One of Pragmatic Play’s most popular slots, The Dog House, has been remade into a Megaways variant called The Dog House Megaways, bringing man’s best friend back into the spotlight. The Dog House Multihold represents a new chapter in the freshly minted trilogy. While the Multihold version does not have a progressive jackpot like The Dog House Megaways, it does have extra reels, rows, and ways to win during the bonus round. The Dog House Multihold’s free spins feature is notable for allowing players to activate a maximum of four separate sets of reels. Grab a tick collar and come have a look with us at The Dog House’s new quad-grid format.
The Dog House Multihold, for the most part, is visually identical to the classic slot machine. If you’re making quick work of the game’s base levels and haven’t triggered or can’t afford the bonus round, that is. At this point in the game, the aesthetics are the same as they were at the beginning: an outdoor setting with a wooden structure housing a slot machine with five reels and three rows, parked next to a grass. There’s the original quiet piece of suburbia, complete with creeping ivy, a small blue birdie, and a white picket fence, for another canine adventure.
Some statistics have gone up, while others have gone down, but not so substantially as to be truly shocking. The return to player value has decreased; now, it is set at a maximum of 96.06% by default, while the paytable also shows two lesser levels. According to Pragmatic Play, the game has a volatility level of 5, and a bonus purchase has been tacked on, both of which might be as appealing to players as the Multihold feature itself.
Regular symbols give payouts when three or more appear on a single, left-to-right, active payline across an entire reel. The same symbols as before are used, including the four adorable premium dogs, a bone, a collar, and the bloated tens and aces. Winning lines of five identical symbols pay between 1.25 and 2.5 times the wager for card symbols and 3.75 times to 25 times the wager for all other combinations. The Dog House Multihold continues to place a premium on wilds. The middle three reels are stacked with wilds that award a random 2x or 3x multiplier. When used in a winning combination, wild symbols add their multiplier to the total amount won. If a win involves several wilds, the multipliers will be multiplied together.
Multi-Hold Slots with a Canine Theme
Uh huh, okay, and thus far… But now things begin to change in The Dog House Multihold from their conventional form. First, in the main game, players receive 2x their wager and 7 free spins whenever 3 paw bonus symbols appear on reels 1, 3, and 5.
There are now up to four 3×5 game grids available during free spins. At the outset, there will be only one playable grid. When bonus paw symbols appear, they are carried over to the following locked game matrix. Once you’ve gathered three bonus symbols, you can go to the next grid. Only the last playable grid is eligible to receive bonus symbols.
Sticky wilds have been kept in for those who enjoyed them in the previous games. If a wild lands on the final unlockable matrix, it becomes sticky and remains there until the round ends. When a new grid is unlocked, it will have the same sticky wilds as the previous matrix, making it just as good, if not better. Additionally, 1-3 additional free spins are offered arbitrarily every time a grid is unlocked. Extra free spins are rewarded twice, and wilds are duplicated across both additional matrices, if two grids are unlocked during the same free spin.
The Dog House Multihold, if equipped with such a feature, allows players to purchase 100 times their wager in free spins. When using purchased spins, the maximum RTP is 96.08%.
Slot Decision for the Dog House Multihold
When exploring the rest of the game world in The Dog House Multihold, it’s difficult to tell how it differs from the initial multihold. It retains its lovability, charm, and wackiness. The dog-like cuteness that made people fall in love with The Dog House is back in full force in the multihold version, called The Dog House Multihold. Fans of the original will feel right at home in The Dog House Multihold, with its homey, well-kept lawns devoid of weeds and bright blue sky. In its simplest form, at least.
During the bonus spins, the two games part ways and go in opposite directions. How you feel about these quad grid elements in general may have a significant impact on how you feel about the bonus round in The Dog House Multihold. Although there isn’t a ton of competition in this space just yet, I couldn’t help but think of Blueprint Gaming’s Power 4 Slots and Big Time Gaming’s Slot Vegas Megaquads. What’s novel about this setup is that locked wilds from the prior grid transfer to the current one. Since locked multiplier wilds were a big part of what made The Dog House famous, Pragmatic Play had a few options on how to approach this challenge. The team came up with a smart way to carry it out: adding a snowball effect to the sticky wild accumulations on new grids, either by preventing new wilds from sticking on every previous grid or by creating entirely new grids.
Surprisingly, the game’s win ceiling of 9,000x the stake hasn’t converted into four times the winning potential despite having up to four times the free spins matrices. If you’re keeping track at home, it’s not a huge increase over the first version and it’s less than The Dog House Megaways. Is it a cheap trick? A strong domino effect occurring in free spins, with more game grids opening up and sticky wilds being carried across, is really intriguing. If you’ve like the canine cast’s previous efforts, you’re likely to enjoy this one as well.