Finn and the Swirly Spin

As the year is winding down, we’ve more or less already prepared to lean back and relax. After all, most developers will usually put out another title, and then a slew of Christmas themed slots hit, and that wraps up the year. So imagine our surprise when NetEnt, of all people, leaps out with a new game that look at paylines, scoffs, chugs down the rest of its beer, and shouts “I can do better.” We’re amazed with everything in this title, from the amazing visuals, to the new and interesting way the symbols line up and move across the reels, the myriad of special features just waiting for you to stroll in and start triggering them, and the key collection that keeps you playing for the long-term. Finn and the Swirly Spin has all the making of a great hit.

It’s not as if we didn’t know NetEnt could make really beautiful looking slots, but we didn’t expect things to be this good. The intro sequence was a bit cheesy, admittedly, but when you trigger a special feature and Finn flies between two worlds is a scene worthy of being put in a movie somewhere, and the sheer fluidity of his animations as he plays his little flute in the backdrop while the reels spin is great. Even the symbols, which don’t look animated, feel somewhat unique. It would have been oh so easy to just say ‘It’s an Irish themed game, just throw it green hats and pots of gold all over the place’, but NetEnt went around that. This hit way above our expectations, hats off to the developers.

As for gameplay, it’s just so different to what we’re normally used to. Finn and the Swirly Spin have a 5×5 reel setup, but rather than have paylines, it just checks if you have three or more adjacent symbols either horizontally or vertically. The symbols then travel in a pattern, winning symbols disappear in an explosion to either leave behind a Wild, or if a Wild is part of the win, the explosion is bigger, but the Wild is depleted. The remaining icons then move forward, which is incorporated in the Scatter symbol and unlocking a free spins bonus – as the key always appears in the lower left symbol, and has to go through the entire square before reaching the middle. The leprechaun can give you a sample of what sort of free spins you can unlock, but to get any choice in the matter, you have to keep playing to get them unlocked by collecting a certain number of keys. There’s so much going on, it’s amazing.

Playable from $0.10 up to $200 per spin, you can bet that NetEnt wanted to cover all their bases with this amazing piece of gambling software. The core symbols by themselves don’t really yield that much – the most valuable symbol paying in five-of-a-kind is only 50x the wager. Instead, the developers are counting on you to chain these wins together, and combine everything into one pile of cash, especially if you end up lucky and triggering the free spins bonus as well. While we ourselves never managed to score higher than 43x the stake, we’ve seen some people hit some ridiculously high numbers once everything came together at once. The bigger payouts do demand a bit of loyalty, as collecting keys takes time, which in turn, unlocks more lucrative bonuses.

Honestly, it’s just amazing how smooth and beautiful it all looks, while also done in a creative way. The NetEnt’s 2017 release does incorporate the traditional poker card symbols, but makes its spades and hearts wooden, nobody will really question a four-leaf clover when it’s an Irish themed slot, and the gem has become an actual, ruby red gemstone. Alongside them, you have a golden horseshoe and an acorn, and all of these icons look great without feeling worn out and overdone, a big part of why we give NetEnt’s points for style here.
But the sheer amount of special features that the slot gives you is insane. You have four randomly triggered ones and four variations on the free spins bonus. Granted, they are interconnected, and the randomly triggered features could be used as ‘previews’ for when you do eventually get enough keys to unlock that specific free spins variation, but the sheer wealth of content is more than enough to keep gamblers busy.