Santas Stack Slot Review, Demo Play, Payout, Free Spins & Bonuses

Santa's Stack Review

First of all, we really respect the fact that Relax Gaming has taken the time and effort to produce a highly original Christmas slot, as most studios simply churn out a routine reskin every year. Santa's Stack comes with a cozy retro visual presentation, and nothing spells Xmas quite like 8-bit snowflakes falling lightly onto the snow-covered and decorated shopping street that makes up the backdrop to the 8x8 grid.

The grid itself is filled with equally charming symbols, with Santa himself as the jolly top-tier payer capable of taking you half the way to the game’s massive 20,000x win cap. Wild wins lead to mystery symbol accumulation respins, and this feature is even more likely to trigger with the increasing number of guaranteed wilds in the bonus round. A multiplier can also build up in there, and Santa’s Stack has the potential of becoming a “guilty pleasure” all year round.

Santa's Stack Slot - Reels Screen

Santa's Stack Slot Features

You win by landing clusters anywhere on the grid, and these must contain at least 5 matching symbols. The largest win clusters are 60+ symbols, and the 4 premium symbols pay between 2,000 and 10,000 x your stake for that feat. The ‘W’ wild symbol steps in for all pay symbols to help complete winning clusters, but it holds no value of its own. It’s highly involved in the bonus features of this game though, so let’s dive in.

The Secret Santa Respins feature is triggered whenever a wild is part of a winning cluster.

All the winning symbols are transformed to sticky Mystery Symbols, and the remaining positions respin. If a winning cluster is adjacent to a sticky mystery cluster, it’s also converted to locked mystery symbols. This awards yet another respin, and the mystery symbols are revealed as a random matching pay symbol when no more mystery symbols are generated.

The Bonus Round is triggered when you land 3+ scatters anywhere in view. This awards 5 free spins, plus 1 extra spin on top of that per extra triggering scatter above the minimum of 3. You are guaranteed to land wild symbols at the start of each free spin, and this increases your chances for Secret Santa Respins.

You start with 1 guaranteed wild on the first free spin, and it increases by +1 per free spin.

You can also land 3 different Christmas tree scatters during the feature, and these will either add +1 free spin to your tally, increase the global win multiplier by +1 or do both of these things. Non-UK players can take advantage of the Bonus Buy feature, and paying 100x your stake will award at least 3 scatters on the spin that follows. The RTP increases to a solid 97 % if you purchase the bonus round.

The 200 Spins Santa's Stack Slot Experience

You get to see a decent win generated from the Secret Santa Respins feature in the base game, before we purchase the bonus round close to the 1-minute mark. The feature plays out for the remainder of the 2:30-minute highlights video, and you can see for yourself how we fared by hitting the play button below.

Review Summary

The 8-bit charm is going strong in Santa's Stack for sure, and it’s not too often a studio bothers with making a solid and brand new game to cash in on the Holidays season. This Relax Gaming Christmas effort is good enough to perhaps tempt players all year round, and it’s definitely a contestant for the best Xmas slot of the year. It’s not that we haven’t seen mystery symbols in action before, but it’s done in a convincing way with a massive potential to boot.

Up to 10,000x from a single cluster is impressive, and an x2 bonus round multiplier can thus crack the 20,000x potential. That being said, the mystery symbols are not always that effective, although we did enjoy the build-up with evermore guaranteed wilds per free spin. The volatility is quite brutal beneath the idyllic facade though, but if you’re only going to play one Xmas slot this season, Santa’s Stack should probably be high on the bucket list.

Pros

• Charming 8-bit and original Christmas slot
• Secret Santa Respins Mystery Symbols feature
• FS w/ guaranteed wilds in increasing numbers
• 100x Bonus Buy w/ 97 % RTP (not UK)
• Win up to 20,000x your stake

Cons

• Too volatile for casual Xmas gaming

If you appreciate Santa's Stack Slot you should also try:

Hellcatraz - is a previous 8-bit graphics installment from Relax Gaming, and it comes with 2 different game modes.

You can look forward to innovative mystery countdown symbols, as well as a bonus round with mystery symbols. The volatility is high, and you can win up to 51,840x your stake.

Roasty McFry and the Flame Busters - is a Thunderkick classic that’s well worth a whirl if you were charmed by the retro 8-bit visuals in the game at hand. It’s all about fire symbol transformation, and these abound in the bonus round. There is also a random fire drill feature, and you can win up to 5,280x your stake.

Big Bad Wolf Christmas Special - is well worth trying during the Holidays season, and we can assure you that the wolf looks more scary in a Santa outfit than he usually does. It’s a reskin of the Quickspin original though, and swooping reels turn pigs wild as the wolf tries to blow down their houses. The max win is 1,268x your stake.

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