Steamrunners Slot Review
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a steampunk-themed slot, so it was a bit of a surprise to see Hacksaw Gaming take on the genre with Steamrunners. If you’re not familiar, steampunk is a fantasy version of the Victorian era, one that’s all about steam-powered brass automatons and fanciful flying machines. Hacksaw takes on the theme running with the mechanical-armed protagonist and airships, but is this enough to make a great slot? Put on your goggles and flying jackets, we’re going to put all the gears through their paces with our Steamrunners review!
Steamrunners
Steamrunners RTP and Wagering
Steamrunners features the standard 5-reel setup, with each reel featuring 4 rows. Interestingly it offers just 14 winning combinations, which are formed by landing 3 or more matching symbols on adjacent reels. Paylines always start from reel 1, moving from left to right. The up and down buttons allow you to control the size of your stake, which can start at a decent £0.10.
Here’s something we should warn you about before you start playing Steamrunners - it features a variable RTP. The standard value is 96.32%, but this can reach as low as 86.26%. This means that you should always check the game’s Info page to confirm its current RTP before you start playing. Hacksaw ranks the slot game’s volatility as a 3 out of 5, making it more or less medium in our book, while wins can reach up to 10,000x the stake through the various bonus features on offer.
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Steamrunners Symbols and Audio & Video Design
Steamrunners features a bright and clean aesthetic that perhaps goes contrary to its plot, which tells of a broken and smokey world where sky pirates run free. That said it does allow you to instantly tell what’s going on on the reels, which are suitably made out of copper piping. There’s also an animated character on the left-hand side of the screen, while on the right you’ll find what presumably is his aerial ride. It looks nice enough, if not too impressive when compared to Hacksaw Gaming’s usual standard as far as visual flair goes.
Moving on to the reels proper these hold a total of 10 paying symbols Of these 5 are the low-paying A, K, Q, J, and 10 card royals, while the high pays consist of a telescope, scroll, top hat, gramophone, and a pair of goggles. The shining brass W is the wild, which can substitute for all symbols except the FS scatters. Land 3 of these for a round of free spins! Last but not least are the gas canisters. These come in green or purple and can add more wilds to the reels. We’ll tell more about these later on in this review.
Let’s see how much this game’s paying symbols are worth:
- Goggles: 5 - 5x / 4 - 2.5x / 3 - 1x
- Gramophone, top hat: 5 - 4x / 4 - 2x / 3 - 0.8x
- Telescope, scroll: 5 - 2.5x / 4 - 1.2x / 3 - 0.5x
- A, K, Q, J, 10: 5 - 1x / 4 - 0.5x / 3 - 0.2x
- Wild: 5 - 10x
Steamrunners Mobile Features
Hacksaw got its start with mobile games, so it stands to reason that Steamrunners runs perfectly on any device. This is an HTML5 game after all, one designed to be played on modern internet browsers without need for any additional downloads. So you can take Steamrunners with you wherever the winds will take you!
Steamrunners Bonus Features
Gas Canisters
Land a green gas canister and it will turn itself and all horizontally and vertically adjacent low pays into wilds. If the transformed symbols are part of a win then connected low pays or wilds continue the spread of transformation. IIn the case of purple gas canisters these transform themselves and all low pays on the grid into wilds, so long the transformed symbols will be part of a win.
Low pays transformed into wilds can randomly get a multiplier of up to 200x. In addition, any regular wilds affected by the transformation get a 2x multiplier. If more than one multiplier wild makes part of a payline then their multipliers will be added up and the total applied to the final win. Only 1 gas canister can land at a time.
Sky City Free Spins
Landing 3 scatters awards you with a round of 8 free spins where any wilds landed or created through the gas canisters will stick on the reels for the duration. In addition any multiplier wilds will see their multiplier double if they are affected by a gas canister, up to a maximum of 5,000x. The free spins can be retriggered as landing 2 or 3 scatters adds 2 or 4 spins to the total respectively.
Gaslight District Free Spins
Landing 4 scatters awards you with 10 Gaslight District free spins. These feature the same mechanics as the Sky City free spins but add at least 1 sticky wild to the reels.
Court of High Steam Free Spins
Triggering the bonus round with 5 scatters awards you with 10 free spins with at least 1 gas canister guaranteed to land on every spin. The mechanics otherwise remain identical to those of the Sky City free spins.
Steamrunners Final Thoughts
Steamrunners is a pleasant enough steampunk romp, but ultimately just that. We’ll admit we were expecting something with a bit more “oomph” from Hacksaw, especially since this has all of 14 paylines and a single expanding wild mechanic. The volatility is also on the lower side, meaning you’ll rarely get a whiff of how wins can reach over 10,000x. As such this is more of a relaxing game than we initially thought, making it more of a smooth airship cruise than a slot rollercoaster.
Rating: 7.0
If you like Steamrunners, then check out these other Fantasy Theme slot games
Steamrunners FAQ
These are some questions we’ve been asked about Steamrunners:
