Catch the Wind Bonus Buy Slot Review

Pirate ships crawl left across the reels, getting stronger with every step they take. That is the hook, and everything else in this Evoplay release is built to feed it.

The Captain's Ship is wild and scatter at once, so the symbol that pays is also the symbol that opens the bonus. Three of them start the free spins. From there the ships begin walking, and the longer one survives on the grid the more it is worth when a line finally connects.

This is the buy-feature edition, which matters more than the name suggests. A base version of Catch the Wind exists and is quoted at 96.1%; this one runs at 95.99% and keeps a Bonus Buy button parked on the left rail. Same game, fractionally worse return, instant access to the part that counts.

Bright, flat and oddly calm. A turquoise sea runs to the horizon, pale cloud banks sit low, and a single palm island is parked out on the right with a few rocky outcrops for company. Almost nothing on that backdrop moves, which is a strange call for a game named after wind. The reel frame is heavy stained wood with copper filigree curling at the corners, and it sits awkwardly against all that daylight.

The symbol set splits cleanly in two. Low pays are gems in gold settings, a purple pentagon, red hexagon, teal triangle, lime square and green diamond, drawn well enough but swappable into any other pirate release without anyone noticing. Above them sit brass porthole medallions holding an anchor, a spyglass, a ship's wheel and a compass, then the captain himself in a red tricorne, scowling out of the frame like he has been asked to pose. The Captain's Ship wild is the one piece with any drama, a galleon under a skull-and-crossbones sail riding a slice of foam. Art quality is fine throughout. Personality is thin on the ground.

Base spins are thin. A 27% hit rate across 20 fixed lines means roughly one win in four, and a large share of those are three gems paying 0.2x a line, which does not come close to covering the spin (the kind of low pays every pirate slot ships with). Sessions live and die on whether ships show up at all.

The tension inside the bonus is about timing rather than size, and that is more interesting than it sounds. A ship landing on reel five has four moves in front of it and exits at x5. The same ship landing on reel one is gone by the next spin at x1, having done nothing. On the smallest entry, 8 spins can be over before the meter is halfway filled, so the opening spread matters enormously. Medium-high is an honest label for the swings. The bankroll bleeds slowly instead of falling off a cliff, and the volatility that exists lives almost entirely inside the free spins.

The walking wild is what makes this one worth loading. Evoplay took a mechanic that normally just slides a wild sideways, bolted a growing multiplier and a collection meter onto it, and the combination gives the bonus a shape most 5x3 line games never reach. With several ships mid-walk at x3 and x4, the round is worth watching.

What surrounds it is ordinary. The 5,297x ceiling is unremarkable for a 2023 title, the gem-heavy base grid does almost nothing on its own, and the additive multiplier rule quietly trims the top end. The three buy prices are sensible and the 72x tier is the pick of them, which makes this a bonus-hunt game first and a spinner second. Treated as a base-game grind, it will probably bore you before it pays you.