Reef Raider

Take a deep dive into an aquatic world of fun far below the waves in Reef Raider, the online slot from NetEnt. You've probably encountered lobsters in slot games before and pirates - but how about a lobster pirate? Thought not. But that's exactly what's waiting for you in this ocean-based adventure, together with an attractive swag of up to x8500. 

NetEnt is one of the true giants of the industries and has an enormous back catalogue of slots. If you're looking for other similar themed games from NetEnt, you could check out Ghost Pirates or Lucky Angler, to name just two. However, NetEnt is one of the studios that constantly seeks to switch things up a bit and was responsible for introducing Cluster Pays, which this game uses. Aloha! Cluster Pays was the first game created by NetEnt with Cluster Pays, and now there are several other studios that use the same structure.  

The game board on Reef Raider is larger than usual, with a 7x7 layout. This is to accommodate the Cluster Pays mechanism, which takes the place of conventional paylines. To win a payout, land five or more symbols in a cluster, which means they need to be touching either horizontally or vertically. The more symbols in the cluster, the higher the payout! Betting is done in the usual way, with a min bet of 0.20 and a max bet of 100.00. Volatility is medium, which means you can expect prizes to be pretty balanced throughout play.

When you hear that the main character is a lobster pirate, you can probably guess the design of this game. It’s fun, cartoonish and upbeat, with colourful reels that complement a pretty pastel backdrop, all set on the ocean sea bed. If Spongebob Squarepants was ever going to make a slot, it would probably look a lot like this! 

The symbols are pretty basic on the reels, with a combination of different seashells and gems in different colours. The most valuable is the ruby which pays out x150 if you manage to cluster 25. 

There are two separate wilds, the coin wild and the claim wild, which can substitute for any regular symbols. 

Reef Raider uses the avalanche feature, which means that every time you have a cluster, the winning symbols will disappear from the reels, allowing the remaining symbols to drop into the spaces. More tiles are then dropped down from above, and you could create further winning clusters. This avalanche cycle keeps repeating until there are no more clusters present.  

There are multipliers present in the main game, and if these land touching a cluster, horizontally or vertically, any wins will increase by the multiplier amount. This could be anything from x2-x50. 

If you manage to land three avalanches in a row, you'll hit a prize on the treasure trail. Each further avalanche moves you further along the trail with more payouts up for grabs, including: 

3 avalanches: Anchor Drop - up to three low pays are chosen at random and removed before a new avalanche occurs

6 avalanches: Random Wilds - between 4-8 coin wilds are added to the board

9 avalanches: Mystery Chest - between 2-16 low and medium value symbols are replaced by a mystery symbol

12 avalanches: Cannon Blast - a single symbol is removed together with all other symbols on the same reel and row 

Once you fill all 15 positions on the treasure trail, you'll unlock the free spins feature. You'll start with nine free spins, but it's possible to win two more spins for every three extra bars you have on the treasure trail. During free spins, you'll receive mystery symbols, and the treasure trail will remain active too. If you complete all 15 bars on the treasure trail, you'll get an extra free spin. 

Take the plunge and play Reef Raider from NetEnt at Bwin. Cluster Pays are an entertaining alternative to the usual paylines and provide the potential for big wins. With reels full of features, including wilds, multipliers and free spins, there are some great chances of winning a good payout while having fun.