Bavarian Forest Slots
From the people at Casino Technology comes this video slot offering, which prominently features the rural aspect of Bavaria as its theme. As one of the larger casino companies in existence (as if it weren’t obvious from the name), their brand has been stamped on a whole variety of gambling games, but among their most notable products are their offerings in the realm of video slots. With a solid reputation preceding them and a portfolio of great games to their name, many are wondering if Bavarian Forest measures up to their prior releases.
Meshing together Bavarian tranquility with the all-action credentials of leading slot game, does Bavarian Forest represent the perfect blend?
Waltz Into The Countryside
What do you picture when you hear about Bavaria? Located in the southern part of Germany, Bavaria is the region where Neuschwanstein Castle was built, and it is also the region where Oktoberfest originated. As such, many things we think of as being German are actually Bavarian in origin.
Bavarian Forest doesn’t draw upon these influences so much in its presentation, as its aesthetic design more reflects the tranquility of the Bavarian countryside rather than the traditions of the people who inhabit it. A menagerie of Old World animals can be seen in the slot reels as soon as one opens the game, immediately letting one know what the theme of the game is.
Animal Kingdom
The animals featured in the game include a fox, a hedgehog, a bird, a bear and a squirrel. The inclusion of a hedgehog is especially significant, given that hedgehogs feature prominently in many German fairytales. Also included are various letters and the picture of a man in typical Bavarian clothing. The backdrop consists of a verdant forest containing a variety of shades of green, complimenting the images present in the reels nicely and giving the game a calm, natural feeling.
If you want to experience nature but don’t want to stop gambling, this would be the game you’d want to play. The game plays smoothly and without the lag sometimes seen in other video slots games. That said, I felt that the smooth design and colour gradients of the menu were somewhat incongruous with the natural theme in general, as it has a rather generic appearance that clashes with the background and realistic portraits of the animals. Of course, that’s a pretty minor complaint in the scheme of things, since the game itself is intuitive and simple to use, to the point that even a new player should be able to jump right in without too much of an issue.
Head Out Into The Wild
The menu interface is typical of most video slots games. You have a maximum of 25 paylines in play, with an option to change how many are active at any one time. You can change the denomination of coins in play, ranging in values of 0.01 to 0.2 units of currency. This makes Bavarian Forests a very inexpensive option relative to most other video slots games. You can adjust the sound and graphics settings with the little icons on the bottom, and you can activate the auto-spinner if you wish to.
From Within The Quiver
Scatter and Wild symbols exist, as does a score multiplier. You can’t miss the wild symbol, as it says it right on the front of the bear symbol. There is a maximum jackpot of 150 coins, so make sure to keep those paylines active. ‘Bear’ in mind that there are no bonus games, nor is there a progressive jackpot in place. That being said, the combination of a high number of paylines and the presence of scatter and wild symbols means that you have a good chance of winning big sums of money, and at a maximum of 0.2 units of currency per coin you can spin the reel plenty of times without losing a whole lot of cash should you suffer from some bad luck.
Embracing Beautiful Bavaria
If you enjoy video slots games as well as taking in natural scenery, Bavarian Forests is the game for you. It surprised me a bit to see that the game focused so little on the people of Bavaria, but the natural theme of plants and animals certainly appealed to the hippie inside of me. The gameplay itself is rather sparse given that there are no bonus games available for play, but don’t discount this game on that basis alone, as it is a solid game that offers big wins at little cost.
