Chicken Road is a casino slot game developed by InOut, a relatively new name in the gaming industry but already making waves with their innovative approach to slot design. This review aims to delve into every aspect of this fascinating game, analyzing its theme, design, mechanics, and overall player experience.
Theme and Design
Upon loading Chicken Road on your chosen platform, you’re immediately immersed in a vibrant world inspired by the American South’s iconic Route 66. The backdrop features an endless road lined with cacti, billboards, and what appears to be an play Chicken Road abandoned gas station. The game itself is framed within what resembles a stylized classic automobile dashboard, complete with wood trim and vintage gauges.
The slot’s colors are deliberately muted, save for the occasional burst of neon hues that catch your eye. In keeping with its nostalgic theme, symbols range from 10-9 Aces through to four Jacks. What may seem like a conservative choice is actually a deliberate homage to traditional slot design, stripped down and reimagined with clean lines, simple shapes, and an almost Art Deco flair.
Symbols
Each of the six standard symbol slots – Ten, Nine, Ace, King, Queen, and Jack – features in white or yellow font against a muted blue background. The wild is represented by what looks like a 1950s-era automobile’s dashboard clock face, which glows with a soft orange light when hit.
Payouts
With six symbols to match up across the game board (5 reels x 3 rows), Chicken Road follows a fairly standard payout structure for slots. For the regular icons:
- High-value cards: King-Q-A pay at least 1:10, 2:25, and 4:50 times your bet for matching three in any order.
- Lower-value symbols – J-9-Aces – offer progressively smaller rewards when hitting sets of two or three.
Wilds
The Wild car icon takes the place of any symbol to complete a winning combination. Should you get a full Reel 5 with all six standard symbols, the Wild will take precedence and grant maximum payout, rather than simply creating a chain reaction between identical cards.
Scatters
While Chicken Road doesn’t feature scatter wins or ‘free spins’ triggered by these, a particular set of unique bonuses kicks in after specific patterns on certain paylines are hit – an unusual design choice. We explore this more thoroughly below under Bonus Features.
Bonus Features
The slot’s most intriguing aspects come when matching combinations land at specified points across multiple reels simultaneously:
- Landing the Ten symbol alongside any Jack, Queen or King and two other Tens anywhere on the grid triggers a Free Spin feature where you start with 10 FS and earn extra for subsequent ten-of-a-kind.
- Three consecutive Jacks (or Q-K) in this game’s version of ‘naked eye’ trigger Double Pays which award double payouts on standard combinations.
- More so than many other slots, Chicken Road introduces the concept of linked, adjacent symbols providing bigger rewards. So when certain groups line up – like a 3 or more in length – an increased payout is awarded.
Free Spins
Chicken Road features two unique variants within its Free Spin system:
- In its standard play mode, landing a winning combination on any non-nested spin initiates ten additional turns during which wilds can land as the free spins bonus itself.
- During its high-stakes variant (where maximum 10:100 cash stakes are playable), three consecutive Jacks of one suit initiate Double Free Spins that give double the number of FS to standard.
RTP and Volatility
The return-to-player percentage for Chicken Road, which represents how often the game pays out, is currently listed at around 96%, putting it somewhat below industry standards but well within a reasonable range considering its unique features.
Chicken Road falls firmly into ‘high volatility’ territory; this indicates that – as you’d expect from slots like Mega Joker and Twin Spin – players should not look forward to getting rewarded frequently or with large amounts every time they play, though bigger paydays occur less often. High risk equals potential high reward in the best of cases.
Betting Range
Chicken Road’s coin bet range extends between 0:01 (or $0.10 if playing max coins) and $10.00 at its maximum capacity when engaging ‘Double Free Spins’ feature within "High-stakes" mode – although betting up this far might put your wallet under a lot more strain due to both the higher total amount bet per turn as well as losses from unsuccessful rounds that may lead to cash consumption.
Max Win
Since Chicken Road does indeed reward large payouts based on linked, adjacent combos, and considering its payout ratios (see above), when hitting all ten combinations in high-value symbol slots simultaneously with three Jacks, or any suit set of Queens; each can be worth an eye-watering max win – which currently stands at 5:000 times the bet within certain parameters.