Tombstone RIP

Our slot of the month for January is Tombstone RIP – a wild-west themed slot from No Limit City featuring a five reel 2-3-3-3-1 configuration. Enjoying plenty of exposure at the moment, this extremely volatile game is packed with plenty of features including progressive multipliers, splitting wilds and an outrageous potential jackpot of 300,000 your stake.

Theme/Visuals

‘Gritty’ is a word that comes to mind when trying to describe NoLimit City’s latest offering. In fact the developer certainly has form – San Quentin is perhaps one of the best examples of an uncompromising approach that’s not always for the faint of heart. Tombstone RIP portrays the bleak and brutal side of the Old West (albeit with cartoon-like characters) and is replete with all manner of unpleasant acts including hangings and amputations.

The reels are framed by blood-soaked gallows with a dusty Old West town serving as the backdrop. The game features a faded washed out colour-scheme that’s certainly appropriate although the soundtrack is a bit run-of-the-mill. But compared to its predecessor, the Tombstone RIP marks a big improvement in the visual department.

How to Play Tombstone RIP

Low value symbols are represented by playing card symbols that look like they’ve been drawn on a steamed up window (intentional?) And for once their inclusion is appropriate for the theme. Joining these are five character symbols: a gambler, a sheriff and outlaws, El Gordo, Edda Star and Skinny Joe.

El Gordo is the most valuable and will pay out 4x your stake if you land him five times across one of 108 pay-lines. The game’s fifth reel is reserved for premium symbols which always appear as doubles. However, an annoying ‘xRIP’ feature is active during the base game which removes any wins worth less than your stake. Just as well then that the game includes multiple wild variants.

Wild Variants

Tombstone RIP features four different wilds: stacked xNudge wilds, standard wilds, split wilds and xSplit wilds. Stacked xNudge wilds are represented by hanged characters. These only appear on the middle three reels but they’ll nudge up and down increasing a wild multiplier by +1. Should multiple nudge wilds help create a win, their values are tallied together.

Regular wilds are present too and appear on all reels apart from the first one. They perform their usual task of replacing other symbols to create winning combos but don’t include multipliers.
Then you’ve got splitting wilds that are only present on the middle three reels. These split themselves and other symbols on that reel in half thus doubling the amount of symbols and increasing your number of ways to win.

Finally, you’ve got xSplit wilds that only land on the firth reel and count as doubles. These too cut symbols to the left in four different paths:

• all four symbols on the top row
• all four symbols on the bottom row
• all three symbols in the middle row on the three middle reels with the top symbol on the first reel
• all three symbols in the middle row on the three middle reels and the bottom symbol on the first reel

Tombstone Bonus Features

Hang ‘em High scatters appear on the three middle reels – land three and you’ll trigger eight free spins. The win multiplier will then be increased by x1 for regular wilds, x2 for Split wilds and x3 for Nudge wilds. You can also upgrade to Boothill Free spins (see below) if you land the Boothill scatter on the fifth reel.

Boothill free spins are activated by landing three Hang ‘em High scatters together with a Boothill scatter. 10 free spins will then be yours with the win multiplier increasing in the same way it does for the Hang’em High free spins. (I’m getting a headache). With every spin, a double Cowboy symbol on the fifth reel turns all symbols of that kind into wilds. A random multiplier is also active and ranges from x5 to x999. This is applied to a random cowboy and is added to the overall multiplier once the round is complete.

Conclusion

And that’s about it (I think). This beautifully designed slot blows its predecessor away and makes a mockery of Dead or Alive 2. With potentially enormous pay-outs and generous multipliers, this engaging slot should however be approached with some caution. It’s extremely volatile and features an unforgiving RTP of 94.08%. The overly sensitive might also be put off by the gritty theme too.

RTP: 94.08%, Minimum Stake: 0.01

Dale Shelabarger

Freelance Contributor, creating content since 2003

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