Blood Moon Express Slot Review

Released in October 2019, this game can be played at online casinos such as Casumo, LeoVegas or Mr Green.

Theme and general information

Blood Moon Express comes with a spooky theme, which is difficult to categorise. It is the middle of the night; the full moon is just rising. The winds are howling. We might be in the late 19th century in a small town. There are buildings in the background and a train just pulled into the station.

The slot is atmospheric, dark and beautifully rendered. The attention to detail is marvellous and there is much to discover. Lights are flickering in one of the windows, for instance, and a figure seems to be moving around. Very cool indeed.

The reel setup is also somewhat unusual here. We get a reel set of 2x3x4x5x6x6 symbols to achieve the standard 60 paylines.

On the reels, we find four expanding wild symbols that each have a multiplier attached. They are a scarecrow, a werewolf, a vampire and a mummy. The actual high value symbols on the reels correspond to these four characters. We get a goblet filled with blood, a Horus eye symbol, a chain of wolf teeth and a scythe.

Then there are low value card suit symbols that correspond in colour with the other symbols.

The standard wild, which looks a little generic, is the most valuable symbol. It pays 8.3x our stake for 6 of a kind. The goblet and the Horus eye are worth 1x our stake for such a win. And the wolf teeth and scythe pay 0.66x our stake for 6 on a payline.

You can play this game from 0.60 to 120.00 per spin.

Expanded wilds on every spin

In the base game, you will find the aforementioned characters, who are posing as expanded wilds on every spin. They each have a multiplier attached, which is applied to every winning combination they are a part of.

• Scarecrow = 1x multiplier
• Werewolf = 2x multiplier
• Mummy = 3x multiplier
• Vampire = 5x multiplier

They jump randomly between all six reels and always expand to cover the entire reel they land on. Naturally, you’ll see the scarecrow most often.

The Missions

These four characters play an additional role during the base game. Above the reels, you will notice a meter. Depending on your chosen mission, you have to collect the expanded wild characters a set number of times to earn a cash prize. The higher rarer the character, the more they contribute to the meter. Also, 6×1 expanded wilds contribute more than a 2×1 expanded wild.

There are four levels you can play at:

• Bronze – Wins you up to 100x your bet if you collect 900+ multipliers in a certain number of spins
• Silver – Gets you up to 200x your bet with 1,100+ collected wilds in a set number of spins
• Gold – Up to 400x your bet await for 1,300+ collected wilds after so many spins
• Platinum – Up to 1,000x your bet are possible with at least 1,500+ collected wilds in a set number of spins

Basically, to complete a mission, you collect the number of wild multipliers needed in a given number of spins. Then you can win a minimum of 20x your bet, for instance, but as long as your spins aren’t all used up, you can keep collecting wild multipliers and climb to a higher level to get a better return.

It is easiest to stay on the Bronze tier and collect multiplier wilds here. During free spins, the meter keeps count as well, which is handy, especially since the free spins don’t subtract on the tally of spins left.

In any case, this sounds a little more complicated than it is and only the free spins really enable you to win anything at all during the missions. It’s a little side attraction, if you will. We managed to get 48x our bet once, which was good enough in our book.

Free spins with reversed reels and extra wilds

The free spins are triggered with at least 3 Blood Moon Express scatters that look like golden train tickets. Now the reel set is reversed and changes to a 6x6x5x4x3x2 setup. That means, you’ll see the larger expanded wilds more often and bigger wins are easier to come by.

A special symbol, a creepy blood moon with a skull, comes into play as a collectable symbol. Collect three of them, and +1 expanded wild is added on each spin. Collect three more and you get another expanded wild on the reels, meaning you now play with up to 3 across all reels. You can play with up to 3 additional expanded wilds this way. Additionally, you get +2 free spins each time.

Once you have the maximum of expanded wilds on the reels, you can keep collecting the blood moon symbol, though now you receive +2 free spins each time and nothing else.

Conclusion: A beautifully designed slot with great features

The theoretical RTP (Return to Player) of Blood Moon Express is 96.09 to 97.48% (the latter in the free spins with reversed reels), which is really good. Whilst the game doesn’t have the biggest payouts across 6 paylines, the multiplier wilds certainly help. The highest payout is a somewhat disappointing 2,500x our stake.

Still, the game is beautifully designed and super playable. It’s a lot of fun to spin the reels here and it never gets boring. Not after 500 spins and not after 1,000 spins. Plus, you are likely to have won enough by that time, thanks to the free spins, to want to keep playing just a little longer. Whilst we never had huge wins (perhaps 120x our stake tops), we kept getting decent wins and that was good enough for us.

Blood Moon Express offers some good features that work well together and it is fun as hell.