Cats of Olympuss: Slot Overview

To borrow a thought often linked to the philosopher Xenophon, ‘If cows or horses could draw, their gods would look like cows and horses.’ If we briefly accept the idea of evolution, imagine it was a feline species that made the jump from ordinary animal to today’s ruler of the world. In that scenario, Earth might well have enjoyed a classical era much like the one depicted in Push Gaming’s slot Cats of Olympuss. As you’ve probably gathered, the game reimagines Ancient Greek mythology through a cat-themed perspective and connects to another anthropomorphised Push Gaming title, Dinopolis.

Cat fans will be pleased to hear you’ll be climbing to a realm called Catcropolis to spin the reels. Cats of Olympuss is packed with playful feline details, from the fluffy-tailed cat statues flanking the grid to the roster of adorable characters. It isn’t quite as neon-bright and showy as the slickly presented Dinopolis, but it still delivers plenty of Ancient Greek-inspired furball appeal.

In Catcropolis, play takes place on a 5-reel, 3-row setup using a 243 ways to win system. Cats of Olympuss also runs on a medium-high volatile math model, with a theoretical default RTP of 96.31%. Or 96.26% if you opt for the Push Bet. When enabled, Push Bet increases the stake by 20% and makes triggering the bonus 60% more likely to happen. The standard bet range is 10 c to $/€100.

Cats of Olympuss’ lower-paying symbols are diamond, club, spade, and heart-shaped cat snacks, followed by a fish, a harp, and three cat character icons. A 5 OAK win with card suits returns 0.5-1 times the bet, fish or harps pay 2 times the bet, and 5 matching cat symbols award 4 to 10 times the bet. Standard wild symbols can appear on reels 2, 3, and 4, substituting for any regular paying symbol.

Cats of Olympuss: Slot Features

Cats of Olympuss’ feature lineup includes the following additions – Stacked Wild symbols, Instant Prize coin symbols, free spins, a Card Pick feature, and bonus buys.

Stacked Wild Symbols

Stacked Wild symbols are full reel wilds treated as 1 symbol and they also substitute for any regular pay symbol. They can come with a multiplier of x2 to x8. The Stacked Wild symbol boosts Instant Prize symbol wins by the multiplier displayed. Each Stacked Wild symbol that forms part of a win multiplies that win by the value shown on its multiplier. If a win contains more than 1 Stacked Wild symbol, the multipliers are multiplied together.

Instant Prize Symbols

Instant Prize symbols are bet multipliers that drop on the leftmost and rightmost reels during the base game or in free spins. They pay out when they form a combo with at least 2 wild symbols on consecutive reels. Coin wins are evaluated left to right, starting from the leftmost reels, and values can range from 1x to 1,000x.

Free Spins

Scatters and double scatters can land on reels 2, 3, and 4. Double scatters count as 2 scatter symbols. Landing 3 or more scatter symbols activates the free spins feature, which runs across up to 4 matrices. The bonus begins with 1, 2, 3, or 4 matrices unlocked when triggered by 3, 4, 5 or 6 scatters, respectively. At the start of the feature, players also receive card picks:

• 3 scatters gives you 2 card picks – a free spins picker plus an Upgrade Card.
• 4 scatters gives you 2 card picks – a free spins picker plus 2 Upgrade Cards.
• 5 scatters gives you 2 card picks – a free spins picker plus 3 Upgrade Cards.
• 6 scatters gives you 2 card picks – a free spins picker plus 4 Upgrade Cards.

From the free spins pick, you can land 6, 7, 8, or 10 free spins. As for the remaining selections, the feature upgrade cards, you can win the following:

• Stacked Wild Symbol – added to reels 2, 3, or 4. Any duplicate Stacked Wild symbols picked affect the newly unlocked reel matrices by increasing the multiplier of the Stacked Wild symbols. The Stacked Wild symbol can be selected with an x2 multiplier.
• Remove Lowest Symbols – removes up to 4 low pay symbols.

Feature Pick Upgrades are applied in this way – Feature Pick 1 to all 4 matrices, Feature Pick 2 to matrices 2, 3, 4, Feature Pick 3 to matrices 3 and 4, and Feature Pick 4 to matrix 4.

Special Instant Prize symbols appear during free spins, landing on the leftmost or rightmost reels. Collecting 5 Special Instant Prize coins opens up the next reel set and retriggers the Card Pick feature and feature pick. When Stacked Wild symbols are introduced to the reels in free spins, they stay in place for the full duration.

Bonus Buy

Players can purchase the free spins feature with 3 scatter symbols for 60.3x the bet (RTP 96.24%), 4 scatter symbols for 110x the bet (RTP 96.38%), or random scatter symbols for 109x the bet (RTP 96.39%).

Cats of Olympuss: Slot Verdict

As a quick side note, if you ever consider recreating Cats of Olympuss at home, don’t give your pet grapes, as they’re reportedly toxic to cats. The idea might be tempting (the recreation, that is), because Cats of Olympuss is a genuinely endearing slot that cat lovers are likely to enjoy. Push Gaming has gradually moved away from being seen mainly as a studio that pumps out ultra-high volatility titles like Razor Shark/Razor Returns, and has also started targeting other parts of the audience. Possible examples include 10 Swords and Rat King which, sure, aren’t exactly designed to make friends, but may better suit players who don’t want to feel like the slot is tearing them apart, so to speak.

Cats of Olympuss felt like it belongs in that category, and on the subject of Dinos, it does share traits with Dinopolis, as noted earlier. That said, it’s the first time Push Gaming has built a title around a 4 reel-set feature, and the outcome is a good one. Similar to Pragmatic Play’s, The Dog House Multihold, Cats of Olympuss avoids coming across as a pointless gimmick, since the additional reel sets tie in neatly with the rest of the mechanics. Put simply, Cats of Olympuss gives you real reasons to want to unlock more matrices – not only for the extra space to land winning combinations, but also because feature picks can influence later matrices that haven’t opened yet. Coin wins may not be the newest trick in the book; Push Gaming clearly enjoys using them, but it’s difficult to deny how much they can help when chasing Cats of Olympuss’ 13,195x the bet max win.

Overall, Cats of Olympuss is another solid example of Push Gaming maintaining its high production standards, delivering a slot that blends fresh ideas with proven mechanics in a satisfying way. In the end, the studio has rolled up its sleeves and produced a highly entertaining quad matrix-style game featuring coin wins and cats.