As with all of our slot game reviews it’s important that we go through the different features in the game so that we really get to grips with it before we play.
Through our review, we will delve into the theme of Dead Canary and provide comprehensive information about the reels and paylines.
Theme – Mining
The theme of Dead Canary is all about mining and it’s something that we touched on earlier with Nolimit City no strangers to making games that focuses on life down the mines.
The game’s loading screen shows the Canary Freespins feature with the 3 Canaries underneath hinting at us needing these symbols to hit the bonus. Of course with a game called Dead Canary and the Canary smiling on the front loading screen, it’s fair to say that we’re pessimistic about the canaries survival rates down the mines.
Similar to most slot games including Misery Mining, the basic symbols in Dead Canary are 10, J, Q, K and A and the game also has premium symbols with a Rat, Rope, Compass, Hip Flash and the Dwarf himself all making up those top tier symbols that you want to hit.
Wild Mining
The Wild Mining feature is activated when there are 3, 4, or 5 diagonal alignments of the same pay symbol, but no winning combination is formed. The symbols involved in the trigger are eliminated, creating wild symbols in the vacant spots. Obtaining 3, 4, or 5 triggering symbols grants 1, 2, or 3 Wild bombs respectively. When a Wild bomb detonates, it increases the win multiplier by +1 for the upcoming collapse. All symbols, except for xBomb symbols, explode as a result. If a scatter symbol is blown away, it reappears in a new random position during the next collapse.
xBomb Wild Multiplier
xBombs wilds replace all symbols except scatters and these xBombs then explode and remove all adjacent symbols in a cross pattern to them. The win multiplier is then increased by +1 for this.
Reels
Dead Canary features 6-reels and 3-4-3-4-3-4 rows.
Paylines
Paylines in Dead Canary start from 36 ways up to 1728 win ways.
RTP
As always the important detail is the slot’s RTP and it’s no different with Dead Canary. The RTP in this game is 96.02%. This RTP increases to 96.33% if you activate the xBet feature which gives you a guaranteed scatter every spin for a cost of 40% extra of your bet size.
As always this percentage is not the same everywhere and online casinos often alter these figures according to their current policies. To spare you the trouble, we shared a list of UK casinos where you can play this game and the respective RTPs found there.
For an even more informed decision, we advise you to check our reviews and read about the casino's welcome bonuses and deals, game libraries, customer care, payment options, and other things available in each casino.
Several top-ranking operators have the Dead Canary slot in their offer, and many of them include a solid RTP for this title. Those who want to try other releases in well-established casinos should check the list of slot sites we recommend.
Stake Range
The stake range will always vary from different sites but the Nolimit City site varies stakes from 20p to £100.
Max Win
The Dead Canary online slot limits the maximum win at 60,000x the player’s bet.
The Max Win in this game is named Happy Wife, Happy Life with the feature screen showing the Dwarf with his wife when the Max Win is landed.
Free Spins
When three Scatter symbols of any kind appear, it activates the Canary Freespins feature. During this mode, the reel area transforms into a 4-3-4-3-4-3-4 layout, with the four vaults located in the corners initially locked.
While in freespins, the vaults remain locked but continue to collect coins and multipliers from the three adjacent positions. The vaults can be unlocked by xBomb explosions. Once a vault is opened, all the collected items inside will be awarded as winnings at the end of the bonus mode.
The Scatter symbols possess an initial multiplier of 1x and have the ability to collect coins, multipliers, upgrades, as well as the rat and dwarf enhancers.
- Silver cage Scatters: Collect in an x-shape, starting from one position away from itself.
- Gold cage Scatters: Collect in an x-shape, covering entire rows.
The value of the collected coins is based on the active bet.
Both Scatter symbols and vaults stop collecting once the total win reaches 65,000x.
The Scatter symbol on the leftmost position begins the collection process.
Scatter symbols start with 3 hit points, and the collected wins are awarded only if the birds remain alive.
When affected by xBombs or gas, the Scatter symbol loses one hit point. If the bird dies, it respawns back in its cage.
Canary Freespins commence with 3 spins, and the spin count is reset to 3 whenever an xBomb appears.
Jackpot
The Dead Canary online slot game doesn’t have a jackpot prize but has a MEGA Max Win with 60,000x available to be won in a single spin.
OLBG has a page where you can find the best jackpot slot games if you are genuinely interested in such titles with big jackpots available.
Play Experience & First Impressions
Dead Canary follows from Misery Mining in more ways than one, with this Nolimit City game having a similar playstyle to that one and similar features. It’s hard to look past this game as a sequel to Misery Mining and that does harm it slightly, but Nolimit City have a great knack of knowing how to make a good game.
Everything moves smoothly in the slot in terms of the layout and graphics and there are no issues with the reels despite being something that we’ve never seen before in terms of the diagonal grid layout. The bonus round though is where this starts to get tricky with so many different symbols coming down on the grid and not a lot of explanation as to what each of these symbols does.
Hits can be a regular thing in this game despite the extreme volatility but we do notice that these frequent wins come more often when the xBet feature is on. That gives us an extra scatter symbol and more ways to win in that sense, but the 40% extra price on those spins can see your balance come down quicker than usual.
