Northern Sky

We like to imagine places far away from us. If you don’t live in Hawaii, odds are you at least imagined yourself once there. If you don’t live in Egypt, you certainly at least once wished you could go see the pyramids. And every time we see articles about the Aurora Borealis, we wish we could travel far north just for a day to see such a breathtaking sight in person. While you can’t make that out in Northern Sky, it portrays a beautiful landscape of its own. Rolling hills, serene forests, with the sun slowly setting on the gorgeous view while small stars twinkle in the sky. It’s not often that we find slots relaxing, but the mix of visuals and music certainly put us in a mood to bundle up and spin a few rounds. It offers a 5×3 playing field with 9 paylines, within which the main features are a constantly present re-spin bonus and the occasional free spins that sneak in to make things really interesting.

The quality is good as we have come to expect from Quickspin, but while the symbols certainly look interesting, if a bit bland when it comes to the coloured crystals, we absolutely cannot deny that this game has an amazing tone. The soft music really makes you feel like you’re in some faraway magical land, all by your lonesome, and the backdrop is a sight we can only hope to see someday. Miles from civilisation, watching the sun set on nature, it makes for a calming sight. Certainly not what slots usually go for.
In fact, the soothing tone of the visuals is a bit odd when you consider that Northern Sky is a high variance title. Despite having only 9 paylines and two bonuses, the winning potential is huge. Every win is followed up by a re-spin, which allows new symbols to fall into place to form new paylines or extend existing ones, while the icons that were part of the winning combination remain in place. When you no longer get any symbols that can form or continue winning pieces, you get one more win and then you have to spin again from your own budget. So when it wants to, it can be really exciting, as piece by piece it forms a winning line that can even extend to include five-of-a-kind wins.

Gamblers can play Northern Sky for as little as $0.10 up to $100 per spin, which should cover everyone from the lower end gambler to the high rollers. Having said that, we can’t help but feel that this game is more balanced towards the latter, especially as you will need a budget to support your finances before you can go on the offensive. However, with the promise of a maximum win that easily reaches over 3,000x your total wager, we can imagine plenty of gamblers will be trying their best to get that one big jackpot.

We like how the icons look. Going for crystallised version of animals was a good call on the Quickspin’s part, as it helps break up the monotony and makes the regular crystals fit in alongside them. The odd man out is the Scatter, which is the only one not made of crystals, but instead depicts a mountain range, the same one you can see in the backdrop.

As you are no doubt familiar with at this point, collecting three Scatters is enough to win a free spins bonus. However, rather than winning three at the same time, you instead collect them while the re-spins last. If you manage to succeed in this, it rewards you 10 free turns, and while they last, none of the lower paying symbols appears, which increases your odds of winning big.