Forest Guardian Slot Machine

Forest Guardian is a magical-themed slot machine from Novomatic that features cute creatures, toadstools, potion bottles and a beautiful Lady of the Forest who plants wins of 1000x the line bet into your casino account when she stops across the 5 reels on any of the 25 paylines. This attractive slot is available at the many online casinos that use Novomatic software and games, but the beauty is more than skin-deep, or maybe reel-deep, as it comes with a couple of appealing bonus features, like free spins, expanding wild symbols and an optional gamble game.

If you are playing on a desktop PC or laptop, you’ll see a misty forest peeking out from behind the reels, although the mobile optimised version ditches this to make the reels clearer on the smaller screen of smartphones and tablets. It’s what’s on the reels that’s important though, and the Forest Guardian video slot has a dark purple backdrop to the symbols, which makes the earthy colours stand out for some real visual impact.

Novomatic has become a famous name in the casino world, with their huge range of games filling land based and online sites. While they used to be known mainly for their fruit-machine style slots, in more recent years the company has branched out to bring us more multi-round video slots with distinct themes. With all games fully certified for fair play by independent testing labs, and the whole collection licensed, you can relax and play them, knowing that there’s a great return to players at all times.

Entering the Forest

You’ll need to land 3, 4, or 5 of the same symbol type across a payline, running from the left side reel without a break to win something, a task that’s helped by the wild symbol which can act as any other. While many Novomatic slots feature the traditional playing card symbols, Forest Guardian is filled with a rich variety of items that are all related to the magical theme.

An acorn, the toadstools and some peach-coloured flowers will each pay out the equivalent of 5x, 20x, or 100x the line bet when stopping on 3, 4, or 5 reels of an active payline, while the candle and potion bottles are each worth 10x, 30x, or 150x. Cute forest critters include a frog and a squirrel, who are both worth up to 250x. The most valuable animal is the owl symbol which you will certainly give a hoot about when it awards prizes of between 40x and 500x the line bet.

The top awards are claimed when the Lady of the Forest appears, with this blue-haired beauty paying out 50x, 200x, or 1,000x when she’s seen on a line. Any symbols that are part of a win will celebrate with little animations, and we have dancing toadstools, a croaking frog and so on, bringing the game to life with each winning spin.

Wild Reels and Bonus Games

A special fairy light will light up your game when it turns up in any random spin, fluttering along the bottom of the reels and filling selected ones with a giant tree symbol. This is the wild icon that’s able to complete extra winning combinations by filling in any breaks in a run of matching symbols or extending a win across to the right side for a higher prize. Any number of reels can turn wild, making this a feature that will usually result in at least 1 or 2 winning lines being created, although it’s not guaranteed.

There’s also the chance that the any wild reel will become a locked wild, staying in place while all other reels spin 5 times for free. This bonus round can’t be retriggered, but this should hopefully be enough for a few winning lines to be completed before the free spins are done.

Gamble Feature

Any win, apart from jackpots or during the free spins, can be gambled. This optional game sees a face down playing card flashing from red to black, with the aim being to click on the right-coloured buttons at the right time. Get the timing correct, and the initial win is doubled, giving you the further option to collect the win, or play again to double the new amount.

It’s possible to go over and over to the gamble high limit, but although this is a real 50/50 choice, you’ll lose the triggering win along with any gains made in the round with a single wrong pick on the way.

Betting Options for Magical wins

To get all 25 paylines active and claim real cash wins with each combination that appears, you will need a minimum bet of 0.25 per spin. This can be raised in stages to suit your budget, and the more coins staked, the higher the potential winnings, although there’s also free forest Guardian video slots provided for those punters who like to test things out beforehand.

You can also set the reels spinning on their own by clicking the Autoplay button, which saves time and speeds up gameplay. It takes just a click to stop the automatic spins at any time, or they will end on their own if the feature is triggered. The only other decision needed is whether or not to activate the sound, which is mainly the whistles and bells and mechanical effects of spinning reels, although the fairy light makes a fluttering noise when it appears.

The Magic of Forest-themed Slots

If you like wandering the magic forests of online casino slots, then how about trying a couple of other similar games? Roundstone International have one of the most popular, with their Forest of Magic video slot awarding bonus spins as the wood-effect symbols land in place, while Forest Harmony, from Spinomenal, has fantastical images of unicorns, pixies, elves and tree-men.

These strange characters spin up free games with multipliers of up to 20x, plus there’s a wild druid who works his magic by completing extra winning lines for you.

A Forest Worth Exploring?

We like the simple charm of the Forest Guardian video slot, with nicely-designed symbols to treat the eye as well as the bankroll. The fluttering fairy light is a particularly welcome site, as once this magical image starts to move along the bottom of the reels, you stand a great chance of landing extra wins, plus there’s always the potential for 5 free spins to be awarded.

The Novomatic casino games developer are definitely on a roll, releasing a huge number of top-quality slot machines into the many casinos that use their games, and Forest Guardian is sure to become another big success with gamblers worldwide.