When you consider the visual presentation, it can seem a bit odd. You encounter a large, solitary witches brew pot in the middle of a forest at night, with only a raven for company on the right side. Yggdrasil has done a commendable job with the witch-related symbols, while nocturnal animal sounds and a suspenseful soundtrack amplify the eerie atmosphere. The base game revolves around enlarging the grid through the use of upward-pointing arrow symbols. Filling out the grid to 5×7 reels with 16,807 ways to win activates the Wild Respin feature. This can result in substantial base game earnings, although often you only receive top-up wins. The potential to win 10,114x can be achieved from a single streak respin in the bonus round, as cash symbols up to 5,000x are possible in up to five winning positions. The high-value symbols pay between 1.5 and 10x your bet for five of a kind wins, and the toadstool Wild substitutes regular pay symbols to complete wins. The arrow symbol increases the grid size by +1 row for each symbol, with up to seven rows possible. The grid can thus expand to 16,807 ways to win. Each added row may reveal a new arrow symbol, and if you accumulate four arrow symbols in the same sequence, the Wild Respin feature is activated. You get new respins as long as you continue winning, and the wild symbol can only appear during this feature. Wilds occasionally appear in stacks up to three rows high, and everything resets when you land a non-winning spin. The Rising Reels Bonus Round is triggered when you land three or four scatter symbols anywhere in view, awarding a 10x or 100x scatter payout up front. It’s a streak respins style feature played out on a 5×7 grid. You can only land blanks, cash, or win symbols, and cash symbols come with values of 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x, 25x, and 50x. Win symbols come with values of 100x, 200x, 500x, 1,000x, or 5,000x your bet. You only win when money symbols land inside the highlighted middle row frame. You start with three spins, and the count resets for each win. The total win is summed up and paid when you run out of spins, and the feature comes with a 5x win guarantee. If your total win is below this limit, the feature continues until it isn’t. Non-UK players and anyone eligible can buy the bonus round for 50x the total bet. You can see the base game features in action occasionally before we purchase the bonus round 1:25 into the 2:53-minute highlight video. As far as we know, there’s only one boiling pot in this game, making the title a bit misleading. Not a huge issue, but worth noting. The extra rows didn’t seem to have a significant effect unless you activated the Wild Respin feature. This is likely due to our limited number of test spins and Yggdrasil’s ‘super high volatility’ rating. With up to 16,807 ways to win, you can potentially win 10,114x from a single rising reels sequence. It’s quite exciting when a mix of wilds are introduced as the respins continue to award consecutive wins. However, the game’s pace is somewhat slow, even with turbo mode on. The 5×7 bonus round grid seems wasted since only the middle row counts, and it’s frustrating to see symbols that will never be of use. The Magic Cauldron by Pragmatic Play, Wild Cauldron by Quickspin, and Golden Elixir by Half Pixel Studio (Microgaming partner) are similar games filled with potions and elixirs that offer unique modifiers, reverse tumble win features, and random stacked wilds.
