Tiki Vikings Slot Game – Review & Free Play Demo Online

Here’s your daily slot theming quiz.

What is “tiki”?

That’s right! It’s an idealised western vision of Pacific Island – and particularly Hawaiian – a culture that became linked with holiday marketing.

And who were the Vikings?

That’s right! They were fearsome warriors from the modern northern European countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, who embarked on an unexpected and relatively brief expansionist phase.

Question three – what the hell are these two things doing together? – has no answer, other than both are relatively popular slot themes.

Microgaming probably know what they’re doing. They’re one of the giants of the industry, and this Tiki Vikings slot game is one of their tie-ups with Just for the Win, a small design studio. Microgaming’s involvement means you can expect to see this title everywhere, and that it’s likely to attract attention and good positioning in the lobbies.

Not that it doesn’t deserve that on its own merits. This is a strikingly attractive game, like all Microgaming titles you can expect a very high quality and welcoming playing experience, and there is certainly potential for very big wins.

Should you mount your longboat and head to the South Pacific?

Let’s take a mooch.

The Developers of Tiki Vikings Slot

Microgaming are familiar and massive players in the online slots market, but this title is developed in partnership with a smaller company, Just for the Win.

Just for the Win was established in 2016 and since then have put 17 slot games out on the UK market. Their biggest titles are the Deco Diamonds series, a very retro classic game that comes in two versions.

Like so many of the names making waves in the slot market today, Just for the Win are Swedish, so let’s hope they treat the legend of the Vikings with all the historical sensitivity and accuracy that all slot developers treat historical subjects.

This sort of arrangement is becoming more and more common in the modern slots industry as big companies get bigger and they try to inject more creativity and originality into their design. The sort of thing that can be found wanting in mega-corporations.

The Facts and Figures about Tiki Vikings Slot

Released in August 2019, Tiki Vikings slot offers stats that are fairly typical for the market at this time.

The theoretical return to player measures the amount that a game should return to a player over its lifetime (if a player behaves in an expected manner). The RTP is 96.01% or a house edge of 3.99%. The variance – medium – is also very average: variance or volatility measures the frequency of wins against the size of the win, with less regular, higher prizes are rated as high volatility.

The top prize for players of Tiki Vikings on a single spin is 75,000 coins. The UK betting figures run from 10p to £250. Please be sure you check all coin amounts and maximum pay-outs on the game you are actually playing.

The layout is standard, with a five-by-three grid of symbols. Across these run 20 pay lines.

You can play this game of your PC, tablet, or mobile with JavaScript and HTML5.

The Game

This is a very classic game, but it’s modern, with symbols standing in for text wherever possible.

The controls then are very mobile friendly.

The spin button is a single circle with an arrow on it at the right of the screen. The Bet window to the left of the screen shows your total stake.

Above the spin button runs a row of three symbols: a gaming chip to set your bet, an auto spin button, and a menu option to get your hands on more controls.

It’s classic, streamlined and very easy to use.

Symbols & Payouts

As is so often the case, the bottom end of the paytable is filled with card symbols.

Jacks, queens, kings and aces all pay a maximum of three-times stake for a full house.

Then we’re into the symbols. These are Vikings – surprise surprise – and they’re colour coded.

A blue Viking pays a total of 3.5-times stake for five. The yellow Viking is worth a maximum payment of five-times stake. The red Viking pays 7.5 times stake, and the final, super Tiki Viking is worth a maximum of 15-times stake.

Tiki Vikings Slot Bonuses

Those aren’t massive totals, but the big wins are to be found among the bonus games.

There’s a fair few of those.

Symbol-lock re-spins triggers on all wins from the top end of the paytable. Winning lines are locked for a respin that then locks high-value symbols in space before a final respin.

This feature works in conjunction with a symbol upgrade metre. This sends lights going up a Tiki Totem Pole. Once this metre is full then locked symbols upgrade one step up the paytable.

Then we have free spins. Or rather. We don’t!

The Verdict

This Tiki Vikings slot is a beautiful game. It really looks great and sounds fantastic. The gameplay is a smooth as the look too.

Really, anyone could enjoy this game. It’s super accessible: amazingly easy to play and to understand, with controls and help information that suits the mobile age perfectly – symbols not text.

What are the downsides?

None really, but this game is aimed at a particular sort of player. The relatively low volatility and relatively low top prize means if you’re a progressives fan you wouldn’t want to play this game. It’s also missing the one single thing that almost all players expect to see in their slot games: a free spins round! We think this cute, animated game will attract the attention of younger players.

This is a particular design decision by the team behind the Tiki Vikings slot. We think it pays off, in part because the actual bonus games – a respin with locks and upgrades – are both engaging in their own right and operate as a sort of pseudo free spins round in any case.

This cute game is approachable with a lot to recommend it.