The Dog House – Dog or Alive

Things look exactly like you’d expect in The Dog House – Dog or Alive, as we find ourselves outside in the middle of a western town. This team are seldom concerned with giving us out-of-the-box themes and intricate storylines; instead, they focus on bright, fun and friendly gaming, and this release ticks every one of those boxes.

Bright blue skies dotted with white fluffy clouds are visible in the background, whilst some classic western buildings are visible to either side of the reels – including a bank over to the left hand side. Other than that our attention is given to the wooden reels with lanterns hanging from them, upon which we find our friends from previous releases in this series, made over to look a bit more cowboy. It’s all finished off with the same soundtrack we know and love, tweaked to fit with the new theme, mostly through banjos.

The Dog House – Dog or Alive Base Features

Taking place across 5 reels, wins are formed on The Dog House – Dog or Alive by matching at least 3 symbols on adjacent reels, beginning with the leftmost reel, across 1 of 20 fixed win lines. Symbols available begin with non premiums, with 10s, Js, Qs, Ks and As, awarding wins between 0.10 and 0.25x bet for 3 of a kind matches, increasing to values between 1.25 and 2.50x bet for 5 of a kind wins.

In the mid-range we have bones and collars, awarding wins of 0.40 and 0.60x bet respectively for 3 of a kind matches, increasing to values of 5 and 7.50x bet respectively for 5 of a kind wins. Premiums consist of four dogs – a Dachshund, a Pug, a Maltese and a Rottweiler. Land 3 of a kind of any premium to see wins between 1 and 2.50x bet, increasing to values between 10 and 37.50x bet for 5 of a kind matches.

Wild Symbols

Much like most of the other releases in this series, the standout feature in The Dog House – Dog or Alive is Wild symbols, which substitute for all symbols except Bonus symbols.

Wild symbols can land on reels 2, 3 or 4 and when they do they will gain a random multiplier of x2 or x3.

This multiplier is applied to every winning combination the Wild symbol is part of.

If more than one Wild symbol is used in a winning combination, their values are added together before being applied.

The Dog House – Dog or Alive Bonus

Bonus symbols can only appear on reels 1, 3 and 5.

When 3 land in view, Free Spins are awarded alongside a cash win of 5x bet.

Before Free Spins begin, players are taken to a screen with barrels, each of which can reveal between 1 and 3 spins, awarding a total number of spins between 9 and 27.

During Free Spins, all multiplier Wild symbols that land on reels 2-4 will stick on the reels for the duration of spins.

Each time 3 new Wild symbols have landed, an additional +3 spins are awarded – this can happen a maximum of 3 times.

Alongside this, when additional spins are awarded the multiplier value of all Sticky Wild symbols will double.

Buy Free Spins

Players in appropriate regions can skip straight to the action with the option to Buy Free Spins, wherein for a cost of 100x bet in total, 3 Bonus symbols are guaranteed to land.

In the 96.52% setting, RTP will increase to 96.54% when using Buy Free Spins.

The maximum win available in The Dog House – Dog or Alive is 10,000x bet. If the sum of a single game round exceeds this, the game round will end and 10,000x bet will be awarded.

First Impression

There haven’t been a great deal of changes made in The Dog House – Dog or Alive, but those that do exist do their job of keeping things exciting. In the base game, it’s Wild symbols with guaranteed multipliers of x2 or x3 that carry the bulk of the weight.

In Free Spins, these Wild symbols become Sticky Wilds that retain their multipliers for the duration of spins, which certainly helps to kick things up a notch. The new feature is that for every third Sticky Wild collected, additional spins are awarded and all Sticky Wild multiplier values are doubled. Knowing this, it’s easy to see how wins are possible up to 10,000x bet.

Finally, maths is highly (5/5) volatile and RTP options are available up to 96.52% (96.54% feature buy), so as always it’s worth checking this. There’s ins’t much more to say on this one; character recognition, simple mechanics and impressive stats will be most of what makes it appealing to a variety of players.