Explore the dark side with The Twisted Circus slot

Here at Lucky Nugget Casino, we want to bring you the widest possible range of slots covering lots of different themes. While some of these themes are familiar, from time-to-time, we come across a slot game that offers something a little different, at least on the surface. So, in this review, we take a closer look at Microgaming’s dark and intriguing, The Twisted Circus…

Ready to play? Head over now and join in the fun at Lucky Nugget Casino. If you’d like to know more, read on to find out all about The Twisted Circus, including its history, its theme, and basic gameplay, as well as those all-important bonuses, jackpots, and ways to win…

Overview Of The Theme

If you’re thinking that The Twisted Circus is bound to offer up a cute, colorful, and clown-filled playing experience, think again! This game is all about the dark side of the circus, with plenty of weird and wonderful characters. In fact, it’s a real freak show. Released by Microgaming in 2012, the game features a cast of characters that includes monkeys, a contortionist, a moustached lady, fire-eaters, a tattooed strongman, and a sexy snake-charmer. Of course, being a circus, there’s also a ringmaster in charge of proceedings. The backdrop to the game is a classic circus ring, with a black background and red velvet curtains that really set the mood. Throughout the game, the animations, graphics and soundtrack really are top-drawer. In fact, it’s worth checking out The Twisted Circus on that basis alone.

Gameplay

This is a five-reel slot that offers 243 ways to win, just like Thunderstruck II and The Dark Knight Rises, and other similar games released by this developer. Playing the game is simple. Before spinning, you can set your bets, with coin values ranging from 0.01 to 0.2. The number of coins per line is between one and 20. There is an autoplay feature that allows you to spin automatically up to a set limit. You can enact autoplay via the button marked “expert”. Here, you’re able to set how many continuous spins to activate.

Once you’re all set with your betting limit and auto-spin preferences, it’s time to spin. For those of you who have played online slots before, this will feel very familiar. The aim is to match symbols on consecutive reels, which results in a payout.

In terms of key symbols in the game, the main one to watch out for is The Twisted Circus logo. This is the wild symbol. It substitutes for all the other symbols, except the scatter ticket and the ringmaster bonus (more on these in the next section). Spin a winning combination that includes the wild symbol and you triple the payout.

Bonuses

The Twisted Circus slot features a potentially valuable Circus Match bonus. This is triggered when you spin the ringmaster bonus symbol on reels three, four or five. Achieve this and you enter the bonus game. The aim of the game is to match three identical characters by picking symbols from a screen that features 16 stars. Each character has its own value in this bonus round, with the fire-breather offering the highest payout at 2,250 coins, down to the twins, which offer up 900. There are four wilds included in the round.

The Twisted Circus also offers you chances to pick up those valuable free spins. If you manage to spin three simultaneous scatter symbols anywhere on the reels, you land a (hopefully lucky) 13 free spins. One thing about this feature to note is that you can retrigger it by spinning a further three scatter symbols. Winnings here are tripled and it is also worth mentioning that the Circus Match bonus can still be activated while in the free spins mode.

Jackpots

The bad news for all you Mega Moolah fans is that The Twisted Circus is not a progressive jackpot slot. This means that you won’t land a huge life-changing sum of money. However, if you manage to spin five ticket scatter symbols simultaneously anywhere on the five reels, you can land 100x the total bet. Add in the free spins and bonus features and The Twisted Circus could offer a pretty nice return. Overall, the return to player rate on The Twisted Circus is 96-97%, which is pretty good and certainly a lot better than many modern slots.

Why Should You Play The Twisted Circus?

While Microgaming has its critics, the developer does offer up some pretty creative themes and does a great job bringing those themes to life using awesome audio-visuals. While The Twisted Circus may not have quite reached the heights of Immortal Romance, and may not have the immediate box-office draw of The Dark Knight and its sequel, in our opinion, it is still worth checking out.

Not surprisingly, the biggest selling point of the game is its freaky circus theme. Microgaming brings us a change from all those sequels and popular culture tie ins to offer up a throwback to the old-fashioned freak show entertainment that has, for the most part, disappeared (at least out of the mainstream). Strip all the bizarre circus shenanigans away, however, and you’re pretty much left with your standard non-progressive five-reel, 243 ways to win slot. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!