Moonlight spills over a graveyard gate in Haunted Mansions, where twisted trees claw at a purple sky and a crooked house leans in from the right. The reels themselves are set against a wall of dark stone bricks, and on them a vampire, a mummy, a green Frankenstein, a witch and a grinning pumpkin scarecrow compete with the usual card letters. The stake starts at $1.00.
Theme and Gameplay
Monsters are the premium pay symbols. At the $1.00 stake, five mummies pay 0.75x the bet, five vampires 0.5x, five Frankensteins 0.38x and five witches 0.25x. The pumpkin scarecrow follows at 0.12x for five, then the lettered royals at 0.1x each and the ten at 0.07x. A snarling werewolf is the Wild, a glowing cyan arrow is the Upgrader, a pale full moon is its own special symbol, and the Scatter is a mansion wrapped in blue flames. The art is cartoonish rather than frightening.
Slot Features
During a bonus, the Full Moon upgrades the single cell where it lands by one tier, up to Tier 4, while the Upgrader arrow raises between one and five random haunted mansions at once. When the bonus ends, every upgraded cell becomes a haunted mansion and reveals a multiplier, and all of the revealed values are added to the total win.
Four mansion types decide the size of those values. Wooden mansions hold 0.5x to 2x. Iron ones run from 1.5x to 60x. Golden ones go from 8x up to 5,000x, and diamond ones start at 60x and also top out at 5,000x.
Scatters land in the base game and Extra Chance only, never during a bonus, and no more than one can land on a reel. Three give the Bonus, four the Super Bonus and five the Extreme Bonus. The Bonus gives 10 free spins with haunted mansions. The Super Bonus gives 10 spins with the whole board pre-upgraded, and the Extreme Bonus adds a guaranteed Upgrader on every spin.
The Bonus button on the control bar lists every game mode. A base spin costs 1x and Extra Chance costs 3x. A Bonus can be bought for 100x, a Super Bonus for 500x, and a Mystery Bonus for 500x, which may give nothing, a three-scatter bonus, a four-scatter super bonus or a five-scatter extreme bonus. Wilds replace other winning symbols, and a full line of them pays 0.75x.
RTP and Win Potential
The same 96.00% return is quoted for all of the modes, so paying for a bonus does not alter the quoted return. No volatility label comes with this slot, but the gap between a 0.5x wooden mansion and a 5,000x diamond one shows how uneven results can be.
My Thoughts On This Slot
I enjoy the clean logic of upgrading cells so they pay out. The Super and Extreme versions bring a feeling of escalation. On the other hand, the base game pays small amounts, with most line wins well below the bet, so the character of the game depends heavily on reaching a bonus. The Mystery Bonus can end without any bonus at all, which is worth remembering before you pay 500x for it.