Dracula Awakening

Theme and Design

This Slot Invoked The Gothic Atmopshere Of The Classic Vampire Story

Dracula Awakening has a sumptuous gothic feel to it with a foreboding atmosphere and dramatic scenery throughout. There is a looming castle in the background surrounded by a misty haze, while the reels are encased in grey stone with gold trim. Dracula has a princely air about him and he is accompanied on the reels by one lady whose destiny it is to be transformed into a vampire wild throughout the game as Dracula takes a bite in a dramatic animation sequence.

This slot also has day and night phases and a nice feature of it is the dial above the reels which indicates how far into each phase you are and how many more spins are needed before the next phase unfolds. And in terms of production, Dracula Awakening holds its own in a crowded market of vampire-themed games.

RTP and Variance

Dracula Awakening has multiple RTP settings so it’s worth checking how it looks at your casino before you play to be sure you are getting value for money. You can do this by hitting the ‘Help’ button on the game info screen once you’ve loaded it up, and then scrolling down to find the RTP at the bottom.

Looking at a selection of popular slot sites in the UK I found the game running at the following settings:

• 95.75% - Casumo (Independent)
• 94.73% - Duelz Casino (SuprPlay)
• 92.11% - Bacanaplay (Skill on Net)
• 90.78% - Vegasland (Aspire Global) 

I would choose to play at Casumo or Duelz Casino for the best chance of a positive return on your wagering.

This game is also a high variance slot so it can be unpredictable and the win distribution will be uneven with much of that RTP weighted for the bonus round where accumulating lots of sticky wilds can help complete paylines on every spin.

Maximum Win

The maximum payout in Dracula Awakening is 5,317x. That is disappointing for a high variance slot. Most advertise top wins of at least 10,000x so this is definitely at the lower end of the scale. Red Tiger’s own Wanted Wildz game has a maximum payout of 15,000x for example.

If you want to chase down much bigger wins I recommend reading our article on slots with the highest maximum win.

Symbols and Paytable

Paytable Values Are Not Huge But There Are Lots of Wilds and 30 Paylines To Win On

Dracula Awakening is played on 6 reels with 4 rows on each. There are 30 fixed paylines to form wins on which is a good number. Wins are triggered when 3 or more identical symbols land across the reels on a payline from left to right.

There are 10 regular symbols with modest value, but there are plenty of wilds in the game which give you a good chance of triggering wins on each spin.

The low payers are the cards, 10 through to Ace. These are valued at from 0.1x for 3 10s up to 2x for 5 Aces. The premiums are the wine glass, wine bottle, cross, broach and lady, valued at from 0.6x for 3 10s up to 10x for 5 ladys.

The best part about Dracula Awakening is the wild symbols that substitute in for any other symbol to complete a payline. There are THREE in total - the Dracula Wild, the Mega Wild (basically an expanded Dracula Wild) and the vampire lady Wild who also has a pay value of 15x for 5 on a line.

Features and Gameplay

The Night Phase Of The Game and Free Spins Rounds Are The Most Likely To Drive Wins

Red Tiger have built a nice twist into the gameplay of Dracula Awakening by creating two ‘phases’ of play – night and day – to reflect the different states of the count. Daytime lasts for 16 spins and night time for 8. In each phases, different things can happen.

When you load up the game it always starts in the daytime mode. During this time, standard wins are possible and standard Dracula wilds land to help complete wins, but you should be looking out for the Eclipse Scatters because 3 of these trigger the free spins round where things get more interesting.

A word of warning though – in over 200 spins in testing I didn’t unlock the free spins round once, so it’s not going to drop easily!

During the night phase, the middle reel becomes the focus. If a Dracula Wild lands here then it expands to full reel height – Mega Wild - to help form wins. Also, if a lady lands anywhere on the reels, Dracula bites her to convert her into a wild too. You can have multiple lady wilds through this feature and it’s where the bigger wins were unlocked in my test session. Remember, there are 30 paylines, so having 4 or 5 wilds on one spin has the potential to drive some nice payouts.

But it’s the free spins round that is most alluring here because it’s wild heaven! You get 7 spins with a GUARANTEED expanded Mega Wild on the middle reel throughout. And any lady symbols that land are converted into wilds too that stick for the rest of the round.

Finally, if you land any Eclipse Scatter on reel 1 or 5 it will increase your free spins total by 1.