Baron Samedi Slots
Baron what? No doubt, that’s how many of you will react when you first open the Baron Samedi slot creation from Yggdrasil Gaming, which we’re about to review.
Baron Samedi was – or still is –-an important figure in Haitian Vodou. Yes, that’s how they spell voodoo in Haiti. He is known to be the head of the Guédé family of Loa, which in plain English refers to the spirits that embody death and fertility in the syncretic religion.
Baron Samedi is usually depicted with a top hat, dark glasses, black tailcoat, and cotton plugs in his nostrils – very typical of how the deceased were prepared in Haitian style for their final journey. Yggdrasil took on the challenge to create a video slot to bring that bizarre world of cult and spirits to a set of five slot reels. Let’s review the Baron Samedi slots game to see what riches it will summon.
Spin the Vodou Reels Into Action
The question that comes next is: how do you creatively transition the theme to the slot reels? This is most certainly no easy feat. As expected, Yggdrasil has executed the Vodou theme down to the smallest detail.
The game window resembles a fortune teller’s table, complete with a burning cigar, a glass filled with a blood-like drink, a crow’s skull, and a burning candle. Voodoo cards lie scattered around it. At the top are card holders – one for the dealer who will issue the cards in free spins and respins, one to display the three dealt cards, and one card collector where players accumulate cards. A suspenseful drum beat is only interrupted by the usual reel noises and by a dark voice announcing the various slot features.
Baron Samedi has eight regular symbols, starting with four gems in purple, blue, green and red colors, and continuing with a male and a female voodoo doll in brown and green. The top-paying symbols are Brijit, the baron’s wife, and the Baron Samedi himself. The wild is an intricate tile with a goat’s skull. Mystery symbols are represented by a green potion bottle that will appear only in the respin and free spins features. Scatters consist of a set of five cards in a golden holder decorated with the Baron’s skull and red roses.
A Peek at the Baron’s Stats and Numbers
Our review team tried a few spins of the Baron Samedi video slot’s five reels, three rows and 25 fixed paylines. The features included here in this slot are wild substitutions, a card collection, a voodoo respin, and a free spins round.
Bet sizes start a low 0.10 coins and peak at 125 coins, while pays for a single five-of-a-kind range from 0.8 to 4.8 times your stake. That doesn’t sound overly big, but the game can award a 10x win multiplier that will make quite a difference. The maximum win potential in a single spin is 1,200 times your stake.
The game is in HTML5 format, making it available on both desktop and mobile devices across all OS platforms. If you wish to play from ten to an infinite number of rounds without being interrupted, you can turn on the Autoplay mode.
Call on the Card Collection Feature
Yggdrasil games are rarely simple fare, and our review team soon found out that that also applies to the Baron Samedi video slot. It will take even the experienced players among you some time to understand the card collection and usage system, but it will all make sense after the features have played out a few times.
At the core of the bonus features are a set of 36 cards that are held in the dealer holder in the top-left corner of the game window. Any cards that you are dealt are collected in the player’s holder in the top right corner. The collected cards can be viewed at any time by clicking on the holder.
In between the holders are three card positions where the dealt cards are placed before they are applied on the current spin. Each card represents a reel modifier or a win multiplier that can enhance the reels with the potential to produce bigger wins.
The cards are divided into three categories – red, purple and green – with each category consisting of 12 cards. Plus, the cards come in four strength levels, reflecting the potential to produce or enhance a win. You will be dealt three cards during a Voodoo Respin or on each free spin during the bonus round.
The dealt cards are collected in the player’s holder. Based on the strength level, a total of 10, 20, 40 or 50 cards are needed to complete a collection. Once a collection is completed in the base game, the card is set into the leftmost empty card holder. Three extra free spins are awarded, with the reel modifier displayed on the collected card applied on each spin. Two more cards are dealt on every extra free spin. This feature is played at the average bet amount used for the collection of the respective card.
It would be impossible to list all the cards in this review of the Baron Samedi slots game. In the green category, there are cards which will add superstacks of the premium and wild symbols to the reels for the current spin. There are also mystery cards which add mystery symbols on a defined number of reel positions, revealing a common symbol once the reels have stopped.
The purple category consists of win multiplier cards of between 2x and 10x, pay symbol upgrade cards, as well as cards with a guaranteed five-of-a-kind win. The red category has only cards with wild reel modifiers which see either up to eight random symbols transform into a wild symbol, or an entire reel turn wild.
Trigger the Voodoo Respin Feature
The Voodoo Respin feature is triggered when only two scatters land on the reels in a spin. Three cards are dealt and one respin is awarded. The reel modifiers on the cards are then applied and any potential winnings are paid out to you. Any card that is not yet in the player’s collection will be added to the holder.
Summon Baron Samedi Free Spins
Three, four or five scatters will award 7, 10 and 12 free spins respectively. During the free spins, three cards with modifiers are dealt on each free spin, increasing your win potential. Should a collection be completed during the round, the three extra free spins with the locked card are played at the end of the round.
Invoke Other Spiritual Slot Reels
We all hope that only the good and lucky spirits will be around when we spin the reels of our favorite games. To summon them, you could try some of the spiritually themed games such as Loa Spirits from Merkur or Indian Spirit from Novomatic.
Our Spirited Verdict
The Baron Samedi video slot is not that easy to understand in our reviewers’ opinion. The slot is undoubtedly well designed and does justice to the voodoo theme, but some players might think that they will never fully grasp how it actually works.
It all starts to make sense once the features have triggered a few times – but until then, it is pretty much guesswork. Still, we found Baron Samedi highly entertaining with a medium variance and medium win potential. Are you ready to face the spirits from Haitian Vodou?
