Feel The Beat
By Hacksaw Gaming
Feel the Beat is a futuristic, music-themed online slot game from Hacksaw Gaming played on a 5x5 grid with 27 paylines. As well as a fierce electro-soundtrack the game has speaker symbols that connect paylines across the reels to trigger guaranteed wins, X symbols that trigger up to 200x multipliers, and two free spins rounds. This high variance game has a 10,000x max win and spins start from just 10p.
| Game Name | Feel The Beat |
|---|---|
| Developer | Hacksaw Gaming |
| Release Date | 25th January 2024 |
| Rows | 5 |
| Reels | 5 |
| Paylines | 27 |
| RTP Rate | 96.2% | 94.28% | 92.26% | 88.34% |
| Max Win | 10,000x |
| Min Bet | £0.10 |
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Review Scorecard
What Our Reviewer Says …
A super-cool slot for those who enjoy pumping electro beats and the potential high of massive progressive multipliers!
What We Like
- Superb production for those who like pumping dance music!
- Random multipliers of up to 200x from the X symbol
- Two free spins rounds
- Two speaker symbols on one spin guarantees wins
- Low 10p minimum stake
What We Didn't Like
- Low RTP settings at some casinos
- High volatility means it can be a tough play
Theme and Design
Check Out The Neon Dancers Going Wild To The Soundtrack YOU Choose!
Hacksaw’s creative department does a fine line in minimalist design on their slots. Check out Break Bones for a good example. And whilst Feel The Beat is not on that level, the slick style here will please fans of this studio. The setting is a futuristic city, drawn in sparse neon lines, making it a bit Tron-like. The fun part is the 2 neon dancers, one either side of the grid, who dance like crazy to the beats as you play. You can even choose from 3 tracks and the dancers will change their rhythm depending on which you go for.
The soundtrack is a kind of cyber-electro one and it picks up some pace when a few wins drop for added atmosphere. I enjoyed the production but I would add the caveat that if you don’t like electro dance music, or neon lights for that matter, you won’t enjoy this game!
RTP and Variance
Hacksaw are known for offering games with multiple RTP settings so it’s no surprise to see that Feel the Beat can run at 96.2%, 94.28%, 92.26% or 88.34%. The optimum rate of 96.2% is good value, but anything lower is to be avoided if possible. Check the RTP setting on the game info screen once you load up to find out which rate your casino has chosen. My recommendation would be to play the game at MrQ which always offers slots at their optimum RTP level.
Hacksaw’s high variance output has made them a favourite of fans of high-risk slots play and Feel the Beat falls into that category too. So expect the usual choppy ride and the potential for crazy win sequences on rare occasions.
Maximum Win
The top payout in Feel the Beat is 10,000x, which is standard for Hacksaw high variance slots. There are a few with greater potential – 2 Wild 2 Die (15,000x) and RIP City (12,500x) – but these are the exception rather than the rule.
Symbols and Paytable
The neon grid that forms the game area for Feel the Beat is 5 reels by 5 rows and there are 27 paylines in play on each spin. You’ll need 3 or more identical symbols to land on any payline from left to right, starting on the left-most reel, to trigger a win.
The paytable itself has great value at the top end giving you the chance to score big wins even in the base game. Low value symbols are the cards, Jack through to Ace which pay from 0.1x for 3 Jacks up to 2x for 5 Aces. The mid range symbols are the weird neon patterns, valued at from 9x up to 18x for 5 on a line. And at the top end of the paytable you have a cat and a mouse. These are valued at up to 40x for 5 on a line.
Watch out for the Wild too because it substitutes for all pay symbols to complete lines AND pays out at 40x for 5 on a line.
Features and Gameplay
Speaker Symbols Transform Symbols
Look out for speaker symbols. When they land on separate reels then paylines that connect them are highlighted and all symbols on those paylines transform into identical pay symbols to guarantee a win.
This is a cool feature but it gets better if you land another speaker on one of the same reels as either, or both of the two that triggered it. Then, every position between the two speakers on the same reel becomes a speaker symbol too, more paylines are highlighted, and more wins triggered.
X Symbol Triggers Multipliers of Up To 200x
You want to be landing X symbols whenever you score a win. If an X is visible on the grid when you trigger a win, then it activates and displays a multiplier of 2x to 200x. The multiplier is then applied to the total win value from that spin.
Pump Up The Jam! Bonus With 10 Free Spins
This is your first bonus round. It triggers when THREE Free Spins (FS) symbols land on one spin. The round gets you 10 free plays with better odds of landing speaker symbols OR X symbols. And if the speaker feature triggers, the symbols between the speakers can now turn into Wilds as well as pay symbols. So that’s more chance of scoring wins.
Typically for a Hacksaw slot, landing 2 more FS symbols in the Pump Up The Jam! bonus will get you 2 extra spins, whilst landing 3 will get you 4 extra spins.
Get Your Booty On The Floor! Bonus
The holy grail of Feel the Beat is the Get Your Booty on the Floor bonus. You’ll need 4 FS symbols to land in the base game to trigger it, and you get 10 free plays.
Just like in the Pump Up The Jam Bonus, now wilds can appear between the speakers in the speaker feature. But now, the value of X symbols is enhanced because when they land, as well as applying their multiplier value to any win, they also gift that multiplier value to a global multiplier. And every time an X symbol lands during the round when a win is triggered, both the X multiplier AND the global multiplier are applied.
And finally, landing 2 more FS symbols in the Get Your Booty on the Floor bonus will get you 2 extra spins, whilst landing 3 will get you 4 extra spins.
Final Verdict
Feel the Beat’s high energy soundtrack and dancers will not be everyone’s cup of tea, and after playing for just a few minutes it’s relentless pace can start to grate. But if you like electro raves and neon lights then you’ll be all in on this one! The gameplay is simpler than in other Hacksaw slots, and certainly the free spins rounds are less sophisticated, merely taking the existing features and adding a twist here and there to bring out more potential. But Feel the Beat is still set up for some big moments, particularly where the the random X comes in to turn a slow session on its head in an instant if the multiplier value is high enough.
Testing Notes
I played 250 spins on Feel The Beat on the Hacksaw Gaming site to test the game. This is what happened.
- Stake Size: £1
- Start balance: £5,000
- End balance: £5,049.7
- Hit Rate: 28% (71 winning spins in 250)
- Biggest Win: 170.1x
- Free Spins Round: 1
Initially this felt like a tight slot, with the first 20 or so spins producing just 2 small wins, but after a slow start, Feel the Beat warmed up and eventually triggered the Pump Up The Jam bonus round on 216 spins, landing me a 170.1x win. Overall, my hit rate was 28%. It didn’t feel that high when I was playing, but then again sometimes your perception doesn’t match the reality.
The good part is, the speakers dropped on a regular basis. All told they accounted for 22 or my wins (roughly 30%). The fun part is when you have more than 2 in play, preferably with a few rows or reels between them to give yourself a chance of building a longer payline. Then waiting to see which symbol is revealed – preferably high value - adds tension. A word of warning though - the powerful ‘x’s which multiply your wins were very rare. I saw them land just 7 times in 250 base game spins, activating a win multiplier just once. But one did drop in free spins - a 10x - to create the biggest payout of the session.
And so to that bonus round. This was where Feel The Beat revealed what it can actually do. On the first spin it dropped a 10x multiplier and two speakers, one on reel 1 and one on reel 4. They revealed a blue cat, the second highest paying symbol in the table. That triggered a 15x win, multiplied to 150x. By the end of my 10 spins the total win had grown to 170.1x.
In summary, this is an entertaining game if you enjoy the thematic elements and soundtrack. The session produced just about enough wins in the base game to keep my interest up whilst waiting for something big to happen, and at a 28% hit rate overall, it doesn’t look as volatile as other Hacksaw slots.
Who Made Feel The Beat?
- Name: Hacksaw Gaming
- UK License: 54059
- Total Games: 50 +
- Known For: Dark, high variance output and bonus rounds driven by combining multipliers
- Popular Slots: Hand of Anubis, Itero, Gladiator Legends, Break Bones
