Wilds only land on the 3 middle reels of The Dog House Royal Hunt slot, and each one shows a number when it hits — 2x or 3x in regular spins, added together when 2 of them help one line. During free spins, they lock in place and hold that figure until the round finishes. Pay 500x and the Royal free spins deal the same dog houses stamped 10x or 20x instead. One bonus round, one 3×3 grid deciding the spins, and only the number under the roof changes.
The dog house is the wild, and it drops on reels 2, 3 and 4. The kennel stands in for all symbols but the paw print. Each one carries a multiplier of 2x or 3x, and wilds that land together on one reel always match, though stickies from different spins can differ. Where 2 of them feed a payline, their multipliers are summed. Two 2x kennels make a line 4x, which is how a $1.25 win on line 6 came back as $5.00 at our $1 stake. A 2x beside a 3x makes it 5x, not 6x, because the game adds them rather than multiplying.
The paw prints keep to reels 1, 3 and 5. 3 at once pay 5 times your total bet on the spot and open the free spins. Come up one paw shy, and the game will sometimes do it for you. Land paws on reels 1 and 3 with a row of space beneath them, and both slide a position lower while reels 2, 4 and 5 spin again to hunt for the third. It fires at random, and it is the one thing here that shortens the odds free of charge.
Before the round starts, the game takes you inside the kennel, where the crowned bulldog sits on a rug, working a lever while 9 barrels turn in a 3×3 grid. Every barrel lands on 1, 2 or 3, the 9 figures are totted up, and that sum is your round. The minimum number of free spins it grants is 9, and the maximum is 27.
The bulldog works the lever for show. Every barrel that stops on a 1 is 2 spins the round will never have.
Special reels come in for the round, and any wild that appears on reels 2, 3, or 4 sticks where it falls. Its multiplier is revealed as it lands and stays put, so a kennel arriving on spin 1 feeds every win the round produces afterwards. The paws leave the reel set for the duration, which is why no round here can be retriggered. Whatever the barrels hand you is what you finish with.
Two buy panels hang beside the reels, priced at 100x and 500x your stake. The cheaper one triggers the free spins for you, with 3 paws guaranteed on the buying spin. The dearer one opens Royal free spins, an identical round with one huge upgrade. No run of royal luck on the reels will produce it. The paws cannot deal it, however they land.
20 fixed lines cross the 5×3 grid, and a line pays when its symbols run from reel 1 rightwards with no gaps. Each line settles at its highest combination, and every winning line goes into the total. A combination has to start on reel 1, where the wild does not appear, so a kennel can complete a win but cannot open one.
We played at $1 throughout, low in a range that climbs from $0.20 to $240. Turbo spins are available, autoplay has its own controls, and the settings split ambient music and reel sounds into their own toggles. The cap is 8,000x the bet. Reach it during a round and the round stops there, the win is awarded, and any free spins still owed are lost.
| Symbol | 5 | 4 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crowned bulldog | $37.50 | $7.50 | $2.50 |
| Beagle in tweed | $25.00 | $5.00 | $1.75 |
| Terrier in a top hat | $15.00 | $3.00 | $1.25 |
| Pug in a cape | $10.00 | $2.00 | $1.00 |
| Collar | $7.50 | $1.25 | $0.60 |
| Teacup of biscuits | $5.00 | $1.00 | $0.40 |
| A and K | $2.50 | $0.50 | $0.25 |
| Q, J and 10 | $1.25 | $0.25 | $0.10 |
Line values are shown at our $1 stake, and free play runs the identical paytable. The game returns 96.53% on ordinary spins and 96.51% through either buy, with all 5 bolts lit on its volatility meter.
Royal Hunt looks like the series in fancy dress, and for the bonus you can trigger, it is exactly that. Pay for the Royal round and the same reels become a different game, because in this series the multiplier a wild carries is the game. The score comes down to that one figure, and the earned round caps it at 2x or 3x. On the reels, it's a plain 20-line dog game. Pay 500x and it becomes the one Pragmatic put on the poster.
Three paws opened the bonus the honest way, paid their 5x, and the barrels awarded 17 free spins. One kennel locked in early at 2x, and then the reels went quiet on the symbol this round is built around. The other 3 turned up in the closing spins, all of them 2x, and the wins jumped the moment they did, with the round almost gone. $21.30 came back. That is what an earned Royal Hunt bonus can look like, and without a buy in, it is the one a demo player meets first.
We paid the $500 and took the Royal version, where the barrels turned meaner and gave us 11. It made no difference. Two kennels landed on the opening spin at 20x apiece, the game bellowed SENSATIONAL, and the spin returned $124. A 10x kennel joined them, then a second, and by the end, reels 2 and 3 each carried a 20x above a 10x, so the top line was worth 40x and the row beneath it 20x. One spin brought in $786, and 11 spins closed at $2,323.10. That pair on spin 1 is about the best opening the round can give you, and a colder set of wilds could have left it short of the buy-in. 500x guarantees the round, not the kennels inside it.
Ordinary spins pay steadily. The 20 lines and 3 wild reels bring in $2 and $5 wins at a decent rate, the dogs bounce in their frames as they pay, and the meadow behind the reels features rabbits, birds and moving leaves below a fairytale castle. Then the anthem strikes up again. Pragmatic has scored a cartoon dog game with God Save the King, and it comes around far more often than it should. We turned off the ambient track inside 10 minutes and kept the sound effects for the bounce and the birdsong, then lost those as well when the bonus let loose a yapping dog that would not stop. That the settings menu splits music from effects at all suggests somebody at Pragmatic saw this coming.
Our review rates The Dog House at 3.5/5 and The Dog House Megaways at 4/5, and Royal Hunt lands between them. The 2019 game tops out at 6,750x and has one way in, so this is that game plus a nudge that hunts down the third paw and a second floor on the buy menu. Megaways answers with 117,649 ways, a choice of Sticky or Raining wilds every time its bonus lands, and multipliers that multiply each other instead of adding, and 100x is all it asks to get in. Royal Hunt’s own 100x buy hands you the plain round, while the kennels you actually want cost 500x.
