Old Gun: Slot Overview

The scatter-paying win setup still has a powerful hold on slot developers, and it’s easy to see why. Hacksaw Gaming partner Backseat Gaming is back for another run at the scatter pays formula with the Wild Western release Old Gun. The title might sound a little downbeat. It conjures up images of a worn-out, rusty firearm abandoned in the corner of a frontier cabin, long past its prime. Thankfully, Old Gun the slot can still fire off plenty of action, helped by accumulating multiplier values and two free spins bonus rounds with different fuse lengths.

When it comes to theme, Backseat Gaming follows the classic Wild West playbook almost to the letter in Old Gun’s setting. In the base game, you’re squaring up to Dynamite Dave in a dusty, tumbleweed-swept town in the middle of nowhere. Weathered buildings sit along the “street,” if it deserves the name, while the sun hammers down like a blacksmith’s blow – with unlucky visitors taking the impact. Dave doesn’t help the mood either. Anyone hovering their hands over their pistols like that is trouble, so you’ll want lightning reflexes… or fast legs.

Old Gun plays out on a 6-reel, 5-row grid, and wins land when at least 8 matching symbols appear. Matches can show up anywhere on the matrix; they don’t need to connect or follow paylines. Volatility sits at medium-high (rated 4 out of 5), the top RTP is 96.29%, and bets run from 10 c to $/€100, with plenty of steps between.

There are five slightly odd-looking gems acting as the low-pay symbols, while the four higher-value icons fit the theme – bottles, hats, badges, and bullets. When 8 matching symbols connect, payouts range from 0.1 to 1.5 times the stake, and 19+ OAK combinations return 50x to 300x. Old Gun also skips wild symbols entirely.

Old Gun: Slot Features

In Old Gun, every win is shown in a total win bar above the reels and then paid once the spin is complete. Winning symbols are removed, allowing new ones to fall into the cleared spaces. If the drop creates another winning hit, the tumble process repeats.

Dynamite Symbols

Dynamite symbols act as multiplier symbols and are collected by the total win bar once the reels have finished and no further wins are forming. If more than one Dynamite symbol triggers together, their values are added together on the total win bar. The combined total of collected Dynamite multipliers is applied to the overall win amount before it’s paid. Dynamite symbols can be worth x2 to x200 and only activate when there is at least one winning combination on the reels.

Fire In The Hole!

This feature can trigger randomly during the base game. When it does, the values on any landed Dynamite symbols are increased according to the progression ladder used in the bonus games.

Dynamite Dave’s Long Fuse

Land 4 scatter symbols in the base game to trigger 10 free Dynamite Dave’s Long Fuse spins. During the bonus, a progression ladder boosts the minimum possible Dynamite symbol value. The ladder includes 5 levels, and you move up by collecting scatter symbols. Each time you reach a new level, you gain an extra +5 free spins:

• Level 0 – unlocked at the start, x2 minimum multiplier value.
• Level 1 – unlocked by collecting 2 additional scatter symbols, x5 minimum multiplier value.
• Level 2 – unlocked by collecting 3 additional scatter symbols, x10 minimum multiplier value.
• Level 3 – unlocked by collecting 3 additional scatter symbols, x25 minimum multiplier value.
• Level 4 – unlocked by collecting 5 additional scatter symbols, x100 minimum multiplier value.

Dynamite Dave’s Short Fuse

Landing 5 scatters in the base game awards 10 free Dynamite Dave’s Short Fuse spins. The Short Fuse bonus follows the same rules as the Long Fuse version, except players may start on Level 1, 2, 3, or 4.

Buy Bonus

If you’d rather not wait around for the action, there’s a paid shortcut. From the bonus buy menu, you can trigger the following:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins – 2x the bet, each spin is 3 times more likely to trigger a bonus game.
• Dynamite FeatureSpins – 15x the bet, each spin is guaranteed to land at least 1 Dynamite symbol with an x2 to x25 multiplier.
• Explosive FeatureSpins – 50x the bet, each spin is guaranteed to land at least 1 Dynamite symbol with an x25 to x100 multiplier.
• Dynamite Dave’s Long Fuse – 100x the bet.
• Dynamite Dave’s Short Fuse – 200x the bet.

Old Gun: Slot Verdict

Old Gun isn’t Backseat Gaming’s first attempt at a scatter pays slot – that distinction goes to Pirate Bonanza, which shares a couple of faint similarities with this release. Still, Old Gun feels closer in style to Hacksaw Gaming’s Joker Bombs, with a subtle pulse of the scatter pays heavyweight Gates of Olympus in the mix. Backseat has made sure there are enough differences to separate it from Joker Bombs, though. For one, the Dynamite symbol multipliers can reach much higher values – up to x200 versus Joker Bombs topping out at x50 – but there are no multiplying multis here. Another major factor is Old Gun’s minimum multiplier ladder, and as with any ladder-driven mechanic, hitting the top can put you in a very happy place.

That’s because at the highest level, every Dynamite symbol is set to reveal either an x100 or the legendary x200. Getting there likely won’t be straightforward, and Old Gun doesn’t play gently in general. Bonus buys can be rough on the bankroll, and even though FeatureSpins guarantee at least one Dynamite symbol, they definitely don’t guarantee a payout. Still, Backseat Gaming seems to have taken notes from its Hacksaw Gaming ally, because Old Gun is fully capable of unleashing hefty bursts of wins when big symbol hits line up with strong multipliers.

In fact, a maximum of 12,500x the bet is possible across all game modes, and it’s easy enough to imagine how that could, in theory, come together. It’s just as easy to picture Dynamite Dave turning you into target practice, given the dry, rutted path Old Gun can send players down on the way to either rewards or ruin.