Circle of Life Demo (Hacksaw Gaming) Slot Demo & Review

Game Overview

Circle of Life is a 5×4 video slot from Hacksaw Gaming, built around a unique looking monochrome theme, and with a “grow-and-gamble” mechanic that sits somewhere between expanding wild respins and push-your-luck multiplier building. It may look calm, but Circle of Life is highly volatile and offers a maximum win potential of up to 15,000x! Is it any good? Let’s find out.

Theme & Design

From the moment you load Circle of Life, you’ll see that it’s unmistakably Hacksaw. The entire game is rendered in black and white, giving the reels a gothic, carved-stone appearance, and the reels themselves sit within what looks to be a stained glass window; it’s unique, detailed, and pretty impressive, visually.

Of course, it’s not the first time that we’ve seen black and white/unusual colour schemes used by Hacksaw Gaming. Slots like The Count and Toshi Ways Club both do away with conventional graphics to present something different, and while these games don’t appeal to everyone, there’s no denying the fact they look good and are creative!

Circle of Life Gameplay & Bonus Features

Circle of Life is played on a five-reel, four-row layout with 14 fixed paylines. You can stake between €0.10 and €50 per spin, and the game offers a default RTP of 96.33%.

Now, the gameplay revolves very heavily around the Tree of Life Wild symbol. When it forms part of a win, it triggers a respin, and the tree grows upward one tile at a time. Respins continue for as long as you keep landing winning combinations, and if the tree reaches the top of the reel, you unlock the game’s signature main mechanic, the Circle of Life wheel.

Once triggered, you’ll see a wheel appear and spin. This awards either a multiplier boost or a skull. Booster values can add to, or multiply, the tree’s existing multiplier, and you simply get to keep spinning the wheel until you land on a skull. The longer you manage to spin without hitting a skull, the higher the multiplier, which is then multiplied against your stake to determine your final win.

Circle of Life also contains a free spins bonus triggered by landing 3, 4, or 5 of the scatter symbols anywhere in view. Instead of a set number of free spins being awarded, however, each scatter expands, fills the reel it lands on, and then reveals a number. Your total free spins are the sum of all revealed values.

Like most Hacksaw Gaming slots, there are three different free spins modes depending on the number of scatters landed:

• Origin Free Spins (3 Scatters): Awards a minimum of 10 free spins with Sticky Trees that lock for the duration of the feature.
• Eternal Free Spins (4 Scatters): Awards a minimum of 15 free spins, and “Activated reels” guarantee a Tree symbol on every spin.
• Rebirth (5 Scatters): The game’s “hidden bonus” that awards a minimum of 20 free spins. On every spin, reels 2 and 4 are activated from the start.

Bonus Buy / FeatureSpins

Circle of Life contains four Bonus Buy/FeatureSpins options:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins (5x bet): Makes it 5x more likely that you’ll trigger a bonus round.
• Life or Death FeatureSpins (70x bet): Guarantees at least 2 tree symbols on every spin.
• Origin Bonus Buy (100x): Awards at least 10 free spins with sticky Tree of Life symbols.
• Eternal Bonus Buy (300x): Awards at least 15 free spins with activated reels that guarantee a Tree symbol on every spin.