Old Fellow: Slot Overview

The oddly titled slot Old Fellow is the product of a joint effort between Stakelogic and partner studio Hurricane Games. From the name alone, it’s hard to tell what Old Fellow is meant to be. Once you launch it, the idea is clear right away. Old Fellow leans on the familiar mining setting, a theme that slot designers return to time and again. Hurricane hasn’t pushed the concept very far, and the feature set isn’t especially inventive either. The end result is a pleasant enough game, but one that’s easy to forget.

Old Fellow is divided into two settings; one for the base game, which takes place above ground, and another for free spins when things shift below the surface into the mine pit itself. On the surface, you’re looking out over a sunny canyon, with a large lizard basking on the right and gem-filled carts clattering along on the left. The banjo and slide-guitar soundtrack is a strong fit, quietly twanging away and making the chosen theme unmistakable for Stakelogic and Hurricane Games’ Old Fellow.

Running on a 5-reel, 4-row layout, wins are paid when matching symbols connect left to right across one of the 20 fixed paylines. Old Fellow may give players the option to purchase its bonus, although there’s no indication of whether doing so changes the return, which sits at a default theoretical 95.60%. With stakes ranging from 20 c/p to €/$20 per spin, Old Fellow could appeal if you’re into a highly volatile math model paired with the potential for big payouts, as the maximum win is huge.

The standard pay symbols in Old Fellow are as straightforward as they get. The paytable begins with coloured stone 10-A royals, followed by gems in blue, turquoise, yellow, purple, and a large red one. Premium gem symbols pay 20 to 37.5x the bet for five of a kind across a payline. Borrowing a page from Dead or Alive 2, there are reel-specific wilds, each with its own look, but despite the different characters shown, they all function identically. In most cases, that means substituting for all symbols except scatters, and when they form wild-only combinations, they become the top-paying symbol. Land five wilds on a payline, and you collect 1,500x the bet.

Old Fellow: Slot Features

Old Fellow includes two possible routes to boosting payouts. One is the free spins bonus, which activates via enough scatters or through purchase; the other is an optional gamble feature.

Free Spins Bonus Game

When 2, 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols appear on screen, they award 2x, 5x, 25x, or 500x the bet, respectively, along with 12 free spins. Scatter symbols only show up in the base game, so retriggers can’t occur. During the bonus, whenever a wild symbol hits, it becomes sticky and stays put for the remainder of the round. Wilds also gain win multipliers based on how many wild symbols are present on that reel, ranging from x1 to x4. For instance, if a wild is already on reel 2 and another wild lands on the same reel, both wilds receive x2 multipliers. If wilds land on every reel, +5 additional free spins are granted – and this can only occur once.

Gamble Feature

Following any win in the base game or once free spins end, players can choose to gamble their winnings if they want. To gamble, pick the colour of a face-down card for double or nothing, or guess the suit to attempt to quadruple or nothing your payout. If that’s not your thing, the feature can be disabled entirely.

Buy Bonus

If offered, players may spend 100x the total stake to buy free spins. After purchase, at least 3 scatter symbols will land on the next spin, activating the feature along with the corresponding scatter payout.

Old Fellow: Slot Verdict

After essentially mirroring Money Train 2 with their Bandits Thunder Links title, Stakelogic has now made sure to tick another box by also taking cues from Dead or Alive 2 in Old Fellow. It’s not a one-to-one copy, of course, since the setup differs, but much of it will feel familiar.

Old Fellow blends animals, gems, and mining in a way that left us undecided once testing wrapped up. It has a subdued character that doesn’t leave much of an impression, for better or worse. The theme is about as standard as they come, although the number of creatures featured on the wild symbols adds a small touch of personality. The standout point is the tempting 50,000x win cap, which may be enough to make some players stop and give Old Fellow a try. Without that, there isn’t much else to separate it from countless other slots, many of which are more compelling.

The other key draw is the free spins round with sticky wild multipliers. They can certainly deliver when wilds lock into useful spots. Sometimes a few would land early on the first reels and produce a string of repeat wins. Other times, the bonus would drift by with only one or two sticky wilds stuck on the later reels, doing little beyond showing a weathered miner and his wide-eyed companion. Since the base game didn’t offer much excitement, we often leaned on the bonus buy, where outcomes varied wildly, from roughly 5x to 500x the reference bet. So, be prepared for results that can be extremely unpredictable.

On paper, Old Fellow may be capable of remarkable wins, but it doesn’t grab you right away and offers little beyond its large win cap to help it stand out. There’s nothing outright bad about Old Fellow, yet the theme feels recycled, the base game can feel sluggish, and the overall presentation risks seeming a bit cheesy. Old Fellow can deliver, but aside from the win cap there’s no strong hook, and it leans heavily on features seen elsewhere.