Shifting Seas

Shifting Seas Overview

Created by Thunderkick, Shifting Seas is a new online slot game that transports players to the Caribbean to discover hordes of pirates, buried treasure and salty sea adventures. Mechanically this is a 6-reel game with up to 117,649 available pay lines. You'll notice that when you start, the game is in a 4x4x3x3x2x2 format; however, this will change with the influence of one of the bonus features. This game's RTP is 96.15%, and the top payout available here is 15,000x the stake.

In terms of the features included in this game, they start with the cascade/avalanche dynamic. This is activated every time that a win is registered on the board. This feature removes the winning symbols from the board and replaces them with a new set to give players multiple chances at winning from the same spin. The next feature is called the Shift Win bonus, which increases the reel's size and adds pay lines. Then there are the various special wild features and, finally, the free spins game. All features will be explained in more detail later in the review.

Theme and Symbols

As you will obviously observe from the name of this game and almost every visual and audio element used here, this game has a pirate theme. You can see this in the tropical Caribbean setting, the swashbuckling eye-patch-wearing characters and the huge chests full of plunder. Specifically, this game has taken its inspiration from the classic pirate novel Treasure Island, written by Robert Louis Stevenson.
The background for this game is an island archipelago. An archipelago is a group of islands typically found in the open ocean. They are often volcanic in origin and can be found scattered across the globe. In novels such as Treasure Island, archipelagos often play a significant role as settings, providing a unique and often isolated environment for the story to unfold. This isolation can add to the sense of adventure or suspense, and the varied landscapes of an archipelago can provide a rich and varied backdrop for the action.
The playing board for this game is an unusually formatted wooden construction containing a range of pirate-themed icons.
The symbols for this game are split into low-paying, high-paying and special symbols. The low-paying icons are the 9, 10, J, Q, K and A in playing card royals. The most valuable of these is the A which pays out at 0.8x the bet for the top combination. The more valuable symbols, on the other hand, are the various pirates in pink, green and purple and, finally, the treasure chest. The treasure chest is the most valuable of these, worth 5x the stake for the top combination. The specials for this game are standard wild, the rush wild, the wild surge wild, the boost shift wild, and the pirate ship bonus scatter.

Game Play

Shifting Seas is played on a 6-reel gameboard with as many as 117,649 ways to win. 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 Shifting Seas is 10p to £100 per spin. To adjust their bet levels, players can toggle their stake 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 free slots is rated in the very high range. The return to player percentage for Shifting Seas is 96.15%, which is above average. The biggest payout that players can win on one spin is 15,000x your stake.

Features

The first bonus feature to explain in the game is the cascade dynamic. This comes into play every time that a player scores a win. When this happens, the winning symbols are removed from the game and replaced with a new set. This mechanic allows players to keep scoring wins from the same spin. However, the dynamic will end if the new set of symbols does not create a win.
The next feature is called the Shift Win bonus, which ties into the cascades because every winning combination and Boost Shift you land (explained later) will trigger the Shift win feature. When this happens, the rightmost reel disappears, and a new reel appears on the left. With each reel shift, the height of the reels increases by one icon. The maximum reel height that can be achieved is seven. This is how you expand the reels to find more pay lines.
Next, we have the four different special wilds in this game and their associated features. These features come into play when one of the special wilds becomes part of a win. If multiple special wilds are involved, then their associated features will play out consecutively. They are explained below:
The Boost Shift feature: This feature creates an extra reel shift that allows a new reel to be added to the leftmost position of the game area. The new reel is the same height as the reel previously located as reel one. If the new reel height is higher than the previous reel, a new symbol is added on top of the reel. This will result in more pay lines and give players a greater chance of finding wins.
The Symbol Rush feature: This feature randomly changes four to eight icons on the reel into the same icon, which in turn helps players find more wins.
The Wild Surge feature: This feature selects one to three icons and randomly transforms them into wilds.
Finally, we have the free spins round. To activate this round, players must make the Shift Win push out the Pirate Ship Bonus scatter. Manage this, and you will be awarded eight free spins. During this bonus, players may come across shift wins, which will award them four additional free spins if you manage to push the Pirate Ship bonus scatter out again.
Within this bonus, game players may also trigger a modifier called the wild reel. This can be triggered at random and turn one of the reels completely random for the duration of the bonus game. This bonus reel will also move one reel for each new spin. As an added bonus, every time the wild reel moves, it also grows an attached multiplier by 1x, helping associated wins grow in value.

Conclusion

Detailed, exciting and with an innovative reel set that keeps you on your toes, Shifting Seas really lives up to its name. Thunderkick has done an excellent job of creating something that is at once comfortable and easy yet novel and interesting, which is a difficult mix to pull off yet very satisfying. In terms of the statistics, things follow a predictable pattern of high-risk, high reward with an extremely high volatility rating, yet an exciting top payout. This is a great game if you like feature-heavy high-risk spins. Play also Juicy Fruits without download or registration.