Wonder Hounds

While we’ve been swimming through Christmas and Santa themed slots in December, NextGen Gaming decided to welcome 2018 in our lives by making a game in celebration of the Year of the Dog, which is a change that happens every year in the Chinese calendar. The story goes that the Jade Emperor has called the animals for an important meeting, and, depending in the order that they arrived, they were assigned their place in the animal zodiac. It includes twelve animals in total, and they change every year, starting with the Rat, and ending with Pig, before looping back around. And what better way to celebrate the Year of the Dog than with three crime fighting hounds ready to kick some tail? Wonder Hounds has a 5×3 playing field with 25 paylines, which can reward up to 15 free spins and allows the three dogs to randomly turn Wild at the end of any spin, potentially turning what was a guaranteed loss into a victory!

Of course, when you’re facing off against big villains that threaten world domination, every nation has to lend a paw to help stop them. That’s why you have three dogs, one from the US, one from Britain, and one from China, as part of this super team of good boys and girls. The graphics are decent, and while the reels in particular aren’t anything special, the backdrop of the park is rather charming, and the little leaf fluttering away from time to time is a nice touch.

On the gameplay end of things, this NextGen release is mechanically simple, but rather satisfying. From our experience, one of the dogs turning into Wilds isn’t that uncommon, but it usually just swaps one of them, where as seeing a whole group swap is a much rarer occurrence. It plays as you would expect a high volatility title to, where the juiciest scores are locked behind the free spins.

You can play Wonder Hounds from $0.25 up to $250 per spin, allowing a wide betting range that should appease everyone. And while there’s no progressive jackpot anywhere, the amount of cash you can win from this slot is tempting. You can win as much as 10,000 coins in a single spin.

The symbols are a mixed bag of doggy treats for us. The different dogs certainly look distinct and show their country of origin rather simply, and the doggy bowl and collar are both rather cutesy, as it befitting of a cartoon. But the inclusion of poker card symbols somewhat ruins it, especially as they simply put them in a single colour, attached a dog’s paw at the end of them, and called it a day.

As far as bonuses go, we already mentioned that the three dogs can at the end of any spin turn Wild. Only one can become Wild at any given time. On top of that, there are free spins. You can win between 8 and 15 depending on how many Scatters triggered the bonus, and on top of that, once it’s active, it will randomly create between one to fifteen Wilds on the playing field, which are locked in place for its entire duration.