Club Havana

"Havana Club" is a slot developed by Holland Power Gaming, a company I had never heard of before. Today I decided to play this game in demo mode at Casino Goldrun since it seems to be the only one using HPG software, you need not log into the casino to access the option of free play of every game.

This video slot is inspired by the classic atmosphere of La Havana city - Cuba, the symbols are images of Havana cigars, antique cars and objects, and people dressed in fresh tropical clothes, all modeled in 3D. Although I am not an expert, this video slot seems to be fully developed in Flash and its appearance is quite simple. The format of the video slot is 4 x 5 reels and 50 paylines, and bet levels are in a range between $ 0.01 and $ 0.50 per line. The wild symbol is represented with a Caribbean girl picture and it works only as substitute for standard characters and appears on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5 only. The scatter symbol is represented with neon lights forming the words "Havana Club" and can only appear on reels 1, 2, and 3. The simultaneous occurrence of 3 scatters trigger a round of 10 free spins and if re-triggered gives 5 additional free games, during this round wild symbols that appear are sticky until the end of free games.

The pay table of Havana Club is somewhat stingy and hitting average is certainly low, I couldn't find information about the RTP of this slot and do not know if this software is accredited by any gambling audits company. In my case, I felt as if this machine was dedicated only to eat my demo-credits, I cannot say either that I have a lot of fun, oh and forgot to mention that sound effects are somewhat disturbing, I could only find a nice sound which is a fragment of a Cuban son usually played just after every hit. I think this company has a long way to go and much work to do before can win the hearts of the vast majority of players, and even more with today's high standards imposed by market leaders like Microgaming, Playtech, NetEnt and BetSoft, just to mention a few.