The Hamsteads seems to be one of those slot machines that takes a dream that people have and celebrates it. In this case Cryptologic has chosen the “white picket fence” dream, with the family with two kids (one boy, the other girl), and made it into a slot machine. It seems to be the typical American family from the suburbs, with the working dad, with the mom taking care of the kids, with toast in the morning and the white fence around the house. The characters are hamsters, turned into humans and dressing accordingly.
With only 9 bet lines and a total of 5 reels for them to appear on, The Hamsteads gives you the impression that it is one of the older slot machines to come out of Cryptologic. There are a couple of decent features inside, such as a bonus game, a scatter and a wild. Payout wise, it does OK, but not great, with $25,000 constituting the top jackpot.
Features of The Hamsteads
It’s not even close to being as feature rich as most of its brothers from Cryptologic, as this slot machine gets you only the two major feature symbols, plus a bonus round.
The first of those two major symbols would be the one that is also capable of triggering the biggest prize of the slot. I’m talking about the wild symbol of course, the one that usually gets this role. With the Dado hamster on it (their name for Dad), the wild’s capability to substitute for other symbols remains the same in this game as in every other title, and even the exception that is the scatter symbol is the same. In order for the Dado wild to award its own prizes, including the top jackpot, you would need it to show up on the same payline with multiple symbols of the same type. When all five positions of a line are taken by wilds, the 5,000 coins of the top jackpot are awarded.
The Toaster symbol is important as well, used as a scatter here. It’s more limited than I expected it to be, mostly because it doesn’t have the same large payouts that this feature offers in other titles. You only get 2x the bet at most here, with its bonus round being its better reward.
Bonus Game
With a minimum of three Toasters present on the screen, you’re getting access to as many as five bonus rounds. With each bonus round, you get to pick various squares out of the 9 displayed, in an effort to match three identical symbols that are hiding behind them. You get the money shown in the Prize box, or the Consolation Prize displayed underneath, if you don’t get the matching icons.
The consolation prize gives you only 2x the bet, while finding the three matching symbols could get you a reward of up to 250x the bet, and this is for each of the five rounds available.
Betting options and jackpots
Placing your bet in The Hamsteads is easy, as the requirement is to activate at least one payline, even if the bet you place on it isn’t worth much. You can start with the lowest denomination of $0.10, and once you get used to it graduate to the larger denominations of up to $5. With 9 lines active, the bets can go up to $45.
You will find that in The Hamsteads, the prizes that can be won will go up to 5,000 coins ($25,000), but that you’re also missing the prizes offered by the scatter in other slots, and that the next best payout is worth only 20% of the jackpot.
Design and symbols
The white picket fence look is a peaceful one, with the house in which the Hamsteads live surrounded by a green lawn, with the fence surrounding it and the family of hamsters making appearances among the symbols. The hamster characters all look cute, though there is no danger of mistaking them for humans. For the most part, when it comes to the images on the symbols you get playing cards from this slot, which is a mistake as far as I’m concerned.
Symbols: Dado (wild, 5,000 coins), Toaster (scatter, 2x the bet), Mumo (1,000 coins), Siso (750 coins), Sono (400 coins), Ace (400 coins), King (300 coins), Queen (150 coins), Jack (100 coins) and 10 (100 coins).
Is It Worth Playing?
It’s not a bad game to play, especially if you have the same dream of a family in the suburbs, with two kids (a boy and a girl, of course). The game’s top payout is not quite big enough to make that dream come true, so maybe you should try a different slot, one that holds a better promise for the future?
This The Hamsteads slot is offered by all online casinos with Cryptologic software, playable either in practice or in real money mode.
