Wild Yield: Slot Overview

Well golly gee folks, software provider Relax Gaming's taking us on a trip to the countryside to see where food comes from. Sometimes it's easy to forget that produce doesn't just appear on supermarket shelves, but much of it is actually grown in the earth. Add seeds, a sprinkling of water and some sunshine, and in time, you've got a bountiful harvest. Or not, if the elements aren't playing ball and drought or flood or natural disaster spoils the crops. This is precisely what is covered in Wild Yield, an online slot exploring the highs and lows of supplying food in an attempt to turn a profit from the effort.

Farm slots are a growing games category, not overly numerous, though there are some solid options to choose from if getting back to basics is on the cards. Of them, Wild Yield is a particularly handsome example, with a deep richness to the visuals that make them simply pop from the screen. There's a playful exuberance about the way the hills and mountains have been drawn while making way for some classic agricultural imagery – a red barn, a lazily turning windmill, and rows of crops. Wild Yield also sneaks a scarecrow in there too, who sleeps while the reels are idle, watches when the reels are spinning and celebrates the exciting moments. A wicked banjo track provides the finishing touches on a lushly inviting farm scene.

Make no mistake, Wild Yield might look like the sort of place where food conveniently grows itself before leaping into trucks destined for the market, but it is a no-nonsense, straight-up gambling tool. We'll get into exactly why shortly. First, let's get our hands dirty with some of the nitty-gritty details, such as the fact Wild Yield operates a highly volatile math model with a theoretical return to player of 96.12%. Any device may be used to play Wild Yield which offers bet levels of 10 p/c to $/€20 per spin.

The gaming occurs on a 5-reel, 5-column panel with 259 connected ways to win. To win, matching symbols must land left to right from the first reel and be connecting either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Wooden J-A royals make up the low pays, worth 1x the bet for five of a kind, while the high pays are aubergines, lettuces, tomatoes, and pumpkins, awarding 1.5 to 3 times the stake for five-of-a-kind. With a name like Wild Yield, it's no surprise that wild symbols play a prominent role. Their key function is to substitute for any pay symbols. They are worth 3x the bet for a five wild win and are used extensively in the features.

Wild Yield: Slot Features

Wild Yield mixes things up with features such as a cascade mechanic, Weather symbols, free spins, an Extra Free Spin buy option, and a feature buy where available.

Cascades

All winning symbols, weather symbols or bonus symbols in view are destroyed and removed from the grid. Wild symbols with a counter on them do not, but the counter decreases by -1. Symbols fall into the gaps, and new wins may be created. This process continues until there are no more symbols in view that can be removed.

Weather Symbols

Wild symbols may appear in greater numbers when Weather symbols hit. They come in several types called Tornado, Rain, Lightning, Earthquake, Frost, and Fire (Fire appears only in free spins). Now, each Weather symbol awards one or two patterns from its group when it hits, transforming symbols in the pattern on the grid into wilds. If a Weather symbol transforms a symbol which is already wild, the wild gets a counter which increases by +1 each time this happens. The counter acts as a multiplier for any connected ways wins passing through it, as well as indicating how many times it can be used before it is removed.

Free Spins

Collecting 3 scatter symbols on a single base game spin awards 6 free spins. Should extra scatter symbols appear on the spin, they each award +1 free spin. During free spins, any positions that are transformed into wild symbols are marked on a side board next to the reels. The first Weather symbol to land on a free spin activates all marked positions on the board, transforming the corresponding positions on the reels into wilds. Positions on the board which are marked more than once get multipliers. Landing a bonus symbol adds +1 free spin.

Extra Free Spin

When the bonus round ends, if less than 10 Weather symbols landed, players may buy 1 extra free spin for the indicated price. The marked side board carries over to the extra spin if bought, and if symbols are transformed to wilds on this spin, their positions are marked on the sideboard. Players can choose to keep buying extra free spins until 10 Weather symbols in total have landed. The RTP for this feature is increased to 96.5%. For players in a buying mood, they are also able to buy free spins for the cost of 90x the regular bet. The RTP for buying free spins is also 96.5%.

Wild Yield: Slot Verdict

If Wild Yield is anything to go by, farming might look like a bunch of belly laughs, but it can be extraordinarily tough going as well - or rewarding when everything's playing ball. The good thing is players have some measure of control over what can be an insanely bumpy ride. Playing naturally, letting the elements do their thing is arguably the 'safest' way of experiencing Wild Yield's brand of farm-grown entertainment. On the other hand, playing that way might not be the most efficient way of squeezing out everything Wild Yield has to offer. We're referring here to the Extra Free Spin buy option, which at times, can be a real tightrope walk, across a canyon, with no safety net. It's an extremely thrilling feature, one must admit, as the stakes increase along with the risk for each buy the player heads into.

What makes it so is having a stack of marked positions on the side board can be a real temptation to hit the buy button for another go. However, you need to land a Weather symbol on the extra spin to activate all of those symbols to wild transformations, and that's not guaranteed to happen. It was by no means uncommon to shell out hundreds of times the stake for an extra spin, which pulled in a 1x the bet win, or even less. Adding to the temptation is the fact Wild Yield comes with winning potential of 50,000 times the stake, and since Relax Gaming slots have a reputation for pulverising their win caps, there's a chance Wild Yield will eventually as well. And that is one of the beauties of Relax Gaming, there is no need for anyone to guess whether the advertised max potential is actually achievable or not.

In Wild Yield, players have plenty of space to tackle this expertly designed game as they see fit. From letting things unfold organically to pushing luck to its limit via buying free spins and/or hammering away at the Extra Free Spin button. It might pay to keep in mind Wild Yield might look about as innocuous as a smiling scarecrow in a field of crops can get, but beneath the surface, this thing doesn't mess around. It's got the goods to deliver, though, not to mention tremendous potential, so talk about rolling the dice, responsibly, of course.