Chaos Crew review
Hacksaw Gaming released Chaos Crew on 24 September 2020, and it soon turned into a signature game for the studio. It stars Cranky the cat and his mate Sketchy, a graffiti skull, in a street-punk setting of neon paint, brick walls and an electronic soundtrack. The 5×5 grid pays on fixed lines, and the bonus uses a mechanic where numbers build above each reel. Hacksaw later built two sequels around that lives-and-reel-numbers bonus.
Hacksaw calls it punk-flavoured and singles out the soundtrack for praise. The grid sits against dark brickwork, and symbols come in acid colours as if sprayed from a can. Cranky is a permanently grumpy cat, Sketchy a grinning skull, and the scatter is easy to spot thanks to its free-spin lettering. It is deliberately messy and loud, and that is part of its personality rather than a lack of polish.
Paylines and Cranky Wilds
Three to five matching symbols pay on 15 fixed lines from left to right. Five lower symbols are an eight ball, skull, smiley, cross and lightning; three middle symbols are a moth, brain and apple core; the tentacle is highest. Exact values appear in the game’s paytable; symbol frequencies are unspecified.
Cranky acts as a Wild for everything except the scatter, with a multiplier of 2x, 3x or 5x attached. When several cats share a line, their multipliers multiply each other rather than add, and the gap is huge:
| Cats on the line | Total multiplier |
|---|---|
| 2x and 3x | 6x |
| 3x and 5x | 15x |
| 5x and 5x | 25x |
| 5x, 5x and 5x | 125x |
Three lives and reel counters
Three scatters open a bonus with three spins. Regular symbols give way to blanks and special symbols, with an accumulated number above each reel. Any special symbol resets the counter to three; three consecutive blank spins end the round. The five reel totals are then added and multiplied by the stake.
| Bonus symbol | Effect | Resets lives |
|---|---|---|
| Blank | nothing | no |
| Sketchy | adds to its reel’s number | yes |
| Cranky | multiplies its reel’s number | yes |
| Epic Sketchy | adds to every reel | yes |
| Epic Cranky | multiplies every reel | yes |
Bonus Cranky multiplies the accumulated value by up to 20x; striped Epic versions affect all reels at once. Multiplying a zero counter adds nothing, so addition and multiplication order matters. Illustrative counters of 5, 0, 12, 3, 0 total 20 stakes; a 3x Cranky on reel three raises that to 44, then an Epic 2x to 88. This is arithmetic, not a typical payout.
Return, limit and sequels
RTP builds are 96.30%, 92.40% and 88.40%. Hacksaw rates volatility at 5 out of 5, with a listed round maximum of 10,000x. The review describes bonus termination at the limit; a separate studio rule is absent from the supplied data. Hit rate, bonus and special-symbol frequencies, and round-length distributions are undisclosed.
March 2023’s Chaos Crew 2 has 19 lines, cats at 2x–20x, a 20,000x maximum and 96.27% RTP. Epic Drop randomly brings at least five multiplier symbols to the base game. Its bonus includes sticky symbols and Sketchy additions of 1x–100x; four scatters open Super Bonus with an Epic Drop of at least seven symbols. Best of Bonus plays a round three times and pays the best result, while BonusHunt costs five stakes with a stated tenfold bonus chance.
Chaos Crew 3 triggers a special spin with five symbols spelling CHAOS and offers three bonuses according to scatter count. In the second, Chaos Upgrade adds its multiplier to neighbouring multipliers within a 3×3 area; the hidden top bonus for five scatters starts with a full grid. Hacksaw Gaming also uses top-level risk in Rotten. The original has no Super Bonus, Best of Bonus or boosted-chance mode: only a direct standard-bonus purchase where permitted.
