Prowling Panther Pokie
There’s a grand total of 720 different ways that players can line up the jungle-related symbols in IGT’s Prowling Panther pokie. Wild multipliers, reels arranged in a hexagonal format and the potential for literally hundreds of free spins to be awarded, should be enough to bring in the players to the big cats, parrots and toucans that populate this colourful game.
Using the tried and tested Multiway Xtra reel format, Prowling Panther has 5 reels, but they contain different numbers of symbols in a 3, 4, 5, 4, 3 layout, making the middle reel bigger than the outer ones, but also making it easier to land some wins. Instead of paylines, all that’s needed is for 3, 4 or 5 of the same type of symbol to stop in any position on adjacent reels running from the left side for a prize to be paid out.
If several examples of the symbol that make up the winning line appear on a single reel, the base win is multiplied, with a 5x multiplier possible if all of the middle reel is filled with it.
Playing Prowling Panther
A shady forest setting brings this pokie to life, and players can get started once they have placed their bets using the controls underneath the main part of the game. A bet range of 0.50 to 100.00 per spin should suit most people, although due to the layout, it’s not possible to play for anything less, or to activate just a few lines.
Playing card symbols 10, J, Q, K and A may be colourful enough and will create the smaller and more frequent win lines, but they have nothing to do with the theme. The 10, J and Q are all worth 5, 10 or 50 coins when landing on 3, 4 or 5 reels at a time, but don’t forget that multiple examples on a reel can significantly improve these numbers.
K and A symbols are worth a little more and then it’s a bright red parrot who pays out 20, 40 or 175 coins and a toucan that returns 25, 50 or 250 coins to players who see this majestic bird land across the game. Of course, a prowling panther will need to be here somewhere, and here it is, topping the paytable with a prize of 25 coins just for being on reels 1 and 2, while 50, 80 or 500 coin payouts are awarded when it stops on more of them.
Prowling Panther
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Bonus Features
While most pokies have a wild symbol that can act as others if it helps to complete a winning line, the one here is slightly different as it simply says ‘2X’ on it, which gives a clue to what else it will do. Anytime this symbol is part of a winning combination, it counts as 2 examples of the symbol that made up the line, and as it can appear stacked across any reels it lands on, the chances of it completing a line or two and multiplying the prize is pretty high.
A golden panther will trigger anything from 8 to 96 free spins, depending on how many land at once. To get just 8 free games, players will need to see 5 golden panthers right across the reels, but if more than a single line of them appears at once, the number of spins awarded will be multiplied, and if anyone is lucky enough to see all positions on the reels turned into this symbol, they get 96 spins.
It’s possible to retrigger these games with more bonus symbols and the round can continue for up to 256 spins in total. Wild multipliers are in effect throughout them, but no more than in the base games, so while players should see some winning spins as the free games play out, it’s not actually guaranteed.
The Verdict
The Multiway Xtra format and a popular wildlife theme should be enough to get plenty of players to these colourful reels. By dispensing with paylines, and having wins multiplied by 2x to 5x over if symbols appear more than once on a reel, there’s lots of opportunities to spin up a few prizes during the base game.
Of course, the wild multipliers will help to increase the win ratio even further, and these are a nice addition. Overall though, Prowling Panther is a fairly standard Multiway Xtra game that doesn’t really do anything unique. While it should appeal to big cat fans, it might not have much of an attraction to others.