When I was learning about film in university, I was often bored with the films that my professors swooned about. They were slow and obsessively complex. However, in film noir, I found reprieve. I loved the dramatic lighting, which was one of the most identifiable elements of the genre, and who doesn’t love a good detective story? Most importantly, it gave me a chance to use Batman as a case study, specifically Batman: The Animated Series. If you haven’t seen it in a while, go back and watch it – it’s shockingly good!

So, what has this all got to do with a slot from Evoplay? Well, Rumble in the Shadows slot is a detective story that incorporates a few film noir elements. So, it should have been a slam dunk for me.

Are you ready to rumble?

Rumble in the Shadows slot features five reels and twenty paylines. The slot features four high-paying symbols (although only three appear in the base game), five low symbols, and a free spins symbol. Additionally, the four high-paying symbols can also be transformed into three-reel-high expanding wilds.

While the reels are spinning, a searchlight will hop from symbol to symbol. If the searchlight stops on a high-paying symbol, it will trigger the Wild Hunt feature. When that happens, all instances of the selected symbol will be transformed into an expanding wild symbol.

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The slot’s free spins feature can only appear on reels one, three, and five. Three or more of the symbols will trigger a round of eight free spins. During a round of free spins, the lady boss high-paying symbol can appear. If this symbol is transformed into an expanding wild, it will apply a 2x multiplier to any winning combination it is involved in.

Is Rumble in the Shadows slot the hero or the villain?

Rumble in the Shadows slot offers medium to high volatility, which gives the gameplay a balance between rare big wins and more consistent small wins. The slot’s strangely specific 16,047x max multiplier means that if you’re betting at the €7.50 per spin maximum bet, you’ll be playing for up to €120,352.50 in winnings. The slot has an RTP of 96.12%.

If you want to play Rumble in the Shadows slot as is once it’s launched, you’re going to have a hard time with it as the spin animation is long. I’m talking five or six seconds long. If you want to make spins a manageable length, you need to turn on the turbo function. However, Evoplay has decided that the feature shouldn’t be available in the game’s main user interface. To enable it, you’ll have to click the menu button and then the settings button. You’ll then have to enable the turbo toggle to activate the feature. This is an aggressively long process to make the slot at all manageable to play.

I would be able to deal with the spin speed issue if the rest of the slot was great. It’s not. The graphics seem underwhelming, with a few elements receiving attention while others seem completely ignored. The bonus features are also extremely underwhelming. What’s most annoying is that I think this slot had some real potential. It has a cool theme, and some of the graphics have been executed really well. One of my favorite elements of the slot is when you see the film noir silhouette of the femme fatale randomly appearing in the doorway from time to time. It was a genuinely surprising element that drew me into the slot. If only there were more to see once I was in. This one gets five out of ten, and that’s only because a few elements really did suck me in. The score could very well have been lower.

Evoplay does produce some amazing slots. If you’d like to explore a few slots that I would recommend, try the sublime Redrose Sanctuary Bonus Buy and the quirky Bomb Squad.