The Winning Dead

The Winning Dead is an online slot that's a very tongue-in-cheek reference to the Walking Dead television show that's about a very dark zombie apocalypse scenario. The idea is that players are trying to survive the zombies with a lot of different weapons and tools, and you're going to be able to take advantage of this to run up some winnings in the process.

Basic Layout

The layout of this game is fairly common, and it uses five reels, three rows and 25 paylines. While this may be the single most common format used for video slots in the modern era, here Arrow's Edge has used it as the backdrop for building up a great, feature-oriented game that has a lot of excitement and a number of ways to get paid.

As is the case with virtually all of their games, Arrow's Edge does not use the typical system of picking out a coin size when determining your bet size. Instead, you actually choose from different available bet sizes per spin. In The Winning Dead, you get to choose from a range that starts at $0.25 per spin and extends all the way up to $250 per spin, which is the equivalent of having coins ranging from $0.01 to $10 apiece. This is a very wide betting range that will appeal to players at all stakes.

Wild Zombie Symbols

The zombie symbol is a wild, and it shows up on the center three reels only. This is a major thing that drives the normal gameplay since picking up at least one in a winning combination will double the size of your win. Multiple zombies do not stack the multipliers, however.

These zombies are also used to trigger a bonus feature. If you pick up three zombies all on the same spin, then you get to choose to spend the night at one of four different locations including a graveyard, a school, a house and an amusement park. You'll have to fight off some zombies, up to five, by eliminating them via pistol shot to the head. Each zombie you successfully defeat will give you a win, and all of your wins are combined and paid out at one time at the end of the feature.

Symbol Set

There are basically two levels of symbols in this game. The top level starts with the man Jackson who pays 5,000x for five of a kind. This can double to the largest jackpot in the game for 10,000x if you use a wild. Anne Belle pays 500x for five of a kind. These two symbols also pay for just two of a kind, and they're the only symbols in the game to do that. You can also pick up 200x for five of a kind in either pistols or chainsaws.

The A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9 symbols round out the pays. A, K, Q and J all pay 150x for five of a kind, and that drops to 100x for the 10 and 9. It's cool to see that there are no payouts lower than 100x for five of a kind.

Scatters and Free Spins

The syringe is the cure to the zombie disease, and it's also the scatter symbol. You'll get paid 100 times your total bet for five of them anywhere on the reels. Other wins include 2x for two, 5x for three and 15x for four. All of these are multiplied by your entire bet size for the spin.

If you pick up three or more of the scatter, then you'll be rewarded with a free spins feature. This is one of the most common online slot features out there, but this one is made a bit different by a 3x multiplier on all of your wins. This combines with the multiplier on the wilds to give you multipliers as high as 6x.

You get 10 free spins at a time, the free spins can be re-triggered, and the zombie shooting bonus feature can be activated during the free spins. It's worth noting that the 3x multiplier from the free spins also extends to the bonus feature winnings, so you can really run up some impressive pays if you trigger the bonus feature from within the free turns.