Eager Beavers Demo: Reels That Grow to Ten and a Board of Cash

A million ways only when all six reels reach ten

Thunderkick's page gives 1,000,000 pay ways, and the help screens put "up to" in front of the figure, which needs ten symbols on every one of the six reels.

According to the rules, winning symbols drop away in an avalanche and fresh ones fall from above, while every reel that took part gains one symbol on top, to a maximum of 10. It repeats for as long as new wins connect. A way pays for matching symbols on adjacent reels with no gaps, and the server paid such runs wherever they began: only 114 of the 391 symbol wins in our log started on reel 1.

Our opening screens were short, every reel starting at 2 to 6 symbols for 96 to 3,840 ways, and a reel touched ten on just 4 of 750 spins. Spin 183 grew the fullest screen, 8, 9, 10, 10, 6 and 5 symbols tall: 216,000 ways, for a spin that paid €16.50.

Pays are per way. A red beaver earns €1.00 for three in a row at our stake and €5.00 for six, a golden one €0.60 to €2.00. Our biggest paid spin, number 182, found a five-reel run of golden beavers on 48 ways after one avalanche, with Wilds on reels 1 and 5, at €1.20 a way.

Three wild features work in the base game. Wild Rapids drops Wilds onto the tops of reels, and a log or a fish in a winning way sets off Wild Fall or Wild Splash, the second turning every copy of one symbol into Wilds. Splash fired on 6 of our spins. On spin 281 it made 7 Wilds, and that screen alone paid €44.00 of the spin's €47.00.

Build, Upgrade and Collect on a board of cash

The Bonus symbols are gold nuggets marked BONUS. Once three are on the screen, the rules have the ordinary reels give way to special reels holding only cash values, listed as 1x, 2x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 50x and 100x the bet, and six special symbols. The Collect, they add, totals the cash on its own reel; the screens we captured break off halfway through the Super Collect.

For the rest we have the server's answers, and our natural round is the plainest example. Spin 466 brought the third nugget on an avalanche after a €0.20 win, and the board kept that screen's shape, 3, 3, 4, 4, 3 and 2 cells tall. No special symbol appeared. Filled one reel at a time, the board took €7.00, €28.00, €4.00, €10.00, €3.00 and €3.00 from its six reels, paid as one sum once the last cell was taken. Reel 2 held a 25, a value missing from the list, though the picture beside it shows a 25 gem.

Specials change both the size of the board and what it holds. A Build in our filmed purchase raised reel 1 from seven cells to ten, and in the first control purchase one symbol on the last reel raised all six reels by 3 rows at once, the new cells filling with cash.

Collecting frees space. Each Super Collect in that round gathered every value on the board into one gem, 22 the first time and 65 the second, emptied the other cells and let fresh cash drop in. An Upgrade multiplies: its x3 turned the four 1s below it on reel 4 into 3s.

Paying 100x for the cash board, three times

BONUS GAME is the only card on the buy menu, at €100.00 on a €1.00 bet, though Thunderkick's own page for the game says nothing about a buy. The demo here plays the 94.29% version, the figure that page and the rules both give. Its server rates the card at 94.46% and offers three BET+ options at 1.3x, 2.2x and 3.5x a spin, rated 94.35% to 94.44%. At a casino the version can differ, and the buy is barred in some markets.

A purchase does not land on the cash board at once. Our filmed one first played a base-game spin whose avalanches paid €14.60 before the third nugget arrived, then built its board from reels of 7, 7, 7, 7, 4 and 4.

The two control purchases skipped the avalanches and went straight to boards of 4, 2, 2, 3, 4, 2 and 3, 3, 2, 3, 5, 3. In both, the last reel did most of the paying: its step added €32.00 of the first round's €50.00 as the whole board rose by 3 rows, and €51.00 of the second's €78.00 as it rose by 2 and one symbol doubled every value then on it. Across all three purchases, €300.00 went in and €265.60 came out.

One cash board in 750 spins, and why the tally reads zero

The balance lost €170.80 over our 750 paid spins at €1.00, with €579.20 coming back on €750.00: a return of 77.2%, where the game lists 94.29%. It never climbed back above its start, peaking after the first spin and sinking to its low after the last.

• 750paid spins at €1.00 in the demo
• 77.2%of the stakes paid back
• 58xbest single spin
• 0free spins rounds triggered

The tally counts free spins rounds, so it shows none. Our one bonus was the Cash Bonus Game on spin 466, worth 55.2x, and the other 749 spins returned 70.0% of their stakes. One spin in four paid something (25.6%), half the wins came to 0.8x the stake or less, and the longest wait between wins lasted 15 spins. Of the 12 spins that reached 10x, only 182 and 466 passed 50x.

Carnival Queen 2, Bass Hunter and the players who suit the dam

Changing reel heights and avalanches also drive Carnival Queen 2, released a year later. There the heights are dealt afresh on every spin, from two to seven, for 5,040 to 117,649 pay ways, the bonus is a free spins round, and the cap is 25,000x.

Cash collecting is the business of Bass Hunter too, where a Fisherman picks up fish values on a 5x3 board. The beavers keep their collecting off the ordinary reels, on a board that pays when it is full.

A slot for patient players, in our view. The base game paid little and often in our log, each purchase was settled on the cash board, and every board started at the height the reels had when the third nugget fell. Two of our three purchases came in under the price, one over.

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Four things players ask about the cash board

The press release and the game do not always agree; where they differ, these answers follow the rules screens and the demo server's replies.