Bounty County: Slot Overview
Making money capturing another human being in the role of bounty hunter is surely about as tough as it gets, and not a job for the faint-hearted. More so when it took place on the lawless Wild West frontier, where duels, shootouts, and punch-ups were commonplace, at least, they are in pop culture. Helping perpetuate a mythical side of the Wild West is developer Relax Gaming‘s Bounty County, a scatter-paying slot where blasting bandits leads to various effects and a bonus round with three selectable modes, from easy, medium, to hard, if you’re up for the challenge.
The hunt is on in a vast rocky, dusty desert dotted in cacti. Depending on the game phase, the lighting changes, from the yellows and browns of the base game to reds and blues of the bonus rounds. It looks like a really challenging place for a bandit to survive in if they were hiding out on the run, but an ideal spot for a tense final showdown. Characters line one side of the screen, and a twangy guitar tune fills in the aural gaps alongside bullet shots and ‘yars’.
Players load up by choosing a stake of 10 c to $/€200 per spin, and if preferred, the Double Bet can be engaged. When betting regularly or using the Double Bet, the default RTP clocks in at 96.1%, while the volatility is medium.
Bounty County utilises a 6×6 grid, but regular symbols only land on a 4×4 area within the middle of it. A 4×4 symbol area might seem small for a scatter-paying slot, but you only need 4 or more matching symbols anywhere on the grid to create a winning combination. Jack to Ace are the lows, horseshoes, bottles, and clovers are the mids, while three-character symbols are the highs. Four-of-a-kind combinations are worth 0.1x to 0.3x, increasing to 10x to 50x for 9 or more OAK wins. A cascade system removes and replaces winning symbols, repeating until no new win hits on the grid.
Bounty County: Slot Features
Bounty County is filled with special symbols, ringing the main play area, triggering various effects, and has three bonus modes as well as two bonus buys.
Special Symbols
Special symbols lining the regular symbol area are hit or destroyed when a winning pay symbol is adjacent to them. Special symbols in the corner are hit or destroyed when a pay symbol in the corresponding corner forms a win. At the start of a spin, 5-7 Bandits land in the Special Symbol area around the regular symbol area.
- Blank Crate – can contain a wild or nothing. Wilds substitute for any paying symbol.
- Guns Crate – reveals a gun that deals 3 to 6 hits to random Bandits or shoots a TNT crate.
- TNT Crate – reveals a Light TNT or Heavy TNT, which deals 1 hit or 3 hits, respectively, to all special symbols in the same row or column.
- Cash Bandit – takes 3 hits to destroy, and awards 0.1x to 0.3x the bet.
- Multiplier Bandit – takes 3 hits to destroy and increases the total multiplier by +1.
- Free Spin Bandit – takes 3 hits to destroy, awarding +1 free spin in the base game if the bonus is triggered, or +1 free spin while the bonus is active.
- Boss Bandit – takes 6 hits to destroy and only appears in the bonus round. The Small, Medium, and Big Boss awards 5x-15x, 20x-75x, or 100x-500x, respectively.
Bonus Game & Super Bonus Game
Destroying all Bandits on a main game spin triggers the bonus feature. Players get 6 free spins and choose from three bonus modes:
- Easy – Free Spin Bandits only.
- Medium – Both Free Spin and Multiplier Bandits.
- Hard – Multiplier Bandits only.
Undestroyed special symbols carry over between spins, and the win multiplier from the base game is retained throughout the bonus. Each time the bonus triggers with at least one Multiplier or Free Spin Bandit, it becomes a super bonus. The super bonus is more rewarding than a regular bonus on average.
Feature Buy & Double Bet
Players have the chance of buying the bonus for 50 times their bet or the super bonus for 100 times their bet. The Double Bet doubles the stake, increasing the hit rate from 27.29% to 43%. It also makes triggering the bonus more than twice as frequent, of which 2 out of 3 will be the super bonus. Multiplier Bandits, Free Spin Bandits, and special crates are more frequent, too.
Bounty County: Slot Verdict
Bounty County is a game that improved as time progressed. For a scatter paying slot, it was a bit odd in the beginning, possibly because we are so used to things being done in the style of Sweet Bonanza 1000 or Gates of Olympus Super Scatter, which Bounty County is not like at all. The 4×4 regular symbol area seemed a little small at first, though in its defence, wins are formed when just four or more matching symbols land anywhere, so it didn’t take long for the gaming grid to feel totally adequate in size. Crate destruction and Bandit hit points had a faint gimmicky ring, so the uniqueness of Bounty County took a bit of time to warm to.
Once acquaintances had been made, however, Bounty County turned out to be quite an entertaining scatter-paying slot. Adjacent winning symbols destroying Crates, triggering features, is a compelling combo, vaguely Fire in the Hole-ish, as was Gun Crates shooting Bandits to remove hit points. Manage to remove all their hit points, and cash, multiplier, or free spin awards are coming your way. It’s a nice variety of rewards, made more so in the bonus round when Boss Bandits may appear, and it wasn’t hard to get drawn along on cascading cycles of destroying, shooting, and multiplying stuff.
Having three difficulty levels to choose from when free spins trigger is no bad thing, in a similar style to Relax Gaming’s Tumble slots, TNT Tumble, for example, way back when. The full bounty in Bounty County isn’t huge by Relax Gaming’s standards, but not a bad total either, capped at 5,000x the bet. Roll it all together, like spinning the cylinder on a trusty six-shooter, and Bounty County turned out to be a rather engrossing game, fun to get lost in the flow as it does something fresh with the scatter-pays format.
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