Developed by Ainsworth for use in land-based casinos, the Safari Spirit pokie has now moved online, where its combination of attractive design and bonus features such as free spins with multipliers, should ensure that it’s just as successful at virtual casinos as it has been at real ones.
While games themed around African wildlife are something of an Ainsworth speciality, and the bonus features are similar to those seen on other pokies in their range, this is a popular format and mixes ease of play with the potential for lots of winning spins and decent rewards along the way.
There’s a decent bet range, which runs from just 0.01 per spin to 75.00. At the lowest value, players will only activate a single line out of the 30 however, which is going to be pretty boring, as any winning combinations landing on the other 29 won’t count, so most people opt to activate the whole game, which in this instance will mean a stake of at least 0.30.
A conventional layout sees 5 reels with symbols laid out in 3 rows, and there’s 30 paylines running left to right across the game, with players hoping to land 3, 4 or 5 of the same symbol type across a line, on adjacent reels to get a win.
Behind the reels is a highly unoriginal, but no less attractive, picture of an African landscape silhouetted against the setting sun. Occasionally, a Land Rover will run across the bottom of the screen, chasing a rhino or giraffe, which is a nice touch and adds some flair to the design.
Players will find that many wins are the smaller payouts created by the playing card symbols 9, 10, J, Q, K and A, which are standard Ainsworth fair and pay 5x, 10x or 50x the line bet with the 9 and 10, and just a little more with the others.
Picture symbols are worth more, starting with a paw print, then it’s the giraffe, ox and leopard, with the lion being king of the reels by paying out 10x, 50x or 200x the line bet with 3, 4 or 5 across the game.
Like many pokies, it’s not the normal run of play that’s the main attraction, but rather the bonus features and the symbols that trigger them.
A trumpeting elephant is a wild symbol, so it will help to complete winning lines where possible by acting as any other standard symbol, or extend lines of 3 matching symbols into higher value lines of 4.It will also double the value of any line that it completes.
Although it only appears on the middle 3 reels, so can’t make up a line on its own, at least the wild can be stacked and anyone getting all 3 reels filled with wild elephants will be trumpeting about their big win for some time to come.
The scatter symbol is a nice image of the African landscape and as well as looking pleasant, it will award some pleasing wins as well, with 3, 4 or 5 of them anywhere on the reels being worth 2x, 10x or 100x the total amount staked per spin, not just the line bet.
Once the win is credited, a free spins game will be launched, with 8, 12 or 20 games awarded, depending on how many scatters triggered them. To help make this round more rewarding, the paw print symbol will double the value of any wins that’s it creates, while it will also be stacked on the reels to help those wins come more frequently.
Landing another 3 scatters in a single spin during the free games will see a further 5 spins added to the end of any still left to play out.
Safari Spirit looks much the same as many other pokies from Ainsworth, with African sunsets and wild animals all over the reels, plus of course the playing card icons that turn up across their range, but those who may be a bit tired of the theme should still give these reels a spin.
There’s some decent wins to be had in the bonus games, while landing the wild multipliers and the potential for multiple stacked wilds across several reels is an added attraction. It’s perhaps a shame that the prizes for landing the playing card symbols are not set at higher values, but then to compensate, the potential rewards with the bonus symbols and features wouldn’t be as substantial as they are.
A classic design, easy gameplay and fair payouts are waiting for players who take this particular safari, whether online or at land based casinos.