NetEnt play with the conventions of online slots here to bring us something genuinely new and unique. It's an Irish themed slot which technically has five reels and five rows, along with RTP of 96.62%. Paylines cannot be calculated, and you should read on to find out why. There are a number of random modifiers within the slot, along with a varied Free Spins feature. It's a slot game like no other, and you can play it here at clovercasino.com, which is also home to great online slots like Rainbow Riches, Shamrockers, Starburst, Cleopatra and Bonanza.
Finn and the Swirly Spin is brought to you by one of the leaders of the gaming industry, NetEnt. This game is a Cluster Pays online slot machine with five standard reels and rows. You have to invest at least €0.2 while you can make a maximum bet of €200. Finn and the Swirly Spin is one of the newer slots from NetEnt that continues to uphold the rich tradition that the software provider has maintained, of providing players with games that are unique and fun to play: the symbols move across the reels in a swirly movement, which is where the name draws inspiration from, sticky wilds and more. Sticky Wins are only ever seen in the Lava Lair Free Spins Bonus, and they cannot be destroyed. RANDOM FEATURES. Finn and the Swirly Spin boasts four special features that can be randomly awarded on any spin: STARFALL WILDS – adds at least two wilds to the reels, and if it fails to create a win, more wilds are added until a win is formed.
We all have a fairly clear idea in our heads about what an online slot game is, and what it looks like. We know they come in all shapes and sizes when it comes to theme and genre, and some of them have more rows and reels than others, but most of us would say that reels spin on a straight axis, and paying lines work from left to right. With that in mind, if someone releases a game where that isn’t the case, is it really an online slot at all? We’ve thought long and hard about that question, and we think the answer is yes; it’s just a whole new type of online slot. This is Finn And The Swirly Spin, and it’s brought to you by the Net Ent development team.
Finn and the Swirly Spin Slot. Pack your bags for the Emerald Isle for an exciting new rendezvous with Finn, the friendly Irish leprechaun. This five-reel slot, powered by the Cluster Pays game engine, invites you to explore his world containing four realms of bonus features including random wilds.
Let’s get the easy parts out of the way first; this is a great looking game with graphics worthy of a modern animated cartoon. Net Ent have outdone themselves with the quality of both the design and the animation. It’s all in vivid 3D, the colours are bold and beautiful, and the choice of backing music goes perfectly with the Irish theme. The world of Finn and the Swirly Spin is an immersive one, and given the complexity of the game, it can’t have been an easy thing to achieve. They could have tried this experimental layout with much more simplistic graphics, so we respect that they’ve gone all-out on this title. The scenery that drifts away into the background is gorgeous, with rainbows on the horizon, mountains rising into the mist and a flute-playing leprechaun keeping his eye on the ‘reels’ for us (we’ll explain why we called them ‘reels’ in a moment).
Now the harder point; trying to explain how all of this works! In theory, play takes place on a 5x5 set of reels and rows; only these aren't reels and rows, and they don't function in the same way a regular slot game would. We've attached a video on this page for you to watch, and we recommend taking the time to watch that closely as well as reading this review; it's easier to see than it is to explain.
Instead of reels and rows, the playing area in Finn and the Swirly Spin slot is a giant stone grid. Each time you ‘spin', symbols creep up around the outer edges of the grid and then wind their way in towards the centre. This is the ‘swirly spin' of the slot's title; it's like drawing a spiral closing inwards. You start with a wide circle and then loop inwards until you come to a point in the middle. When the grid is full, the slot awards wins if you have matching symbols positioned either horizontally or vertically. If you do, these wins are tallied, and then the symbols disappear (much like matching a line in the old Tetris video game), and the symbols above or beside them shuffle up. If doing so creates new matching lines, then they'll vanish as well, and this carries on until there are no more matching lines on the grid. At that point, you spin again, and a completely fresh set of symbols appears.
There aren't many basic symbols in the Finn and the Swirly Spin slot, which helps the wins to flow more smoothly. In fact, there are only six; a gemstone, a horseshoe, an acorn, a lucky four leaf clover, and some wooden hearts and spades to represent playing card suits.
As if the game needed any more original ideas, the wilds in this slot don’t exist until you create them! Creating any winning line without using a wild creates a small star when the initial winning symbols disappear, and the star is wild. When the symbols shuffle up to fill the spaces, the star will attempt to create new winning lines either horizontally or vertically. If it can, your wins are added up, and the star then explodes and takes all the symbols next to it with it, whether they were involved in the winning line or not!
This all sounds a lot more complicated than it is, we promise. For the main part, you’re just hitting the ‘play’ button and watching the chaos unfold, and it’s a lot of fun. There’s more to explore yet though; there’s one more symbol. It’s a key, and fittingly it unlocks the bonus features.
Having designed and created such an unusual base game for this online slot, Net Ent could have left it there and taken a conventional route with the bonus features, but they chose not to. Having decided to create something genuinely new, they've pushed it as far as they can, and made the bonuses unusual as well. Here's an overview of what they all do and how they work!
Free Spins are the feature that you have at least some control of. This is where the key comes in handy. Triggering you free spins feature means getting the key symbol all the way from the bottom-left position on the grid to the centre. You can't do this without finding winning combinations and then hoping more wins follow on from the first one as the symbols shuffle up. The more times you're able to do this, the more potentially lucrative your free spins round is. The slot keeps track of how many times you've moved a key to the centre and rewards you accordingly. That means Finn and the Swirly Spin has an incentive for long-term play, just like a video game does!
The first time you trigger your free spins, you get seven spins with Starfall Wilds, meaning that more and more wilds are pushed onto the grid until they result in a win. This mode will repeat for your second and third key.
On your fourth key, you receive three free spins with Dragon Destroy, meaning a dragon (for some reason) attacks the grid and destroys symbols in a manner which guarantees you a win. The key symbol becomes a sticky wild once it reaches the centre of the grid, making for lucrative wins.
When you reach nine keys, you’ll get four free spins with Irish Luck, which transforms some of the symbols on the board to guarantee a win for you.
If you’ve been playing Finn and the Swirly Spin for a long time, and you’ve managed to collect an impressive sixteen keys, you get two free spins with Magic Transform, during which every heart and spade is switched out for one of the four higher value symbols, which should mean big wins.
Getting the keys to the centre of the grid requires a lot of time and luck; especially if you’re trying to do it multiple times. Don’t be discouraged if it’s not happening for you, though. On any spin, your leprechaun friend may jump up, shout “Here’s some magic for you”, and cast a spell on the reels. When he does, any of the above effects will be applied to the reels. You don’t get the free spins that come with them, but it’s still great to see them in action!
Finn and the Swirly Spin has an unconventional playing area, unconventional bonuses, and unconventional wilds. If you’re a traditionalist, you’ve probably already broken out in a cold sweat. If this slot isn’t for you, don’t worry. We have so many great Irish themed online slots at Clover Casino that all you need to do is take a look at our game library and find something that’s more appealing. If you’re craving something other than the usual spin of the reels though, Finn and the Swirly Spin might be about to enchant you. This is a slot game with style and flair, and best of all with its high RTP it’s also a generous slot to play.
If you're wondering where the inspiration for Finn And The Swirly Spin's distinctive design came from, look no further than the website of its developer, Net Ent. Every slot developer should have a slick and stylish website to show off what they're capable of, but many of them are surprisingly behind the times. Net Ent isn't one of those companies. Nothing looks out of place on their homepage, and nothing has been left to chance. They set out to impress, and they achieve it. They've been in operation for more than twenty years now, and they have the experience and confidence that goes with it.
Net Ent see themselves as a ‘digital entertainment company' more than they do a producer of slot games, but they've managed to create an impressive library of slot games anyway. At the time of writing, they have over two hundred slots in their collection, with titles as varied as the official slot of legendary rock and rollers Guns n Roses to the enchanting Red Riding Hood. To a lot of players, they'll be best known as the developers of the stylish and always-popular Starburst slot.
For their UK operations, Net Ent are registered in Gibraltar, but to give you a sense of the size and scale of this hugely successful developer; they also have offices in Sweden, Malta, Ukraine, the USA and Poland. They're active everywhere people play slot games, and during 2017 the virtual reels of their slots were spun more than forty billion times. They're a strong contender for being the largest slot developer on a global scale, and they make some of the best looking slots we've ever seen.
As you’d expect from a design-orientated developer, they have a special area within their website to showcase their finest creations, and Finn and the Swirly Spin belongs in that bracket. Putting their best promotional spin on Finn, Net Ent says:-
'Take a journey to the emerald isle, where Finn, our in-house magical leprechaun, awaits your arrival. This leprechaun is not to be taken seriously. He'll have you in fits, but watch out! He's got some fierce dance moves, and he's not afraid to show them!
Finn and the Swirly Spin™ is a 5-reel, 5-row video slot features a Wild Symbol, a Free Spins Key, 4 different types of Free Spins, and a Random Feature with 4 variations. But the magic doesn’t stop there. The game showcases a brilliantly innovative new mechanic: symbols follow a spiral pattern that twists around the screen rather than landing in the standard way. After all, leprechauns are known to do things in unusual and unexpected ways, and Finn is no exception. So spin (swirl) the reels (spiral) and see what lies in store for you at the foot of the rainbow. All that’s needed is a bit of Irish Luck to discover the fabled pot of gold!”
The layout is so unusual that even the developer has felt the need to point out the connection between spin, swirl, reels and spirals. Once you've got your head around Finn and the Swirly Spin online slot, though, it's easy to follow and rewarding to play. The animations are world-class; especially when you're moving from the standard game to the bonus features. We at Clover Casino love Irish themed slot games already; when someone presents us with one this fun and original, we have to stand back and applaud it!
You are joking, aren’t you? We’ve spent this entire review praising the originality of Finn and the Swirly Spin. There’s nothing that strongly resembles it anywhere on the market, either created by Net Ent or by anybody else. One of the benefits of being truly original is that you get to stand alone on the top of the mountain you created. Finn and the Swirly Spin is one of a kind, and it’s a slot game Net Ent should be very proud of.
What we can do is look at their catalogue of slots and see whether they’ve touched on Irish themes before, or designed an online slot that bears even a passing resemblance to this one. The answer is yes, but only once, and it’s another entry into the Irish theme.
Golden Shamrock:
Any game we offer as a comparison to Finn and the Swirly Spin is going to suffer by way of contrast, but we don't want to do Golden Shamrock a disservice. As we should expect of any slot designed by NetEnt, this is a beautifully designed slot game that looks great and plays just fine. Coming back to a 5x3 layout of reels and rows when you've been playing Finn seems like a comedown, but there are twenty paylines to aim for, a player-friendly RTP of 96.40%, and a maximum jackpot to be had of 4000 x your initial stake. This may be much more basic than Finn And The Swirly Spin from a technical point of view, but it's been shown the same level of love and attention graphically, and it can be kind to you in terms of winnings if you're prepared to spend some time with it. There are free spins and expanding wilds on offer as bonuses too, which break up the standard gameplay. You wouldn't necessarily rate this slot higher than you would the Rainbow Riches, Irish Lucks or Leprechaun Songs of the Irish themed slot world, but it's a solid enough contender.
We could do one of two things here. We could either offer a number of our other Irish-themed slots here by way of comparison, or we could say there's nothing like this slot out there anywhere. We don't think it's fair to compare a conventional slot game to Finn and the Swirly Spin. It's too unusual, and it's too far removed from the standard play you'd come to expect from a slot game. Some players will hate that about it, and some will love it. Any slot we offered for comparison wouldn't be provided on a like-for-like basis, because it's impossible to make a like-for-like comparison with Finn and the Swirly Spin.
You could, at a push, make a case for comparing Big Time Gaming's Bonanza with Finn And The Swirly Spin. It has an unusual rocky layout of reels and rows, and winning lines disappear after they've been created, allowing other symbols to fall in and take their place. It has a mining theme rather than an Irish theme, and it's still a slot in which you spin reels rather than navigate your way around a grid, but it's as close as anything else out there is at the moment; and of course it's a high-quality slot, which we consider to be among the best of our clovercasino.com collection.
This slot was released in 2017 by a developer who prides themselves on the cutting edge presentation of every slot they create, so we'd expect it to fare very well as a mobile slot, and we're right to. Net Ent has actually gone to the trouble of creating a ‘touch' version Finn and the Swirly Spin slot purely for mobile users. The result of that is an entirely perfect version of the slot game which we can't find a single thing to criticise about.
Whether you flip your phone into the landscape position or keep it in portrait, the display arranges itself to suit. The buttons move to a convenient location, the grid stays in focus and takes up most of the space, and you'll either see more or less of the background depending on which way up your device is. When you're playing in portrait mode, your magical leprechaun friend simply sits a little closer to the grid, so he's still on hand to help you out.
Even though it identifies itself as a ‘touch' version of the version of the slot you play on your computer, we couldn't detect any significant differences between the online slot and the mobile slot versions of Finn and the Swirly Spin. The quality of the graphics appears to be the same, the soundtrack is the same, and the joy that playing this inventive slot game brings us is the same. Well done to Net Ent for making a mobile version of the slot that performs so brilliantly. They make it look easy, but we all know it isn't!
If you like the sound of Finn and the Swirly Spin, we’ve got some great news for you. On the other hand, if you’re not sure about Finn and the Swirly Spin and you think you’d like a practice go before spending any of your own money on it, we’ve got some great news for you, too! By registering with clovercasino.com today, you’ll get 20 free spins on this slot game, without having to pay us anything. All you need to do is complete the registration process, and the spins are yours. The link is at the top of this page.
If you do want to pay into your account today, things get even better. We'll match anything you pay in, up to a maximum of £100. That's double your money, meaning double the spins, and double the chances of walking away with a win! That's our way of welcoming you into Clover Casino. We hope you'll make it your new chosen online slot site, and we hope you'll become one of our regular players. We run promotions regularly, and we're always adding new ways of rewarding you for staying with us. Check out our promotions page for more information, but make sure you register first! Finn and the Swirly Spin is waiting to be played!