Dead Canary : Tested & Reviewed in 2024
with Real Money
Dead Canary Slot: Overview & How to Play
You might have heard the idiom “canary in the coal mine.” If not, there’s an interesting and somewhat dark story behind it, which is best explained in the Dead Canary slot. In the late 19th and early 20th century, canaries were used by miners in the coal mines to detect the presence of carbon monoxide. Due to the bird’s small size and rapid breathing, the canary would quickly succumb to the presence of poisonous gas, giving miners ample time to escape or take necessary measures. Sad, right? But not in the case of the Dead Canary slot, where you root for as many canaries dying (imaginary ones, of course) to come near to the grand prize of a staggering 65,000x the stake.
Slot Description
Dead Canary captivates the players with an offbeat reel design. The slot has five slanting reels, starting in a 3-3-2-2-1-1 formation, with 3 blocked rows, which change the formation to 3-4-3-4-3-4 upon unlocking. Therefore, the number of winning ways starts at 36 but can increase to 1,728 ways to win.
Wins land when three or matching symbols land on adjacent reels, starting from the leftmost position. Moreover, whenever winning symbols land, they explode and are removed from the reels. At the same time, an inactive row unlocks, and a fresh set of random symbols drops to fill the empty places.
What Players have to say about Dead Canary
Features and Bonus Rounds on Dead Canary
A lot goes on in Dead Canary, but compared to other Nolimit City slots, they are relatively easier to understand.
Wild Mining
The Wild Mining feature gets triggered once you hit 3 or more symbols aligned diagonally but without any win. The feature starts with triggering symbols getting replaced by wild symbols. Based on the number of triggering symbols you had (3, 4, or 5), up to 3 wild bombs can land on the reels. The wild bombs trigger collapse for the next spin with a +1 multiplier. All symbols are liable to explode except for the xBomb symbol. Moreover, if scatter symbols are removed via explosion, they reappear in a random position in the following spin.
xBomb Wild
xBomb is a wild symbol that substitutes for all symbols except scatters and other xBombs. The symbol triggers collapse with an increasing +1 multiplier for the following collapse. If there are multiple xBomb wilds on the reels, all of them will detonate before the following collapse.
Canary Free Spins
Hitting 3 scatter symbols in the unlocked positions triggers the Canary Free Spins feature. The feature starts on a 4-3-4-3-4-3-4 grid where each of the four corners has a locked vault. You can unlock these vaults with xBomb explosions. Triggering scatter symbols are carried forward to the free spins, where each bird gets to have 3 hit points. The canaries positioned on the vaults move to any random position on the reels and generously award 3 free spins.
Scatter symbols begin with x1 multiplier where the type of scatter you’ve got performs a specific function:
- Silver Cage Scatter: collects anything next to it in an x-shape.
- Gold Cage Scatter: collects everything from the same row in an x-shape
Vaults also serve the function of collecting anything that appears next to them. Once a bird’s hit points are exhausted, it dies, awards the collected, and then is reborn with 3 hit points. The special symbols landing during the Canary Free Spins feature are:
- Coins: contribute their assigned value to the scatter upon collection.
- Multipliers: amplify a scatter’s value by two or three upon collection
- Bomb: the bomb detonates, impacting symbols in an x-shaped configuration.Explosions remove one hit point from the scatter and unlock the vaults. It also resets the number of spins to 3.
- Upgrade: The Upgrade function elevates Silver scatters to the status of Gold scatters and provides hit points to the respective symbols.
- Gas: It diminishes one hit point from all adjacent canaries
- Dwarf – Collectible by a single scatter, it increases hit points. Upon collection, the scatter accumulates the values of all available scatters on each spin until it exhausts itself. Upon dying, he is reborn as a canary.
- Rat – Also collectible by a single scatter and useful in increasing hit points. Rats distribute their value to all other relevant scatters on each spin until they die off. Once dead, a rat is reborn as a canary.
After the feature concludes, values from all the unlocked vaults are added to the total win amount and paid out.
Nolimit Bonus
The Nolimit Bonus allows you to trigger the bonus feature instantly without playing the base game. To do so, you will have to pay the requisite sum:
- 68x the stake to trigger the bonus feature with 3 Silver Cages
- 500x the stake to trigger the bonus feature with 2 Silver Cages and a Gold Cage
- 284x the stake for a Lucky Draw, which randomly decides how many Silver and Gold Cages you will get out of 3.
Although, in some jurisdictions, the buy bonus feature isn’t included with the game.
The Best Paying Symbols on Dead Canary
As it is commonplace in several Nolimit City slots, Dead Canary also has 10 pay symbols divided into 5 high and low paying ones. Keep an eye out for the one-eyed miner (pun intended), who is the most-rewarding pay symbol and offers up to 7.50x the stake.
The game has two types of scatter symbols, which can land in any position, but the ones behind the barrier don’t unlock until they are activated.
Payout Statistics
Dead Canary is one of those extremely volatile heavy-hitters that, on a lucky day, can break all the barriers standing in front. With a max payout potential of 65,000x the stake, a lot goes into the game to keep players aiming for the grand prize. However, the probability of triggering the max win is extremely rare, and going by Nolimit City’s official figure, it takes about 7 million spins to trigger the top win once. Irrespective of that, there’s still a lot to play for in the game, as instances of incredible wins coming from the game suggests.
In our case, we managed to rope in a lucrative 1,477x the stake, which, even though it is nowhere close to the maximum prize, is still a cherishing sum on its own. And while the Dead Canary RTP of 96.02% isn’t among the highest, it is understandable given the slot’s extremely volatile nature. Another informative payout stat in Dead Canary is its hit frequency of 26.20%, which indicates a win in every 4-5 spins on average.
Theme, Design, and Sound
About Nolimit City : the Slot Producer
Dead Canary is not the first mining-themed slot from Nolimit City and does share some similarities with its predecessors, Misery Mining and Fire in the Hole. For one thing, the expanding reels, collapsing mechanics, and xBomb are constant reminders of what the games have in common. However, Dead Canary takes things further without easing the process. The slanting reels might confuse the players, especially if they are new to the game. But after spending some time, it doesn’t take long to assess the payouts, mechanics, and overall gameplay.
Both the base game and bonus features gave plenty of wins. The compromise was mostly felt with the size of the payout. While one of our sessions fetched more than 1,000x the stake, others were camped below the threshold of 100x. Also, while the Canary Free Spins carry huge potential, seeing the birds dying without offering their collected payouts was somewhat irritating. Despite these minor complaints, we thoroughly enjoyed Dead Canary, finding it quite innovative in terms of design and layout.
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Dead Canary : Slot Verdict
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