Chaos Crew Slot Review

21/01/2021 | Categories: Hacksaw Gaming Slots | Published by: Joe | Last updated: 05/01/2024

Hacksaw Gaming is a Malta-based developer that we rarely talk about and that few players know. They only recently appeared on the online casino scene, launching that aspect of their operations in September of 2018. The company opened for business a year prior, focusing on instant scratch-card games, which is still an essential part of its business model. They have released around sixty titles so far, and their most popular one is Chaos Crew, which hit digital platforms in September 2020. While it didn’t make a massive splash, it’s still a unique reel-spinning romp that’s enjoyable.

Theme & Design

The theme here is a bit all over the place. If we had to narrow it down, we would say that it’s graffiti. That may sound strange, seeing as the two main characters are a cat called Cranky and its sidekick, the skull-headed monster – Sketchy. We say graffiti because the aesthetics used here are typically associated with the urban art form. Furthermore, this slot features images of desolate urban areas, and it incorporates the offsetting phenomenon that happens in commercial printing. The reason we mention the latter is that it often gets associated with Punk music and anti-establishment movements. You can find similar designs and techniques used in underground zines from the 1980s. So, we do not doubt that the Hacksaw team drew inspiration from such publications.

The backdrop is a dark sepia photo of a rundown building with graffiti all over it. A subtle animation of specs of dust flying in front of this photograph does just enough to add a sense of atmosphere. A roughly brush-painted frame holds the reel grid, and on top of it is this slot’s logo, along with its two title characters.

As expected, the button panel is at the bottom of the screen. You have your spin, auto-spin, and bet-adjuster buttons inside a special section in your lower-right corner, and to gain access to the game’s settings window, you’ll have to click on the three-bar icon in your lower left. To the right of this icon is your balance info. To the left of it is the Bonus Buy option. Click it if you want to go directly into the Free Spins bonus round.

Specs & Gameplay

Chaos Crew is a five-reel, five-row slot with fifteen paylines and an RTP of 96.3%. The max exposure here is an excellent x10,000, and the variance is high. Bet sizes range from $0.20 to $100. Wins happen when you land three or more matching symbols on a payline, left to right. Do not expect much in the base game, as the low amount of paylines and the symbol value will not do you any favors there.

It is hard to describe the symbols that the Hacksaw team chose to utilize in this offering, but we’ll give it a shot. A dollar sign, a skull, a smiley face, the X symbol, and a series of lightning bolts are the low-paying symbols. All of these will produce the same prize for three to five matching images. If you bet $1 and land five identical symbols from this group on a line, you’ll win $1. The high-paying symbols feature more elaborate illustrations of a brain, an apple, a moth, and some tentacles. For five of a kind, they will produce wins from x5 to x12.

Cranky the cat is the Wild, and it’s also a mystery multiplier (x2, x3, or x5). Multiple Cranky cats on the same line will multiply each other. Landing three Free Spins symbols allows access to the Free Spins bonus round.

Chaos Crew Symbols

Bonus Features

The Free Spins round begins with three complimentary reel rotations. Every time you land a winning symbol, the number of free spins resets to three. To exit this round, you need three losing reel rotations in a row. The RTP in this mode goes down to 95.92%, so be aware of that.

The gameplay here is different in that each reel has a multiplier above it, all starting with x1. Chaos Crew has several non-paying symbols that feature the words no, dead, nope, and false. If the reel grid is full of them, that’s a losing spin. However, when at least one of these Free Spins exclusive symbols lands, that is a winning one. They are Cranky, Epic Cranky, Sketchy, and Epic Sketchy. Cranky and Sketchy come with a set of multipliers that only increase the value of their reel, while the Epic versions of these symbols increase each reel’s multiplier. At the end of the round, the game adds up the figures from all five reels. It then produces your total win. The max total multiplier is the previously discussed x10,000.

If you are impatient or unlucky, you can purchase your way into this round (x128 your stake), but that option is not available in all jurisdictions.