Theme & Design

Awesome Production In This Unique Slot 

Print Studios distinctive design style is evident in Honey Hunters, which builds its gameplay around the theme of bees collecting honey. The action is set in green countryside with trees in the backdrop and grey rocks and garden flowers housing a 5×3 reel set in the foreground. In the paytable, rather than going down the cutesy bee route for symbols in games like NetEnt’s Bee Hive Bonanza, Print’s honey gatherers are miniature people riding on the back of the bees. You see them in the animation when a symbol lands in a winning combination. You see a close up of the bees faces too, with enormous eyes, and tiny legs that carry honey pots. And there’s an epic soundtrack and some slick animations to look out for, particularly when the prize wheel activates on random spins.

RTP and Variance

Honey Hunters has one fixed RTP rate of 96.55%. At a time when many slot providers create games with more than one rate and slot site operators are happy to run games at 90% or even lower sometimes, a solid 96.55% is excellent.

This is a high variance slot with some interesting features that can drive some big win sequences. Expect an uneven win distribution with flurries of big payouts but some frustrating runs too.

Maximum Win

The max payout in Honey Hunters is 10,000x. You can win £10,000 with a £1 stake. That’s about average for high variance slots. If you prefer chasing bigger prizes then check out our list of highest max win slots.

Symbols and Paytable

Honey Hunters is a win ways slot with 5 reels and 3 rows. That means you need to land 3 or more identical symbols on adjacent reels, regardless of the row they land on, to trigger a win. That means 234 win ways on each spin (3x3x3x3x3).

There are 9 pay symbols in the table. The lower value symbols are the four flowers – blue, yellow, orange and purple. These are valued at from 0.1x for 3 blues up to 0.4x for 5 purples. The premiums are the 5 bees – Stringer Steve, Aphid Alan, Petal Paladin, Nector Nomad and Cardinal Chief. These are valued at from 0.2x for 3 Stringer Steves up to 20x for 5 Cardinal Chiefs.

There is also a Wild that subsitutes for all pay symbols to complete win ways. It also carries values of 1x, 2x, 10x and 20x for 2, 3, 4 or 5 on a line. And the Bonus symbol which triggers the free spins round, carries values of 20x and 100x when 4 or 5 land on a win way.

Features and Gameplay

The gameplay in Honey Hunters is built around a clever progressive meter when extra features are unlocked along the way. This is how it works.

Honey Forge

You will notice that bee symbols carry little pots that are sometimes filled with honey when they land. If that is the case the honey is collected in a meter to the left of the reels. The meter holds 5 bonuses, each of which is unlocked in turn when enough honey is collected to activate its button.

When a feature is activated you need to click the button to claim it. This costs you 1x and all the honey currently saved for that feature is used up at this point.

The features available through the Honey Forge are:

• Spreading feature with a guaranteed wild and 1 to 4 spreading frames
• Free Spins
• Free Spins with Petal Paladin unlocked
• Free Spins with Nectar Nomad unlocked
• Free Spins with Cardinal Chief unlocked

Spreading Feature

When wilds land they may carry premium symbols within them. If this happens, then that premium symbol will be spread to a random number of positions on the grid.

Wheel Feature

This can open-up at random at any point in the base game when honey is collected. The wheel spins, and if it lands on a prize sector then a prize is awarded and a re-spin. You keep going until the wheel lands on a non-prize sector. Then all prizes collected are awarded and the feature ends.

The prize wheel will either award honey (with a max prize option that fills the meter entirely), coins with multiplier win values on them, or a spin with a guaranteed wild and spreading frames.

Free Spins Feature 

Free spins can be unlocked through the Honey Forge OR by landing 3 or more of the BONUS symbols on a spin. You start with 4 spins and only ONE of the premium symbol types available on the reels, starting at the lowest value Stringer Steve.

However, by collecting honey you can unlock the next symbol up, and earn yourself an extra 4 spins.

And finally, landing a wild during free spins also earns you an extra spin and triggers spreading symbols which stick until enough honey is collected to upgrade to the next level.

The Final Verdict

Typically for Print Studios there is high quality production in Honey Hunters. The visuals are superb, particularly the characters riding the bees, and it’s all neatly interwoven with the gameplay. But whilst the feature meter is a clever way to unlock modifiers and bonus rounds, it just felt too tightly configured. Not a single activation in 250 spins is very mean. At the same time there is tons of potential in the free spins round so for those with the patience to hang in there until it drops, there will be big rewards on some days. So, overall, a great slot, but with a volatility warning!