Castle of Terror

Theme and Design

Castle of Terror has the visual feel of a classic, vintage horror. The action takes place against the backdrop of a beautifully rendered country hillside, atop which sits a castle. The sun is shining, there are autumnal colors, a church yard and iron railings in the fore. But like all the best horrors, something sinister lurks and the feeling is that it can’t stay this way for long.

During the game, Holy Water bottles emblazoned with crosses smash over the reels whilst the free spins round takes you inside the castle at night to a candlelit room with lightning flashes outside. It’s not as scary as more adult-themed games of No Limit City, whose Book of Shadows and Mental are far darker in comparison, but instead has a knowingly kitsch ‘70s feel about it which is endearing and fun.

RTP and Variance

The RTP of Castle of Terror is 96.72%, comfortably above average and giving you good value for your gaming.

As you would expect from Big Time Gaming, this is also a super-volatile game capable of kicking out some extraordinary wins as we shall see in this review. But also capable of frustrating the hell out of you as you chase down those payouts.

If you are into your volatility then check out our Top 20 high variance slots with some classics and off-piste picks too.

Maximum Win

The maximum win in Castle of Terror is 61,720x. That puts it right up there amongst BTG’s highest paying slots alongside games like Outlaw and Lil Devil. If you like that kind of prize money then you could also check our list of games with a max win higher than 100,000x.

Symbols and Paytable

Castle of Terror follows a 4,096 paylines model with 6 reels and 4 rows to spin across. The high number of win ways come up because wins are triggered by landing identical symbols on adjacent reels – regardless of positions – from left to right.

The paytable shows good potential with premium symbols valued at up to 50x which gives you a lot of win power when combined with big multipliers.

Low payers are represented by the cards from 9 through to Ace with a max payout of 5x for six on a payline.

Meanwhile, premiums are the character symbols: the Gardener, the Maid, the Gentleman and the Lady. The Lady pays up to 50x for six on a payline.

Look out as well for Wilds which play a key role, substituting for all other symbols to form wins. They land as a big W and more appear in the transformative Holy Water feature. And finally there are Castle of Terror scatters – both silver and gold – which unlock the free spins round.

Features and Gameplay

Despite being without Megaways™, Castle of Terror offers classic BTG gameplay in the form of a pulsating mix of wild transformations, progressive multipliers and the climax of a free spins round with enhanced modifiers.

Holy Water Triggers Wild Conversions …

The base game is all about a feature called Holy Water.

This triggered very regularly during testing – 29 times in 200 spins in fact. When it happens, night falls and a Holy Water bottle appears in front of the reels. It smashes and a shower of water splashes across them.

Two or more positions on the center four reels may be hit with water. If a premium character is in one of those positions, then it is converted into a wild and with each conversion, a global multiplier increases by 1x. You can see that at the top of the reels in the screenshot below. When the reels stop spinning, any wins are calculated and the multiplier is applied to all of them.

Three or More Scatters Triggers 12 Free Spins …

The base game showed itself to be a bit slow in testing and to really unlock the best parts of Castle of Terror you need to unlock the free spins rounds. This is done by landing 3 or more Silver Castle or Gold Castle Scatters. That gets you 12 spins, with 3 more spins for each additional scatter appearing on the reels.

How is the free spins round more rewarding? Well, on EVERY spin, the Holy Water bottle appears, so that’s more wilds and more multipliers.

And … because the multiplier does NOT re-set between spins, it just keeps growing adding more and more value to every win.

And if you can drive that multiplier up to 20x, you’ll trigger an additional 6 free spins.

With Gold Castle Scatters You Enter Enhanced Free Spins

Big Time Gaming like an enhanced free spins round – see Wild Flower for another example. In this case, if one of your triggering Scatters is a Gold Castle, then you enter the Enhanced Free Spins round.

That means, your multiplier starts at 2x and increases by 2x with each Wild conversion. And just like the standard free spins, Holy Water is going to land on EVERY spin.

Whilst the Enhanced Free Spins is the better of the two, those Gold Castles are a big rarity, so use them well when they drop.

And If You Win 100x of More You Can Exchange To Enter Free Spins

Getting into the free spins round is what it’s all about and so BTG have also added another option – you can exchange wins for free spins, or the chance for free spins.

Firstly, any win over 100x can be swapped directly for entry to the standard free spins. Then, any win of 25x to 100x can be swapped for the chance to gamble for free spins on the spin of a wheel.

Land on green, you get 12 spins. Land on red, you lose everything!