Pug Life Slot Review (Hacksaw Gaming)

There’s thug life, and then there’s Pug Life. Believe us, these animals don’t know what hard life is. We have another slot release from Hacksaw Gaming, where animals play the central roles. In addition to the theme, our Pug Life slot review will analyze the options and features available here, like the free spins and multipliers. So, let’s start!

Graphics, Music, and Sound Effects

Modern slots tend to include eye-catching visuals, and the Pug Life slot is no different. In this game, you will find modern-looking cartoony graphics like fun symbols in vibrant colors, a semi-transparent violet layout, and a decorative frame around it. The background image looks excellent and includes a living room and occasional appearances of animals roaming around.

Even the music will remind you of retro cartoon/animated movies. There are also goofy sound effects to support this piece of music.

We can’t call our Pug Life slot review thorough if we don’t analyze the essential game features. Thanks to these features, you’ll realize whether you want to try this release. There are so many modern slot games out there that wasting your time on the ones you don’t find attractive is definitely not something our readers want. Read on tTo learn more about the key game features in the Pug Life slot, you can check the table below and read the paragraphs below.

Theme – Pets

You can tell by the title that you can expect at least one pet in the story, but it turns out that players can find several pets in it. So, this release is focused on cat and dog pets, but there are also two other “unwanted” pets we will analyze later in our review. Basically, this game shows us what’s happening in people’s homes when the pet owners are not around.

We like how successfully this slot’s authors have replicated the story to the game’s paytable. So, in addition to the well-known playing card icons, you can expect a Mouse, a Pigeon, a Cat, a Chihuahua, and a Pug. It goes without saying that the Pug is the highest-paying icon delivering prizes worth up to 10 times the player’s total bet.  

Reels

There’s a standard number of reels in Pug Life – 5. This time, the reels have 4 rows creating 20 positions on the gameboard.

Paylines

One of the unusual things about this slot is the paylines, or the winning ways, to be more precise. In this case, we have 16 ways to win instead of classic paylines. Every time users hit three, four, or five identical standard icons on adjacent reels starting with the leftmost reel.

RTP

The RTP (Return to Player) is a percentage that indicates the theoretical payout rate after a certain number of spins. In the case of the Pug Life slot, we have a default RTP of 96.33%, which is pretty solid compared to many other online slots.

However, this is a default value, and online casinos where you can play this game might alter this percentage in a way that suits them. Besides the RTP, users should analyze other things before they rate a casino, like its payment methods, customer support, and casino welcome bonuses and deals (free spins included).   

We created this table to help you find some of the best gambling websites where you can play the Pug Life online slot. We advise reading our page dedicated to the slot sites we recommend for other excellent gambling sites.

Stake Range

With 29 betting options, we can say freely that this title is a good option for casual players and high rollers. We claim this not only because of the sheer number of betting solutions but also because of the limits. Namely, you can wager at least £0.1 and up to £100 per round.

Max Win

Another positive thing about this game is the solid maximum win amount set by the provider. You can win up to 7,500 times your current total bet this time.

Treats Feature

Players can land three kinds of Treats in this slot: Biscuits, Bones, and Steaks. They reveal Wild Multipliers. Every winning combo to which a Treat contributes is multiplied by the displayed multiplier value. If there are two or more Treats in the pattern, they are multiplied together. Remember that the Biscuits have values of 2x to 4x, the Bones reveal 5x to 20x, and the Steaks offer 25x to 200x.

Lucky players with three Treats of any type anywhere in view will activate the Treat Yo’self Bonus game.

The latter makes all Treats sticky and reveals a new multiplier value according to the Treat type on every single spin. You should expect 5 spins, but this number can grow if you land extra Treats (each Treat provides one additional spin).

The Dawg’s Den/Free Spins

Users who love free spins will be glad to read that the Pug Life slot has a bonus round like that. Hitting three or more Dawg’s Dens (Scatter icons) on the layout will activate free spins. Each Dawg’s Den symbol will reveal a value of three or four; adding these values will highlight the number of free spins you’ve won.

During this round, you can land a sticky Toaster Scatter icon to boost the current multiplier or add extra wins to the total amount added to your balance at the end of the round. You can get the Toaster on the fourth and fifth reels. It also works as a Wild icon (it replaces missing basic symbols). As for the multiplier values associated with the Toaster, they begin with 2x and end with 100x. The same symbol can use win factors of 0.1 to 100 to multiply the player’s current stake when providing extra wins.

Jackpot

Only a small number of online slots have direct jackpot rewards, and the Pug Life slot is not among them. However, you can still expect to get an opportunity to hit big prizes because the maximum winning cap is set at 7,500 times the total stake. If you still want to check some titles with direct jackpot prizes, visit our page with a list of the best jackpot slot games.

Play Experience & First Impressions

Pug Life is one of those fun games, but in our experience, we didn’t get much in return financially. In fact, our 100-spin test ended with a minimal loss. Interestingly, the result we had is almost identical to the theoretical RTP. We can say the same for the volatility because we didn’t see many winning rounds, but we had several big wins.

The most exciting moments were when the Treats (Wild Multipliers) ended on the reels. These icons have great potential to spice up your wins. Our test run didn’t help us activate a round of free spins. On the other hand, we like the liveliness of the visuals here, which makes the gameplay more enjoyable. The music can become a bit tiresome after a while, but you can turn it off at any moment. 

This is Hacksaw, so there are things to consider.

1. If you have never played hacksaw slots before, be aware that the high volatility will result in long losing streaks, even on a game like Pug Life here, where wins were not too infrequent but were generally of low value

2. If you are aware of Hacksaw, you know what you are getting. Very little in the way of bonus baits, super infrequent bonus round, and even when they land, that can pay next to nothing.

BUT - When hacksaw games POP, they tend to POP with a bang. No POP in this test

This test was a typical 100 spins on a hacksaw game with little action of note. There was a base win of 7x, which is reasonable for this game, and actually, 31 wins from 100 spins are not bad at all - Coupled with the session RTP of 53.90%, (That is £53.90 returned from £100 of spins)< it means on average a base game win paid £1.73

There was no bonus bait, let alone landing a bonus, and the spins seem more rapid than the max spin per 2.5 seconds. 

With multiple bonus features available, which can pay well when they land, this is a typical fast-paced Hacksaw release on a familiar board setup and payline system.

When it comes to similar slots, away from this mechanic and hacksaw games, I guess Dog House from pragmatic Play is as close as it comes.

Pug Life vs The Dog House?

I think on this occasion, while both can be super volatile and frustrating to play, The Dog House or The Dog House Megaways give you more confidence that the gameplay is aiming at paying - That's not always a good thing, though!

Editorial Team Information

This Pug Life slot review was written by the OLBG Slots Content Team, beginning with Andrej Trajkovski, who has worked in the online gambling industry since 2013, playing and reviewing online slots and casinos daily for the past four years. The review is Fact Checked by William Westerlund, an online casino expert reviewing casinos and slots for over five years, and published by Steve Madgwick, our Editor-In-Chief with over 18 years of experience creating and managing high-quality sports betting and Casino content for OLBG & multiple other publications.