Savanna Stampede Megaways: Fill the Watering Hole, Turn the Herd Wild

Sunset on the savanna

Mika the meerkat stands on a rock with his arms in the air, binoculars round his neck, while giraffes, zebras, a rhino and an elephant wait under an orange sky. Savanna Stampede Megaways keeps that warm palette on the reels, and when a win lands, a golden dust storm with running animal silhouettes sweeps over the board. The game comes from Nocturn Play and runs on a six-reel ways engine where the shape of the reels changes every spin.

Up to 117,649 ways

Each spin, every reel shows between two and seven symbols. Reels two to five get two to six on the main reel, plus one cell from a horizontal top reel sitting above them. The number of ways therefore shifts from spin to spin, up to 117,649. Symbols pay on adjacent reels starting from the leftmost reel, for three, four, five or six of a kind, and the ways are the product of matching symbols on each reel.

The big five lead the paytable: lion, rhino, elephant, giraffe and zebra. The lower symbols are a djembe, beads, a calabash and a sun amulet. The wild appears on reels two to five and on the top reel, and stands in for everything except the baobab and the water drop. After a win, winners burst, the rest fall, new symbols drop in, and the top reel slides to the left.

The watering hole

This is the mechanic to watch. Water drops land only on the top reel, and each one fills a step of the watering hole gauge. There are five steps and the gauge is kept between spins, so progress builds up across a session. When it is full, the herd comes to drink: every symbol of one animal type on the board turns wild for that spin, then the gauge empties. Seeing a reel set full of lions suddenly go wild is the moment the game is built around.

Free spins with a multiplier that never resets

Four, five or six baobab scatters award 10, 12 or 15 free spins. The win multiplier starts at ×1 and grows by +1 after every winning cascade, with no reset until the feature ends. Free spins have their own watering-hole gauge, and three or more baobabs during the feature add five spins. A single round is capped at 10,000 times the bet.

The bonus buy takes you straight to 12 free spins for 95.5 times the bet. In the Savanna Stampede Megaways demo, that costs virtual credits only.

How to use the free demo well

• Play 150 to 200 base spins at a low stake and watch the gauge; because it carries over, you need a decent run to see the herd turn wild more than once.
• Keep an eye on the ways counter, as it explains why two similar-looking spins pay very differently.
• Buy the feature a handful of times, for instance at the equivalent of £1, and follow how high the multiplier climbs.

You can play Savanna Stampede Megaways free on a phone or a computer, with no sign-up and nothing to download. The same game runs for real money at the casinos listed below.