Three elephants, and the game stops to ask you a question. The free games open to a choice screen, and your choice sets both the length of the feature and the multiplier applied to every win within it. Take 20 spins at 2x if you want the round to last. Take 5 spins at 10x if you’d rather it hit hard and finish early. Eyecon built most of its catalogue on 25 fixed lines and free games the machine hands out; this savannah slot uses 243 ways and lets the player set the variance instead. Retrigger it, and the same question comes round again.
Any three or more scattered elephants trigger the Free Games Bonus Feature, and the screen that follows offers five ways to spend it: 20 free games with every win multiplied by 2x, 15 at 3x, 10 at 4x, 8 at 5x, or 5 at 10x. Trigger the feature again within the round, and you choose once more, with a counter above the reels tracking how many triggers are left and a hard stop at 15. Every free game is played at the bet that started the feature, so nothing but your own pick separates one version of the round from another.
The Sun stands in for every symbol except the elephant, and it only appears on reels 2, 3, and 4. On a ways board, that placement does real work. Runs are counted from reel 1, so the Sun can lengthen a run or fill a gap in the middle of one, and it can never begin one. It carries no pay itself, either, which keeps it useful without making it a target.
The elephant counts from any position on the reels. Three return 5x, four return 10x, and five return 50x; the game adds only the largest of those wins to what the ways paid. That 50x for five in a row beats any animal way on the board, which is unusual for a game with a lion in it. The symbol that pays you is also the symbol that opens the choice screen, so a trigger is never a consolation.
The reels are on cracked earth under an orange sky, with 243 WAYS running down banners on both sides. Lion, cheetah, rhino, and buffalo are painted in an almost photorealistic style, while the royals are flat-coloured letters on stone.
It’s the most restrained art in the Eyecon catalogue, closer to a cabinet game than to the plush toy boxes the studio is known for, and the sound follows suit. Small wins get no fanfare here, which suits a demo where plenty of spins pay nothing.
Matching symbols pay from the leftmost reel in any position, provided they land on adjacent reels, and the game counts every combination that makes. Three buffalo on reels 1, 2, and 3 pay whether they are top, middle, or bottom, and two buffalo on reel 1 with one on each of the next two reels pay twice over. Each way pays its highest win only, and the game totals every way that lands. Anyone who has played Burning Chilli 243 will know the counting; what changes here is that every value is measured against the total bet rather than a wager per line.
The demo returns 95.25%. Stampede is outside the 25-line engine behind most of Eyecon’s older games, using 243 ways rather than fixed lines, measuring every pay against the total bet rather than a per-line wager, and letting the player configure the feature at the trigger. The retrigger cap of 15 is the one rule it kept from that shell. Free play makes the maths easy to follow, because a 4x win is a 4x win whatever you’re staking.
Nothing in the rules names a maximum win, and the largest single figure on the sheet belongs to the elephant at 50x for five in a row. The animals step down from the lion’s 40x to the buffalo’s 20x, and then the six royals bunch so tightly that A and K share a five-symbol pay while Q and J share another. No symbol pays from two, so every win starts at three. The scatter row counts differently, since elephants pay from any position and only the highest of those wins joins the way wins.
| Symbol | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lion | 2x | 4x | 40x |
| Cheetah | 1.4x | 4x | 32x |
| Rhino | 1.2x | 4x | 20x |
| Buffalo | 0.8x | 2x | 20x |
| A | 0.4x | 1.2x | 8x |
| K | 0.4x | 0.8x | 8x |
| Q | 0.4x | 0.6x | 6x |
| J | 0.4x | 0.6x | 6x |
| 10 | 0.2x | 0.6x | 4x |
| 9 | 0.2x | 0.4x | 4x |
| Elephant (scatter) | 5x | 10x | 50x |
Stampede is the Eyecon classic that lets the player set the terms of its feature. The board underneath is thin, with a 40x top way and no pay from two symbols, but five free games options and a fresh pick on every retrigger give one feature five personalities. The idea earns the score more than the sheet does.
Eyecon spent a decade making 25-line games with plush animals and free spins the machine handed out. Stampede, released in December 2016, is the one that stepped away. It uses 243 ways, measures everything against the total bet, and turns the feature into a menu. Everything behind the front end, from the retrigger cap to the info screen layout, is standard Eyecon.
That menu is what a review of this game has to weigh. Take 20 spins at 2x, and the feature is a long, mild extension of normal play. Take 5 at 10x, and it becomes one short window where a single four-animal hit is worth having. The three middle options are between those, and none of them is wrong, because the choice is about temperament rather than value. Choosing again on every retrigger turns a deep feature into a run of decisions rather than a single award, and the counter above the reels keeps score while you make them.
Eyecon rates the game high, and the sheet supports that. Five lions return 40x the total bet, four return 4x, and three return 2x, so almost all of the value hides on the fifth reel. The royals are flatter still, with three A worth 0.4x and five worth 8x. No symbol pays from two, the substitute reaches only the middle three reels, and the base game does very little between features. A 95.25% return has to come from somewhere, and here it is, in the free games. High is the honest label for that shape.
The case against it is the board. A 40x top way is modest for a 5-reel ways game; the Sun never reaches reel 1 or reel 5, and 95.25% is ordinary for the format. Long stretches pay nothing, and the best version of this game, a chain of retriggers with a fresh pick each time, is something plenty of sessions never reach. Strip out the choice screen, and what’s left is a plain savannah slot with a thin sheet.
What makes it worth an hour is a comparison you can run yourself. Take a different option at each trigger, and the same 243 ways behave like five different games. In the demo, that test costs nothing. Players who want the savannah without the decision have Safari Wonders. Anyone who likes being asked won’t find Eyecon asking anywhere else in this line.
