Thunder Screech

The game uses a 5x3 layout with 10 fixed paylines, so wins are old-school line hits rather than clusters or ways. Matching symbols pay from left to right, and the paytable is unusually plain: 10 to A card royals sit at the bottom, while the animal premiums move through beavers, otters, skunks, foxes and the highest bird symbol. Five premium symbols pay from 10x to 75x stake, which is respectable but not wild enough to carry the base game by itself. Regular wilds appear only on reels 2, 3 and 4, substituting for everything except scatters. Without a wild feature, the base round is mostly small line wins and dead spins.

Strike is the mechanic that gives the slot its bite. When it lands, all regular wilds currently on the reels upgrade into Thunder Wilds. These symbols stay locked in place and trigger respins. Each Thunder Wild starts with a 1x multiplier, then climbs by +1 after each respin until it reaches 3x. Once several Thunder Wilds are involved in the same winning payline, their values are added together, with a maximum combined multiplier of 9x. New Thunder Wilds can also appear during the sequence, extending the feature. It is a good mechanic because it turns a basic line slot into a temporary sticky-wild game. It is also random, so long quiet patches are part of the deal.

Three dreamcatcher scatters on reels 1, 3 and 5 trigger five free spins. That sounds short, and it is, but the round is not just five normal spins with a new background. All regular wilds are upgraded into Thunder Wilds, and at least one Thunder Wild is guaranteed on every free spin. Each one locks, starts respins, increases from 1x to 3x and can join with other Thunder Wilds for added multipliers. After the five free spins are used, the round continues through respins until no Thunder Wild remains on the grid. There is no retrigger, because scatters do not appear during free spins, Call or Strike. The structure is clean, but the cap on wild multipliers keeps most bonuses controlled rather than explosive.

Call is the simpler half of the wild system. When it triggers, the game randomly adds 5 to 9 regular wilds onto the reels before wins are evaluated. Because wilds are limited to reels 2, 3 and 4, the feature can quickly fill the centre of the grid and turn weak symbol layouts into payable lines. On its own, though, Call is more of a patch than a headline feature. It does not add multipliers, it does not hold symbols and it does not start respins unless Strike gets involved. The best version is when Call creates the wilds and Strike then upgrades them.

The published bet range converts to roughly CA$0.16 to CA$160 per spin, which gives the game a wide spread for casual and higher-stake play. There is no Ante Bet and no Bonus Buy, so players cannot pay extra to increase bonus access or jump straight into free spins. That keeps the structure clean, but it also means every feature must arrive naturally. The RTP menu is the bigger issue: operators can run several versions, from 96.20% down to 84.20%, so the in-game info screen matters here.