Mental

Mental Overview

If you enjoyed the movies of Hannibal and Psycho, you'll probably really like this new disturbing free slot machines from extreme provider Nolimit City. Set in a mental asylum from the 50s', Mental is a game that immerses you in the terrifying yet strangely fascinating world of psychosis and mental imbalance. You'll see unsettling images of patients and body parts all in a creepy sepia-tone designed to make the images look aged and even eerier. This is not a slot for the casual gamer who is used to rainbows and candies on the reels.

From a bonus point of view, Mental has more features than a Swiss Army knife, with everything from multipliers, free spin games, wilds and transforming symbols. These start with the Fire Frames feature, a splitting symbol feature that gives you more symbols to play with. Also involved is the Dead Patient feature, which reveals a multiplier in the range of 5x to 9,999x. This game also has an Enhancer cell feature, a Mental Transform feature, an Autopsy feature, a Lobotomy feature, and a free spin and Nolimit bonus feature. All bonuses will be explained in more detail later on in the review.

Theme and Symbols

The theme for Mental, as we have well established, is old school asylum horror. The game feels like it could be based on the Hannibal Lecter films- especially Silence of The Lambs. If you enjoy horror, especially the more cerebral type, this could be a theme you will get on board with. If any slot designer was going to go quite so far with the visuals and soundtrack as this slot does, it is no surprise that it was Nolimit City, who are known for their more extreme designs. The creepiest thing about this game is not what you can see on the reels, but the chilling music that makes you feel cold all over.

The background for Mental is the asylum in which these unhinged patients are kept. Its bare and dirty floor is tiled with what were once white squares. The walls look damp and are covered in pipes and broken pieces of flaking linoleum. The whole scene is lit by a single flickering bulb, the sickly yellow light of which adds to the disquieting atmosphere.

The board is made up of irregularly sized reels, each holding a different number of icons. The icons are framed pictures of various people and body parts.

The symbols are split into low-paying, high paying and special symbols. The low-paying symbols comprised the various body parts. These begin with the skeleton hand, followed by the lungs, heart, brain and eye. The eye is the most valuable of these, worth 1.25x the stake for the top combination. The high-value symbols, on the other hand, are the patients. There are 5 of these symbols, the most valuable of which is the one that resembles Hannibal in the mask. The specials finally comprise the skull wild, the scorpion scatters, the spider scatters and the dead patient icon.

Game Play

Mental is played on a 5-reel, 2x3x3x3x2 row playing board with 108 active pay lines. Players must match 3 symbols in combinations running along pay lines from left to right to create winners in this game.

The betting range for Mental is 20p to as much as £70 per spin. To change your betting level per spin, use the bet adjuster tool located at the bottom of the playing window.

Further information regarding the slot, including a display of the paytable, can be accessed by clicking on the settings menu. The spin button is located to the bottom right of the reels. You can set up auto spins in the game's menu.

The volatility for Mental is rated in the highly volatile range. The return to player percentage for Mental is 96.08%, which is about average. The biggest payout that players can win on one spin is 66,666x your stake.

Features

The first feature in Mental is the Fire Frame feature. On each spin, between 1 and 13 reel positions can be randomly edged in flames. These positions will split and display 2 symbols instead of 1 and, in turn, boost your chances of landing a great winning combination.

Secondly, we have the Dead Patient feature. This bonus is triggered by landing 2 Dead Patient symbols. One of these patients will reveal a multiplier. Multipliers can be up to 9,999x (5x, 10x, 15x, 30x, 50x, 100x, 200x, 500x, 1,000x or 9,999x).

Next on the feature list is the Enhancer Cells feature. At the bottom of reels 2 and 4, there are particular symbol positions known as Enhancer Cells. These cells become active when you land 4 or 6 Fire Frames. Each Enhancer Cell will then reveal 1 of the following:

• 1 of the 5 Patient symbols.
• A Dead Patient symbol.
• A Regular Wild.
• An xWays symbol (reveals 3 of the same matching symbol apart from the scorpion, spider or dead patients).
• xSplit symbol (splits a symbol on each reel into 2 before turning into wilds).
• An xNudge Wild (shifts until it fills the reel. Each nudge increases a multiplier by 1x. Land more than one xNudge Wild and their values are added together).

Following this, we have the Mental Transform feature, triggered by landing the spider symbol on reels 2 or 4. The spider symbol then transforms into one of the following symbols:
• xWays
• xSplit
• Dead Patient
• Wild
• Patient
Next is the Autopsy Free Spins feature, triggered by landing 3 scorpion scatters on the reels simultaneously. This award you with 8 free spins. Each scorpion that was in a Fire Frame adds 1 more spin to your tally.

During this feature, up to 5 Fire Frames are added to each free spin. Once activated, they remain live for the rest of the round. You can upgrade the Autopsy Free Spins to the Lobotomy, or Mental Free Spins features too.

The Lobotomy feature is the next bonus you may encounter. This feature is triggered when landing 3 scorpion symbols, and the spider scatters on the reels on the same spin—doing so awards you 9 free spins with 1 extra wild for any Fire Frame symbols. The Autopsy Free spins are active in this round roo. Spider symbols will also trigger the Transform feature for each free spin and turn sticky.

This feature also comes with the Dead Multiplier modifier. Multipliers from Dead Symbols are collected in a meter to the right of the reels. When they appear, these multipliers are added and then applied to the respective Patient symbols, and the count is reduced by 1.

Finally, the Mental Free spins feature is activated by landing 3 scorpions and 2 spiders on the reels on the same spin. The game awards you 10 free spins for this, with extras added because of Fire Frames. Both Spider symbols are sticky and trigger the Mental Transform extras.

Dead Multipliers do not decrease when they transfer to a Patient either. It can keep rising as new Dead Patient symbols are revealed.

The No Limit bonus buy feature, sadly, is not available in the UK.

Conclusion

Super creepy but ultimately feature-packed fun awaits any players brave enough to have a few spins on this game. The horror is also worth enduring if you have designs on winning big from this slot. However, you might have to endure quite a lot due to the very high volatility before anything interesting happens. Then again, the number of features should mean gameplay keeps moving at a decent pace.