Hound Hotel: Overview

Hound Hotel belongs to a classic Microgaming pair that pays tribute to everyone’s two favourite household animals: cats and dogs. Its companion title, Kitty Cabana, focused on felines, whereas Hound Hotel is dedicated to canines. If you’re a fan of those vintage Coolidge-style scenes of dogs playing poker, you’ll appreciate Microgaming’s take. The four-legged stars check into a luxury hotel where you’ll find Dashing Wilds and a slick free spins round featuring multipliers along with one of five wild features.

True to its title, Hound Hotel unfolds in a posh, high-end hotel staffed by maids, butlers, and the like. The catch is that both employees and guests are dogs of various breeds, portrayed with human-like mannerisms. Gameplay runs on a 5-reel, 25-payline layout framed by elegant columns, with the hotel shimmering in the background. The audio is mostly restrained, delivering a gentle café-style ambience during the base game. Enter the bonus, though, and the music turns jazzy as the action ramps up.

With stakes ranging from 25 p/c to $/€37.50 per spin, the game uses a friendly math model that delivers frequent results, built around medium volatility. Wins show up regularly, landing close to 1 in 2 spins, or roughly 48%-49%. There’s usually some kind of payoff coming, whether modest or meaningful. The return to player is also a strong point, sitting at a solid 96.25%.

The symbol set begins with J-A royals, which are fairly standard, but the premium icons bring far more character. These consist of 5 hotel guests, each a different dog in its own style. Landing five matching premium symbols pays 6 to 18 times your stake – doubled in one of the features described below.

Wilds are another major part of Hound Hotel, at least during free spins. In the base game they’re less dramatic, although they can appear stacked. Whenever wilds land, they replace any paying symbol and can also pay up to 20 times the stake for five on a line.

Hound Hotel: Features

The base game doesn’t add a lot of extras, but it does include Dashing Wilds. On any non-winning base game spin, this feature can trigger, placing 3 Dashing Wilds onto random reel positions to give you another shot at a win.

The real excitement arrives in the bonus game, where Hound Hotel really steps on the accelerator. To begin, the band springs to life when 3 or more butler scatters land, triggering the Hound Hotel Bonus. Scatters also pay anywhere, awarding 1x, 2x, 20x, to 100x the stake for 2, 3, 4, or 5 appearing.

Before the free spins start, players see a three-floor cutaway view of the hotel. Selecting a level 1 door reveals one of five special wild features, choosing a level 2 door awards a multiplier up to x6, and picking a level 3 door shows how many free spins you receive –up to 30. You’ll want the canine crew to deliver during the spins you’re given, since the free spins cannot be retriggered.

Doors on floor 2 or 3 can randomly grant an extra pick. Free spins and multipliers are straightforward, so here’s what the five wild modifiers do:

• Super stacked wilds – wilds are stacked 20 high on reels 2 and 4.
• Expanding wilds – wilds expand to cover the full reel when they land.
• Wilds reels – reels 1 and 5 are permanently wild.
• Split wilds – wilds split into two, allowing 6 of a kind combinations which are worth double the 5 of kind wins.
• Super wilds reels – reel 2, 3, or 4 turns wild on each spin. Scatters on reels 1 or 5 also turn them wild as well.

Hound Hotel: Verdict

Microgaming landed on a winning recipe with Hound Hotel. Dogs are beloved pets for a reason, and plenty of that appeal carries into the slot. It may feel a little old-fashioned by today’s standards, but the endearing theme is boosted by the human-like presentation, making it inviting and genuinely enjoyable to play.

That said, it isn’t all just easy-going fun. While the base game doesn’t offer anything especially groundbreaking, the Hound Hotel bonus can get surprisingly tense. It begins with three suspenseful selections, and what you uncover can heavily shape how the bonus plays out. Under the bright visuals, the math model is nicely tuned for players who prefer consistent wins while waiting for the bonus to arrive. Even if the steady hit rate and Dashing Wilds don’t often produce huge payouts, they do a good job of keeping momentum up.

The strongest potential returns, naturally, come from the Hound Hotel Bonus, where you’ll be hoping the helpful little butler reveals the highest multipliers and as many free spins as possible. As for the best wild feature, they’re fairly close in impact, since each one revolves around creating full-reel wild opportunities. Find the right sweet spot and this pup can deliver wins of up to 2,933 times the stake.

Microgaming found furry brown gold with Hound Hotel. It may not be the biggest or most ferocious Pitbull around, but for feel-good play, a strong bonus round, and plenty of charm, Hound Hotel still stands out as a lasting favourite.