The Ripper

The Ripper: Slot Overview

People of the night, better tread carefully around this one; it's called The Ripper and alludes to one of the most infamous murderers of all time. That is, Jack the Ripper, a serial killer who terrorised Whitechapel, a district of London in the late 19th century. It was a vile episode, but the online slot, fortunately, leaves out most of the grisly details. All of them, really. What's left is a virtual trip back to Victorian Britain, before crime fighters had the nifty devices they have these days to help solve crimes.

The Ripper spends its base and bonus game lurking in an archway on a cobblestone street in ye olde London. A butcher's shop can be made out by the game grid, as well as other stone buildings and Big Ben in the distance. The Ripper's sinister view, mixed with some dramatic audio, creates a certain level of atmosphere like a dense London pea-souper. It feels a little bit like Red Tiger's Blood Suckers Megaways, but with none of the overblown cartoon characters, and there's zero humour to lighten the mood. This is heavy stuff that takes itself seriously. Oh well, such is the horrific nature of the subject matter Skywind Group has chosen to pursue.

The Ripper's game grid is a 6-reel, 4-row setup, supplying 4,096 ways to win. To do so, at least three matching symbols must land along at least three adjacent reels, starting from the leftmost side of the grid. Rated at 3 out of 5, The Ripper operates with the help of a medium volatile math model designed with three RTP settings, with 96.5% being the highest. Players can take The Ripper on by picking a reference bet of 20 p/c to $/€200 per spin or fork out 80 times their stake to skip the base game and mosey on into the free spins section using the bonus buy button.

Bloody looking 10 to A royals are The Ripper's low-pay symbols, while its highs are a coil of rope, a blood-spattered coin, some globes, a ring, and a policeman symbol. Hit a winning way made up of 6 matching symbols awards 0.4 to 1 times the bet for the royals or 1.5 to 5 times the bet for the highs. When winning ways occur, they are removed from the game board by the cascading wins mechanic. Symbols fall into the empty spaces, which can create another win, and cascading sequences only end when no more wins appear.

The Ripper: Slot Features

Within The Ripper's arsenal of features, players may find Chaos Multipliers, Expanding Wilds, Killer Mystery symbols, and free spins.

Chaos Multipliers

During the base game, multipliers of x2 to x5 may be attached to any symbol except scatters on reels 2 to 5. If winning combinations have more than one multiplier, the values are added together. When winning symbols contain a multiplier, that multiplier is added to another symbol following a cascade. Multipliers are only applied to the winning combination they are attached to.

Expanding Wilds

Wilds can land on reels 3 or 4. After landing, they expand to cover all positions on their reel. When used in a win, expanding wilds cascade away like regular symbols.

Killer Mystery Symbols

In the base game, 2 to 5 mystery symbols may land on reels 2 to 5. On each spin, mystery symbols all reveal the same symbol - not wilds or scatters. Mystery symbols do not cascade off. Instead, they stick in place and reveal a new symbol on each cascade.

Free Spins

Hitting 3, 4, 5, or 6 scatter symbols in the base game awards 10, 15, 20, or 25 free spins, plus a payout of 3x the bet. Free spins always start with five x2 Chaos Multipliers on the reels. Once the multiplier is used in a win, the next multiplier to land on the reels is +1 higher than the previous multiplier – up to a maximum of x10. Also in free spins, Expanding Wilds do not cascade off after being used in a win, and if a multiplier is attached to the wild, it increases by +1 every cascade. Mystery symbols are also active during the round, and landing 3, 4, 5, or 6 scatter symbols awards an extra 5, 10, 15, or 20 free spins, plus 3x the bet.

The Ripper: Slot Verdict

There are some interesting ideas in The Ripper that got better as the session progressed. At first, the theme, and some of the visuals, were a little off-putting, making it a bit tough to settle in and see what's what. While The Ripper feels like a coherent whole, at times, there was a suspicion that certain elements had been parcelled out to independent workers, who crafted their bit before the whole shebang was patched together. Probably way off the mark here, but there was something somehow disjointed about The Ripper. There are interesting ideas underlying the game, yet their execution could have been sharper or had a bit more oomph, if that makes any sense.

Not meaning to be harsh, but with the mix of Chaos Multipliers, cascades, full reel Expanding Wilds, and the slashing animation on winning symbol removals, The Ripper came across like a discount store version of a Nolimit City game. Hey, we said we weren't trying to be harsh; merely making an observation. The theme, too, may have been chosen to garner a bit of shock value as well. While games like Mental or Serial have shock value on a visceral and psychological level, The Ripper was shocking because it alluded to a horrific part of actual history. Of course, players will have their own opinion about the subject matter, just imparting its impact on us.

Anyway, it's not like The Ripper uses much in the way of gruesome visuals; it's pretty tame in that regard. But it's probably for the best that Skywind Group chose not to be overly explicit. The game possesses an interesting interplay of decent features and a max win of 5,000x the bet, but the reluctance to push The Ripper places players haven't seen before (without being vulgar or gruesome while doing so) created a relatively mid-level impact for a 'horror' game.