Duel of the Dead Megaways

Ever seen the 2012 Western film ‘Django Unchained‘ starring Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio? It seems that someone at Kalamba Games has, and the studio might be hoping players’ memories of Quentin Tarantino’s highest-grossing film to date have dimmed so as not to mark the resemblance. Or perhaps it’s the complete opposite, and the facial recognition will help pull punters in for a ‘draw’. If you spend much time online, it’ll be kind of hard to miss the reference, though, also in part due to the ubiquity of the Leo meme, you know, the one where he’s holding a beverage, breaking out into laughter. One of the Leo memes that is.

Anyhoo, along with cultural references, Duel of the Dead Megaways, as the name suggests, also comes with a shambling zombie horde and a brave gunslinger who’s out to get them. Or try to, at least. Western-themed slots are often set in sleepy one-horse frontier towns, but Duel of the Dead Megaways’ settlement really takes the cake. Tumbleweeds, loose cartwheels, and the general shabbiness of the place make it look like the living population cleared out of this spot a long time ago to let nature claim the area back. And that’s just one side of the screen. The other side depicts a spooky building by a graveyard, so yeah, not a town with a whole lot of swagger left in it. But zombies do play a part in Duel of the Dead Megaways’ gameplay, so it’s not the worst thing in the world when they shuffle on screen.

Duel of the Dead Megaways is a slot that can be played on any device and takes bets of 20 p/c to £/€50 per spin. When betting on single spins, it generates a return to player value of 96.22%, rising to three further levels depending on which bonus buy is activated. Highly volatile, its unusual brand of entertainment takes place on a 6-reel Megaways-driven game panel, creating up to 84,035 ways to win.

For symbols, the game has 10 regular pays, split into five 10-A card royal lows and five character symbol premiums. Wins must start from the leftmost side of the board and carry on over adjacent reels, three at the minimum. Hitting a six-symbol winning way spread across the whole grid pays 0.4 to 0.5 times the bet when made up of card icons or 1 to 5 times the bet for the picture tiles. Wild symbols may appear on reels 2-6 to substitute for all symbols except scatter symbols or Extra Free Spins symbols. However, wilds only appear as a result of a feature called Zombies Go Wild. Here’s how it works.

Duel of the Dead Megaways: Slot Features

The highest value symbol on the paytable is known as the Sheriff symbol. When the Sheriff symbol hits, it triggers the Zombies Go Wild feature. For it, all symbols on reels 2-5 except scatter symbols transform into Zombie symbols and become targets. While the billet counter above the reels is active, the Sheriff may fire her gun. If a Zombie symbol is hit by gunfire, its multiplier increases by +1. When the feature ends, all Zombie symbols with multipliers attached transform into wild symbols bearing the respective multiplier. Keep in mind the multiplier value represents how many wild instances there are – x2 means 2 instances of wilds, for example.

Duel

If, during the Zombies Go Wild feature, a character called Deadeye Bob appears on the rightmost reel, a Duel is triggered. Each time Deadeye Bob is hit during the Duel, up to 3 multipliers are added to random Zombie symbols. The Duel comes to an end when the Sheriff is hit by Deadeye Bob. Then, Deadeye Bob reverts to a wild symbol.

Free Spins

Hitting 3 scatter symbols in the base game triggers the free spins bonus round. While free spins are going, an additional free spin is awarded for each Extra Free Spins symbol landing on reels 1, 3, or 5. If during a Zombies Go Wild feature, the number of wilds in view is higher than the bullet counter above the reels, the counter is updated and saved for the rest of the free spins round.

Buy Bonus

Where available, Duel of the Dead Megaways offers three bonus buy options. These are 5 free spins with guaranteed Zombies Go Wild + Duel for 183x the bet (RTP 96.81%), 5 free spins with guaranteed Zombies go wild for 77x the bet (RTP 96.28%), or 5 free spins with an 80/20 chance of Zombies Go Wild or Duel for 98x the bet (RTP 96.68%).

Duel of the Dead Megaways: Slot Verdict

Western slots might be a dime a dozen, but Kalamba Games has pulled a few tricks out of its sleeve to make Duel of the Dead Megaways one of the more unique specimens. First, there’s the Django Unchained thing. Not sure what the team had in mind there or what its aim was, nor what the film studio’s reaction might be, if any. Kalamba Games has forked off by including an undead element, yet it’s unclear if this will be enough to carve a definitive line between slot and film. Like a movie vampire waiting for sundown, guess we’ll have to be patient in that regard.

What there’s no waiting around to witness is Kalamba Games’ continued unwillingness to churn out cookie-cutter Megaways slots. No, sir, the standard free spins with a rising multiplier with maybe a side extra thrown in for good measure just isn’t on the studios’ to-do list. Time and time again, from Rumble Ratz Megaways, Machina Megaways, Machina Reloaded Megaways to Phat Cats Megaways and now this. All are evidence of a team hitting the whiteboard to spit ball new ideas and do whatever’s necessary to avoid slinging another Bonanza wannabe into the void. Winning potential is a highlight too, where rewards of up to 20,000 times the bet are possible.

All in all, a pretty odd game, really, but odd in a curious way, not a bad one. So if, like Django, you’re ‘curious what makes you so curious’, then it could be worth sizing up Duel of the Dead Zombies’ unusual yet entertaining blend of Ol’ West, undead, and Megaways.