir trees. The image is not overly exciting or impressive but fits perfectly with the rest of the board and makes for an appropriately Christmassy backdrop. The playing board for this game is the standard Reel King board with the addition of some holly and Christmas lights decorating the borders.

The symbols are split into low-paying, high-paying and special symbols. The low-paying icons are the 10, J, Q and K in playing card royals. The king is the most valuable of these low-paying symbols, worth 10x the stake for the top combination. On the other hand, the more valuable icons are the cherries, the plums and the jackpot icon. The jackpot icon is the most valuable of the regular icons, paying out at 25x the stake for the top combination. The specials in this game include the wild icon and the golden coins that trigger the hold the win feature.

Game Play

Santa LinKing is played on a 5-reel, 3-row machine with 20 fixed pay lines. To win combinations, players must land three or more matching symbols on pay lines moving from left to right, starting from the leftmost reel. The betting range for Santa LinKing is 10p to £10 per spin. To adjust their bet levels, players can toggle their stakes up and down using the tool located at the bottom left-hand side of the screen.

Further information, including a short tutorial and a display of the paytable, can be found via the menu button in the right-hand corner of the screen. The spin and auto spin buttons are located in the centre of the screen.
The volatility for this slot is rated in the medium range. The return to player percentage for Santa LinKing is 95%, which is below average. The biggest payout that players can win on one spin is 2,500x your stake.

Santa LinKing Features

The first feature included in this game is the wild bonus. The wild icon substitutes for other regular icons in this game to help score more wins.

The next feature to note here is the light-up reels. During the base game, reels may become highlighted in yellow. Once you have five reels highlighted, this will activate the Santa King feature. This action is accompanied by a 'dinging' sound. It occurs completely randomly. The Santa King feature introduces Santa to the reels. Once on the board, he will collect all the coins on the reels. After this function has been completed, three reels will spin only with present symbols on them. These reels will continue to spin and reward players until a non-winning spin is found.

Next is the Santa LinKing feature. This is triggered when six or more of the golden coins land on the reels at the same time. It will then grant you three re-spins with all the triggering coins remaining on the reels. Every time a new coin lands, the re-spins are recharged to three, and the new coin stays in its position. The idea is to try to accrue as many coins as possible before your re-spins run out to collect a large payout at the end of the feature.

Finally, this game also has a gamble option. This can be activated at any time using the tool on the right-hand side of the screen. You can set it on 5x or above, always on or off. Upon a winning spin, this feature can be active and provide opportunities to increase the prize. Two wheels appear where one is to increase the winnings and another to get 6 Coins on the reels. The green sector represents chances to win, while the red one is to lose. Turning on the gamble option, however, does increase your bet per spin, so it can be costly.

Conclusion

If you have played Reel King before, this new game won't hold any surprises. It is basically Reel king in Christmas clothes. Enjoy with a mulled wine and a garish Christmas jumper is our advice but don't expect better payouts than the original game.