Pug Life

Pug Life Slot Review

Slot Provider: Hacksaw Gaming

RTP: 96.33% | Variance: Medium | Maximum Win: 7,500x

Our Score: 8.0

Play at Casumo Casino
QUICK LINKS: Game Information | Where To Play | Full Review | 200 Spins | Compare Slots | About The Developer

About Pug Life

Reviewed by:

Published Date: 19th October 2022

How We Review Slot Games

We test and rate all slot games across 5 criteria, assigning a score out of 10 for each and an overall score that is an average of the 5. To build an accurate assessment of each game we gather information from the supplier and play in real play or demo mode. Find out more.

From tales of the undead to man’s best friend in a heartbeat – you just never know what to expect from Hacksaw Gaming. Or rather, you do, because once again we are confronted with a wildly off-beat online slot game with superb graphics, innovative gameplay, and the aim of entertaining at its heart. Pug Life, from November 2022, is fun, humorous and full to the brim with clever ways to drive up your wins with multipliers, multipliers and more multipliers!

Pug Life Game Information

  • RTP: 96.33%, 94.32%, 92.27%, 88.40%%
  • Variance: Medium
  • Maximum Win: 7,500x
  • Progressive Jackpot: No
  • Reels: 5
  • Rows: 4
  • Paylines: 16
  • Minimum Stake: £0.10
  • Theme: Animals
  • Features: Wilds, Sticky Wilds, Free Spins, Wild Multipliers

Pug Life Review Scores

  • Gameplay and Features 9
  • Maximum Win 8
  • Theme and Design 8
  • Paytable 8
  • RTP and Variance 7

What Our Reviewer Says ...

"A humorous game with lots of potential thanks to its massive sticky wild multipliers!"

Our Score: 8.0

Pug Life Pros and Cons

What We Liked

  • Eccentric theme and cute animals
  • HUGE 100x multipliers
  • Lots of multiplier wilds to boost wins
  • Wilds are sticky in free spins

What We Didn't like

  • Only 3 free spins in bonus round
  • Variable RTP - watch for low settings

Theme & Design

Our Score 8

Proving that it’s not all doom and fear in the Hacksaw headspace, Pug Life is a superbly humorous and light-hearted slot that isn’t too far distant from Pragmatic’s Dog House series.

The setting looks like a pleasant suburban house, everything drawn in a Loony Tunes cartoon style. We’re taken inside where the reel set sits in front of a broad staircase, before moving to the kitchen for the free spins round. Watch out for animations of cheeky pugs peering through the windows or moving around on hover boards … it’s that kind of game!

RTP and Variance

Our Score 7

What is RTP?

RTP (Return to Player) refers to the amount a game will pay out in cash prizes expressed as a percentage of all the money wagered on that game. For example, a 96% RTP means a game will pay out £96 for every £100 wagered. This is an average number and will vary from one session to the next.  Read more here.

What is Variance?

Variance refers to how far a game will deviate from its RTP over time. High variance games deviate a lot and produce uneven win distributions and unexpected windfalls. Low variance games provide a more stable and even distribution of wins. Read more here.

Pug Life slot has four available RTP settings for your casino to choose from: 96.33% | 94.32% | 92.27% | 88.40%. We recommend that you check the RTP settings on the game information screen before you start playing to be sure which level you are playing at. We checked Pug Life at four popular UK casinos to verify the RTP. This is what we found:

  • Casumo (independent): 94.32%
  • MrQ (independent): 96.33%
  • BacanaPlay (Skill on Net): 92.27%
  • Dream Vegas (White Hat Gaming): 94.32%

The only site we checked where Pug Life runs at optimum RTP is MrQ. If RTP is important to you then we recommend that you play there.

This is a medium variance slot which puts it in the same category as games like Gronk’s Gems, Dork Unit and Frank’s Farm. Check the table below for more comparisons.

Maximum Win

Our Score 8

What Is Maximum Win?

Maximum win refers to the maximum amount a player can win from one spin. It is expressed as a multiple of the stake. For example, where the maximum win is 100,000x, from a £1 stake, the maximum win would be £100,000.  

The maximum win in Pug Life is 7,500x. That is good for a medium variance game and compares well with others from Hacksaw Gaming who rarely produce a slot with a maximum win higher than 10,000x.

Explore Games With Similar RTP, Variance and Maximum Win

Like the numbers? Here are some more games you might want to try.

Slot SiteSupplierRTPVarianceTop Payout
Born WildHacksaw Gaming96.28%Medium2,500xPlay Here
Dork UnitHacksaw Gaming96.28%Medium10,000xPlay Here
Frank’s FarmHacksaw Gaming96.31%Medium5,000xPlay Here
Gronk’s GemsHacksaw Gaming96.22%Medium7,500xPlay Here
RIP CityHacksaw Gaming96.22%Medium12,500xPlay Here
Break BonesHacksaw Gaming96.22%Medium3,333xPlay Here

Symbols and Paytable

Our Score 8

Pug Life is a 5 reel slot with 4 rows and 16 active paylines on every spin. You’ll need to land three or more identical symbols across a line from left to right to score a win, starting on the left-most reel.

The paytable is made up of a fun mix of 10 normal pay symbols and 3 types of treats. Values are good, particularly at the high end of the premiums.

]The low value pay symbols are 10 through to Ace, valued at up to 2x for 5 on a line. The premiums are the 2 dogs, the birds and the little mice. They are be worth up to 10x for five on a line.

But the best stuff comes in the form of treats represented by steaks, biscuits and bones. They are Wilds and award wins of 10x for five on a line as well as subbing in for any other symbol to create a win. And they also trigger extra bonuses as we will find out.

Features and Gameplay

Our Score 9

What makes Pug Life such a good slot is that Hacksaw have loaded the game up with wilds, multipliers and sticky multipliers. So, whether you are in the base game or bonus round you can stack up some very good wins … to do so you just need to land those elusive treat symbols.

Treats act as Wild Multipliers with Multipliers of up to 200x like this:

  • Biscuit Treats are 2x, 3x or 4x Wilds
  • Bone Treats are 5x, 10x, 15x or 20x Wilds
  • Steak Treats are 25x, 50x, 75x, 100x, 150x or 200x Wilds

So, if you land a steak treat with a 50x multiplier in the middle or a line of 4 mice for example you would score a win of 1.5 x 50 = 75x! These are generous multipliers, particularly when they can land in the base game (200x in a base game is very rare). And it is possible to have more than one multiplier in a line, in which case they are ADDED together (not multiplied) before being applied to your win.

There is also a special bonus for landing 3 treats simultaneously – a Treat Yo’self Bonus. If you get lucky with this one then the treats stick in place, and you get 5 free spins, plus another for every additional treat to land. And with each spin, the multiplier on every treat refreshes.

In our session the best moments were reserved for the free spins round that takes place in the Dawg’s Den. To enter you have to land 3 scatters for 3 free spins or 4 scatters for 4 free spins.

Things turn crazy quite quickly here with multiple ways to keep driving up your wins.

All your treats will stick, of course, and display a new multiplier with each spin. The total from all spins and the total multiplier values from all winning combinations are added together and one big payout made at the end of the round. There is also a Sticky Toaster Wild that lands on reels 4 and 5. It contributes its own multiplier value of up to 100x and cash value of up to 100x to the total win calculated at the end of the round.

The net impact of all these multipliers and wilds is to give you a big chance of scoring wins on every spin. Perhaps that is why you only get 3 free spins! Although, in our testing we picked up quite a few extra spins by landing more scatters in the bonus round.

You can read more about our test session below.

The Final Verdict

Our Score 8.0

Pug Life has all the hallmarks of Hacksaw Gaming products – quirky, fun and a little bit different. But it’s not just the eccentric theme and style that make this game appealing. For a medium variance slot is also offers both a very enticing top payout of 7,500x and more wilds and high value multipliers than we have seen in a long time. That means Pug Life should have broad appeal for both Hacksaw fans and new-comers to the studio.

Boom or Bust? 200 Spins On Pug Life

To give you an accurate and honest assessment of the games we review our writers play 200 spins. Whilst this is a useful tool to help us review games and to give an example of what might happen when you play, keep in mind that 200 spins is only a very small sample and cannot be used to accurately predict what might happen over another 200 spins. The outcome of all slots play is always random.

We tested Pug Life at Casumo with real money stakes of 10p over a 30-minute session. You can see a summary of our wins and losses below as well as highlights of the free spins round including several big wins.

  • Session Time: 30 minutes
  • Bet Size: 10p
  • Start Balance: £87.19
  • End Balance: £144.19
  • Net Win / Loss: £57
  • Biggest Single Win (excl. Free Spins): £2.81
  • Biggest Losing Streak: 14 spins with no wins
  • Free Spins Round Feature Triggers: One
  • Free Spins Round Wins: £68.02

Pug Life is great for entertainment value. And if you are into cute animal slots then you’ll enjoy it. Whilst I was spinning there was plenty of off-reels distractions as cheeky pugs popped up in the background, scooting around, down the stairs or popping up in the window in the free spins round. And all to a suitably fun and jaunty soundtrack.

During the base game, as you would expect, significant wins were hard to come by. The biggest was a 28x but most were 1x or less. At one point I went 14 spins with no payouts, but that can happen in any game. As far as the multiplier wild treats went, the biscuits were regular, but I don’t recall seeing a single one of the higher bone or steak treats.

The free spins round, when it came, did not disappoint. All in, from a 10p bet I landed £68.20. You can see how this happened in the video above. Starting with the 3 treats that triggered the bonus round I ended up with 8 in total. That is 8 multiplier wilds all firing on every spin by the end of the round. And for each of the 5 that landed in the round I earned another spin. So I had 10 free spins in total.

The only disappointment here was that the multipliers never climbed above a 5x, and reputably with 200x multipliers available, you can see where this could have gone.

In summary, this was an enjoyable slot that showed it can deliver some good wins.

Highlights Video From Testing Including Free Spins Round

Who Made Pug Life?

  • Name: Hacksaw Gaming
  • Established: 2018
  • 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
Find More Hacksaw Gaming

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