Charlie Chance XREELZ

Overview Charlie Chance XREELZ

Play ‘n GO is back with one of their most successful game characters – Charlie Chance. Play ‘n GO fans will recognise him from this franchise’s previous game - Charlie Chance in Hell to Pay, released approximately a year ago. Well, he is back in a new game that spices things up with the use of the XREELZ playing mechanic.

The style is still very much anchored to that interesting 1930s’ cartoon aesthetic, but the play and features have been updated to bring the game up to contemporary standards.
As mentioned, the features for this game have been updated with 3 distinct bonus features for players to get involved in. However, the main headline for this game is the incorporation of the XREELZ mechanic.

This is a reel that spins horizontally across the main gameboard and come into play when a player creates a combination with the help of a wild symbol. If this should happen the XREELZ Multiplier bonus will come into effect, helping you to grow your win sizes. There is also a re-spin and free spin feature that we will come onto later in the review.

Theme and Symbols

As with the previous game, Charlie Chance is based on a pre-war comic book strip about a detective called Charlie Chan who in one episode of the comic ends up in hell battling with the devil for his freedom. The devil in this version of hell is a kind of Betty Boop character with red horns and a fiery attitude. This slot is full of classic hell imagery whilst also being pleasantly cartoonish. The style reminds us of the 1940 classic animated film Fantasia.

The background for Charlie Chance XREELZ is what 1930s’ animators may have thought hell might look like. As such, the backdrop to this game is a black and white cave with stalagmites and stalactites. These jagged pillars make the cave look like a demonic mouth with sharp intimidating teeth. Inside this cave are cartoon demons, big spiders and bats. Hanging from the ceiling of the cave are thick chains that look like they are used to restrain the sinners of this world.
The board, in keeping with the style of the rest of the game, has spiked edges and a spooky appearance that would fit well into an animated dungeon that Micky Mouse might find himself on one of his misadventures.

Unlike the background and board, the symbols for this game appear in colour, which makes them visually pop from their surroundings. The lower value symbols in this game comprise the card suit symbols – diamonds, hearts, clubs and spades. Even these usually innocuous symbols have dangerous-looking spike protruding from them. The higher-paying symbols include the devils, the 666s, the tolling bells and Charlie Chance. Charlie as the main character in this story is the most lucrative of the symbols, paying 20x your stake for 5 in a row. The specials in this game comprise the wild, which is the word ‘wild’ made to look like a branding iron and the free spins scatter which is the female devil character.

Game Play

Charlie Chance XREELZ is played on a 5-reel, 3-row playing board with 243 available pay lines. To achieve wins on this slot, players must match 3 of a kind on a pay line or use the special symbols to make combinations. Each combination made must start on reel 1. The betting range for Charlie Chance XREELZ is 10p to £100 per spin.

To adjust their bet levels players can toggle their stake up and down using the coins tool located underneath the playing board. The spin and auto-spins buttons are located to the bottom right-hand side of the reels. Information about the slot, including the paytable and the auto spins options, can be found via the information button on the very right-hand corner of the reels.
Volatility for Charlie Chance XREELZ is rated in the extremely high end of the spectrum. The return to player percentage for Charlie Chance XREELZ is 96.25%, a little better than average. The biggest payout that players can win on one spin is 20,000 x your total stake.

Features

The first feature that players will notice coming into effect is this game’s XREELZ multiplier feature. The XREELZ are the set of reels located above the main playing board that shuffle horizontally. If you land a winning combination with a wild as part of it, the reel with the wild will be highlighted in flames. The multiplier value that is then attached to that reel’s symbols is indicated in a plume of flame at the top of the reel. This multiplier is applied to all wins that have a symbol that falls in this reel.

Next on the feature list is the Second Chance re-spin feature. To activate this bonus players need to land 2 of the demon girl scatters anywhere on the reels. Doing so will lock the reels with the scatters on them while the other 3 reels spin once more. The idea behind this bonus is that it gives you an extra chance of landing 3 or more scatters on the reels and triggering one of the 3 free spins bonuses.

The type of free spins round that you will pay depends on the number of scatters that you used to trigger the bonus. Every free spins round gives you 10 free spins with the XREELZ multiplier reels active throughout. If a wild lands at any time while you are in the free spins round it will remain on the playing board for the duration of the feature. However, it will change position with every new spin. The 3 free spins rounds are explained below:

Flaming Free Spins feature 3 scatters 2x, 3x and 5x multipliers.
Inferno Free Spins feature 4 scatters 5x, 6x and 8x multipliers.
Hellfire Free Spins feature 5 scatters 8x, 9x and 25x multipliers.

Conclusion

Charlie Chance XREELZ feels like the natural evolution of the previous game both in terms of playing dynamics and features. The XREELZ mechanic has provided a fresh lease of life to the game and an exciting new dimension that can yield lucrative multipliers. Statistically, this game is also superior to its predecessor, with a better RTP and a much-improved top payout.