Knights Free Play in Demo Mode by Red Rake Gaming

Knights review

Theme and Storyline

Knights, the slot machine, introduces players to the romance of chivalry and the adventures of knightly heroes. Gorgeous scenery rises up in the background enclosing a fairy tale castle and making a setting that feels half Lord of the Rings and half Game of Thrones.

Who hasn’t wanted to attend a joust or ride off on a quest clad in iron armour and atop a noble steed? This isn’t quite the same, but it comes with far less exposure to dying in a foreign war.

Graphics, Sounds and Animations

The graphics are technically excellent with characters and setting rendered in detail on the reels and in the background. However, the slot does suffer from a somewhat undramatic and pastel coloured rendering of its subject matter.

The animations and soundtrack work well together and, although the music is far from perfect, it won’t make most players want to cut their own ears off with their longswords.

Gameplay

The gameplay comes with a few nice additions to the typical five reel by three row set up. For a starter, you can turn the game into a six reel slot game by doubling the cost of your bet per spin. The extra cost comes with the chance to hit six symbol combos for even bigger wins.

Beyond that, the main attraction is the extremely generous Free Spin bonus (where much of the volatility and all the biggest wins come from).

There is no gamble feature in Knights.

Wilds, Bonuses and Free Spins

The Wild symbol substitutes for all symbols except the Scatter symbol and applies a two times multiplier when part of a winning combination.

The Scatter pays out for two or more symbols no matter where they fall on the reels and regardless of win lines. It pays out equal to your bet per spin for two symbols, but if you get all the way up to six it pays out fifteen hundred times your bet per spin.

Three or more Scatters also trigger the Free Spin bonus starting with 10, 15, 30 or 40 free spins for three, four, five or six symbols respectively. Free spins can be retriggered during the Free Spin bonus, with the addition that landing two Scatters during the Free Spin bonus triggers two additional spins.

When one of the three Knight symbols lands on a reel during the free spins, it activates that symbol on that reel. Once activated, the symbol plays as a Wild on that reel for the rest of the Free Spin bonus.

Multipliers are applied to all wins after the first five. From the sixth free spin onwards, a multiplier of two times is applied, increasing to three times from the eleventh spin onwards.

Bet Sizes, RTP and Variance

The return to player of this game is 95.10%, this is pretty poor, running almost a full percentage point below our yardstick for average of roughly 96%.

The range of bets on the site we tested ran from a minimum bet per spin of $/£/€0.10 up to a maximum of $/£/€35.00 per spin. This is a rather low range that might price out the higher rollers but gives a good range of bets with high granularity to low stakes players.

The volatility of Knights is extremely high, which would make it an excellent match for our preferred slot machine strategies if it were matched with a better return to player.

Conclusion

Knights is a nice slot to look at, though we have some reservations about the choice of certain visual motifs. However, the most difficult issue to overcome is the relatively low return to player. We tend to prefer slots that come in above our average of 96%; this is well below that.

The low return to player is somewhat mitigated by the high variance. The volatility is so high that, along with the the solid gameplay and exciting bonus feature, we feel comfortable giving this slot a mild recommendation.