Animafia: Slot Overview

Do you ever wonder if animals in a zoo know they're in an artificial enclosure, that something's not quite right, that they're held in pens or cages, captured by another species for their own personal amusement? And if they do know, do you think they want to escape? Perhaps it depends on their particular animal's treatment. Anyway, the critters in Animafia have no desire to remain cooped up while hordes of bipedal homo sapiens wander past, staring and pointing. Such is the premise of Animafia, an online slot from developer Peter & Sons. However, Peter & Sons takes it a few steps further and not only have these animals escaped from the zoo, but they're planning on pulling off a daring heist by robbing a bank.

There are two principal locations in Animafia for players to explore. One is the zoo, which is where the base game is played, and it's immediately clear the animals aren't here to make friends. Each one on the screen, the hippo, the bear, and the monkey, are dressed up like gangsters with guns, looking tough, guarding a 5-reel gaming grid. Animafia doesn't have the classic, classic Peter & Sons look to it, but it has a humorous slant and has been designed with the sort of bright colour palette the studio is wont to use. Trigger or buy free spins, and you're off to the bank where it's clear these animals mean business.

Animafia is a medium volatile slot, available in four RTP levels where the default figure is 96.1%. It's got a Golden Bet feature, too, so where base bets range from 20 p/c to $/€50, when activating the Golden Bet, the stake increases by 20%, doubling the chance of hitting free spins. Played on a 5x5 gaming area, players get 40 paylines for hitting winning combinations along.

Wins start from the first reel and pay left to right on adjacent reels. Card ranks, J to A, are the low pays, awarding 1 to 1.5 times the bet for a 5 OAK hit, whereas the high pays are a frog, a rhino, a monkey, and a lion. High pays award 3 to 10 times the bet for a 5-matching symbol win. Stacks of cash (or gold bar) symbols are wild, and they appear on all reels. Wilds have the same value as the lion if making wins of themselves, or they may be used to substitute for any regular pay symbol.

Animafia: Slot Features

Apart from the gangster animals, some of Animafia's biggest stars are its wild symbols, of which there are three types. These are bolstered by a scatter collection feature, which may lead to extra free spins when they trigger, and bonus buys.

Power Wilds

Power Wilds happen randomly and trigger one of these three following wild modifiers:

• Random Wilds – 4 to 15 wilds are randomly placed on the grid.
• Expanding Wilds – cover the whole reel and may appear on any reel.
• Monster Wild – a 1x1 to 5x5 sized wild which can appear in random positions.

Free Spins

Each time 2 scatter symbols land, they increase the collection meter, which adds free spins to the next free spins session. When the collection meter is full, 2 scatters won't have any effect. Now, when 3 scatter symbols land, then 6 to 20 free spins are awarded, depending on the progress of the collection meter. The collection meter resets when the free spins session is complete. Free spins benefit from roaming wilds with a tier upgrade. When scatters hit, they increase the tier level, meaning the roaming wild symbol increases in size from 1x1 to 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, and 5x5. Extra free spins are awarded when racing a new tier level.

Buy Free Spins

Players are able to buy free spins from these three choices – 6 free spins for 50x the bet (96.2% RTP), 20 free spins for 150x the bet (96% RTP), or a random number of free spins for 100x the bet (96.1% RTP). Bet limits may apply.

Animafia: Slot Verdict

With all of the animal antics combined with a growing roaming wild in free spins, it was hard not to hold Animafia up side by side next to Fat Rabbit and compare the two. Both share a non-human focus and possess similarities when it comes to features. Animafia has evolved, though in some ways, as Peter & Sons have fleshed out the gameplay by adding the collection meter, potentially awarding players up to 20 free spins, whereas you're stuck with 5 when triggering them in Fat Rabbit, as well as Power Wilds.

Maybe we caught Animafia in a mood because it proved quite tricky to level up on the free spins collection bar. Free spins triggered every so often, but trying to significantly increase how many would be awarded via the 2 scatter hit feature proved to be a challenge. Although, as stated, we might have hit a stingy patch. Scatters were quite prevalent during the actual free spins round, meaning larger wild symbols and extra spins were slung about the place and like other games that feature growing wilds – Fat Rabbit, Royal Potato 2 etc, the more the merrier where the going potentially gets better the bigger the wild. Certainly, if/when hitting the 5x5 full-screen wild. However, winning potential isn't amazing, and while the ruffians around here might be crowing about the 'greatest heist in animal history', Animafia's 3,200x the bet max win might beg to differ.

Animafia has an animalian charm to it, full of cheeky animals hell-bent on breaking the law, but when compared to previously mentioned games, it feels a little under gunned. However, perhaps for players partial to but fed up to the gills with bunnies, Animafia might make a suitable substitute.