Scary Friends Pokies
Released by RabCat gaming, on the Rabcat Quickfire platform, Scary Friends is a fun pokie with amazing graphics that features lots of cute creatures across 5 reels and 25 paylines. Possibly inspired by the film Monsters Inc, the 3D effect to the animations lifts this game above and beyond most others, but it’s not all about the visual appeal as there’s plenty of appealing gameplay to enjoy as well.
There’s wild substitutions, a free spins game, a bonus round that sees monsters hanging on to a spinning wheel for dear life, while a gamble feature can multiply each win several times over.
Playing With Scary Friends
As soon as you open the game it’s obvious that the design is something unique with the actual reels slightly off to one side and a big orange monster standing beside them, waving and watching the spins in some beautifully animated sequences. There’s even a few smaller critters bouncing around below the reels, and it’s all set in some abstract designed room to give an overall high quality appearance.
Below the game is a control panel that allows players to pick how many of the 25 lines they wish to activate, although obviously if some are not used any winning combinations that land on them will not count.
The amount bet per line can be adjusted from 0.01 to 2.00 for a maximum bet of 50.00.
As the reels are comparatively small, it’s perhaps a good job that the graphics are very clear and the paytable outlines the value of each symbol when at least 3 land across an active line running from left to right.
Although lower value symbols are made up of the classic 10, J, Q and K playing card icons, they have been designed to be part of the monsters’ world, with various patterns decorating them and making them look like more of these not very scary creatures.
Different monsters will pay out the higher prizes, with the big orange fish creature, a green-headed alien, a cyclops and a pink monster with big eyelashes each rewarding players with successively bigger payouts.
Scary Friends
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Beastly Bonuses
The big orange guy who hosts the game also doubles up as a wild symbol, paying out the biggest wins in normal play when he makes up a line on his own and also helping to create additional winning combinations when he substitutes for other symbols if needed.
A little monster is a free spins symbol, and he will launch a number of them when landing in at least 3 positions anywhere on the reels. A machine will roll up to the left side of the reels and one of the monsters will bounce up and down on it, adding free spins with each successive jump, with between 5 and 15 being possible.
The free spins can be re-triggered, with any new ones added to the end of the current round, and it’s also possible to enter the second bonus game from here.
The Scary Friends Bonus is another animated delight which starts when the Bonus scatter symbol appears in at least 3 spots at once. This game sees 4 of the monsters sitting on a wheel and players need to select a single one from them.
The wheel starts to spin and monsters are thrown off it one by one. The longer the selected monster manages to hang on, the bigger the resulting prize will be.
A simple gamble game can multiply any win several times over. It’s an optional round where players try to double the amount just won by correctly guessing if a playing card will be red or black and can double it several more times if they keep getting it right. But be wary, as a single wrong guess ends the round, losing not only any gamble wins but the triggering bet as well.
The Verdict
This is a fantastic-looking pokie and in appearance at least, it’s among the best on the market. The graphics are literally like something out of an animated movie and are at least the equal of anything seen in an online game before.
A game can have the most amazing appearance in the world however, but if the gameplay isn’t any good no-one will play it for long, so luckily it’s not all about the looks here. It’s enhanced by the nice free spins round, which starts in yet another fun sequence and of course the humorous bonus game that sees players winning with monsters spinning.
Just be careful with the gamble game, as these can be a good way to sacrifice a win, so maybe it’s better to gamble smaller prizes that won’t be much of a loss if it all goes wrong.