Introduction to Dusk Princess
Dusk Princess is a casino slot from Hacksaw Gaming, adding a fourth member to the studio's team of royal enchantresses. It seems like the creators have really embraced the Anime design style in recent years, giving us such captivating games as Sun Princess, Rainbow Princess, and Cloud Princess in a span of barely twelve months. This time, the magical world you'll land in balances on the verge of night and day, during that brief moment when the sunlight starts making room for the inevitable darkness. While traversing this ethereal realm, you'll need to form as many cluster wins as you can during a single sequence to fill up the Blessing Bar that will grace you with Multiplier Wilds. Three increasingly more powerful bonus rounds will elevate the feature further, by upgrading either the number of Wilds or the multiplier on every meter completion.
The game's demo mode, available at the top of the page, will let you explore the mechanics risk-free and get familiar with the features before trying your luck with real money.
Theme, Gameplay & Payouts
Dusk Princess is a video slot from Hacksaw Gaming with 6 reels, 5 rows, and a cluster-pays win system, requiring 5 or more matching symbols to land vertically and/or horizontally adjacent. You can choose your stake from a range of options, starting from a Min.bet of 0.1, which makes the game particularly affordable, up to a Max.bet of 100. The math profile runs on a default RTP of 96.21%, which is in line with the industry standards, although several alternative variants of 94.42%, 92.30%, and 86.10% are also released, so make sure to check the version you're playing. You can expect an even average balance between the more frequent smaller wins and occasional big hits due to medium volatility, while the max win available on any single round is 10,000x the bet. The base hit frequency sits at a generous rate of 40.4%.
The twilight world of Dusk Princess balances on the elusive line between day and night, while the celestial hostess weaves her magic on the reels. Her subtle figure, dressed in a subtle, elegant outfit, hovers next to the panel, ready to grace any spin with her divine blessings. In the distance, surrounded by puffy clouds and illuminated by the last sunrays of the day, a majestic castle levitates high above the ground, most likely the princess's dwelling. The overall soft, clean design, combined with an emotional, uplifting soundtrack, creates an irresistibly relaxing atmosphere. If you're ready to rise into the skies and start spinning, the game is available on most modern devices, so you can play it on any desktop, smartphone, or tablet.
Winning combinations must contain at least 5 matching symbols forming a cluster by landing vertically and/or horizontally adjacent to each other. The paytable hierarchy contains two groups of paying icons, with the low-paying ones represented by gems in various shapes and colours, awarding from 5x to 10x the bet for sets of 18 or more matching instances. High-paying symbols comprise pictures of a candle, a pair of cards, a teapot, a fan, and a tiara. They bring payouts of between 50x and 150x the bet when scoring a cluster of 18+ identical units. Wilds are represented by a letter 'W' in a white-blue square, and they substitute for all regular symbols mentioned above, while FS Scatters take the form of the Dusk Princess's portrait.
Special Features & Slot Mechanics
What is the max win in the slot Dusk Princess?
You can win up to 10,000x the bet.
What features are available in the slot Dusk Princess?
The features are Super Cascades, Blessing Bar, The Dusk Court Bonus, The Lunar Court Bonus, The Night Court Hidden Epic Bonus, and Feature Buy.
Super Cascades
Every winning cluster will burst and disappear from the grid along with any matching symbols anywhere else in view. Next, all remaining symbols will fall down to available spaces, and new icons will populate the area to complete the view and potentially award further hits. The sequence continues until no new wins can be obtained.
Blessing Bar
The Blessing Bar sits above the playing panel and tracks the number of winning symbols during each sequence. Once filled, it will release 3 Wilds with random multipliers onto random positions of the grid. Any combination containing said Wilds will benefit from a sum of their multipliers. Consecutive activations of the Blessing Bar within the same game round (or throughout bonus rounds) increase either the number of awarded Wilds or increment their multiplier by a factor of x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, x25, x50, x100, x250, or x500.
The Dusk Court Bonus
Landing 3 FS Scatters anywhere on the grid during a base game spin awards 10 free spins. All primary mechanics are maintained here, but the progress of increasing the number of Wilds and their multipliers in the Blessing Bar is persistent throughout the round. Plus, there's a better chance of getting higher values when triggering the upgrade.
The Lunar Court Bonus
With 4 FS Scatters ending up in view at the end of a base game spin, you gain access to 10 free spins, which behave identically to the previous mode. However, the starting number of awarded Wilds is 4, and the starting multiplier is x5.
The Night Court Hidden Epic Bonus
The most powerful bonus variant requires you to land 5 FS Scatters in a single base game sequence. Again, mechanics remain the same, but the Blessing Bar is constantly active, guaranteeing upgrades on every spin. Also, the starting number of Wilds is 6, and the multiplier is x10.
Feature Buy
If you don't wish to chase after specific symbol combinations in the base game, you can make use of the Buy Bonus menu, where certain functions of the game can be triggered instantly for a fixed price that scales with your current bet.
3x = Bonushunt Featurespins with a 5 times better chance to activate a bonus game.
50x = Blessed Featurespins, guaranteeing a full Blessing Bar at the beginning of a spin.
65x = The Dusk Court Bonus with 10 free spins.
250x = The Lunar Court Bonus with 10 free spins.
Final Thoughts on Dusk Princess
Hacksaw Gaming has shown us several times already that they can pull off a classy Anime setting with a magical atmosphere delivered through subtle yet decisive design. Previous princesses, along with Aiko and the Wind Spirit, prove beyond any doubt that the studio understands what this genre is all about. In Dusk Princess, you can once more submerge yourself in the immaterial world governed by the forces of nature, empowered by magic, where it's surprisingly easy to forget about the surrounding reality. The game combines a massively captivating soundtrack with delicate, almost unicolor graphics that charge the setting with an aura of serenity and peace.
Even though the series began with a scatter-pays mechanism in Cloud Princess, all the following instalments involve the cluster-paying system, and so does Dusk Princess. The assisting features brought by the youngest (for now) member of the family feel like the most straightforward yet, although that doesn't mean they can't work some proper magic on the reels. Quite the contrary. And while Wilds charged with multipliers seem like one of the most unoriginal features a studio could use, combining them with a meter that allows for upgrading them consistently throughout a single sequence does add some flair. In the base game, it obviously requires plenty of effort to build up some solid values, especially for Wilds, which grow by 1 with every meter activation, although multipliers can have massive increments, even up to x500, making it possible to get stunning values even after a single fill. The function becomes particularly potent during all three bonus rounds, where the meter does not reset between spins, allowing for continuous accumulation. Hence, while seemingly simple, the whole setup has been cleverly designed to progressively increase its attractiveness throughout the game stages.
Dusk Princess is another elegant addition to the anime-style series with straightforward gameplay and a charming, ethereal theme.
