Lil’ Devil review
The third slot in Big Time Gaming’s feature-choice line came out on 12 September 2019, after Danger High Voltage and The Final Countdown. Its name and mood are lifted from a song by The Cult: a sunset over the desert, the old shack from Bonanza on the left of the screen, and tattoo art where playing cards might have been.
A sunset that never finishes
The scene is a desert with the sun sinking and never quite setting. When a scatter tease lands on the reels, lightning strikes the shack and it bursts into flames; what the flames mean exactly, the studio does not spell out. The symbols are drawn from the lyrics as well, among them a lizard in a bottle and an alligator smile, all inked in a tattoo style like in Danger High Voltage. There are two kinds of Wild: the Lil Devil Wild is a plain substitute, while Angel Wilds appear on the central reels and carry multipliers.
The studio introduces the game as “like Bonanza and Danger High Voltage had a baby”. From the first it has the desert and the shack; from the second, feature choice and tattoo graphics.
Where 4,096 comes from
Six reels of four positions give 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 = 4,096 ways. A win must start at the leftmost reel and run through neighbouring reels, and the count of routes depends on how many copies of a symbol stand on each reel: one symbol on reel 1 and two on each of reels 2 and 3 give 1 x 2 x 2 = 4 ways for three of a kind.
Twenty-four symbols sit on screen instead of fifteen on a classic 5×3, and six reels give more chances of left-to-right matches. That explains a hit frequency of 37.68%, a bit above one spin in three. The average payout per spin stays bounded by the return, though: the more often a game pays, the smaller the average win, and many payouts are below the stake, so the share of “hits” is not the share of profitable spins.
The angel and multipliers up to 144x
The feature that the studio places first is the Angel Wild. It lands only on reels 3 and 4 with a multiplier from 4x to 12x. Up to two angels can appear on a spin, and when both take part in one win, their multipliers multiply, so the ceiling is 12 x 12 = 144x. For the base game the rules give only the range of 4x to 12x and do not specify the steps in between. The angels live on two reels only, so a meeting of two is much rarer than one on its own, and 144x needs both of them at their maximum.
Be My Angel: seven spins and a rising multiplier
The first choice starts with seven free spins. At the start one ordinary symbol is picked at random to become sticky: once it lands on reels 2 to 5 it turns into a Sticky Wild that stays until the round ends. If it lands on reel 3 or 4 it becomes an angel starting at 4x and gaining 2x per spin: 4x, 6x, 8x, 10x, and 12x from the fifth spin on. A pair of such angels climbs from 16x to 144x, and in a seven-spin bonus the last two spins run at the maximum. An angel works only on spins where a line has winning symbols, but a sticky symbol stores strength from spin to spin.
A reel filled entirely with sticky Wilds, which means four Wilds on a reel of four rows, brings three extra spins, so the starting seven can grow to ten. The condition is strict, and the rules do not say whether the reward repeats for several reels.
Dynamite Lover: twelve spins and chain reactions
The second mode has twelve spins and is built on reactions. All winning symbols except scatters explode and new ones drop in from above. Dynamite Wilds may appear on the two central reels. Each reaction they take part in raises their value by one, and together they multiply each other. Three scatters retrigger the mode with six extra spins, and each further scatter adds six more: taken literally, four scatters give 12 spins, five give 18 and six give 24.
If a Dynamite Wild starts from one, after four reactions it stands at 5x and a pair gives 25x; after ten reactions it is 11 x 11 = 121x. The multiplier is earned by the length of the chain, not by time, so long reactions are worth more than short ones.
Sticky or cascading, which to pick
| Item | Be My Angel | Dynamite Lover |
|---|---|---|
| Starting spins | 7 | 12 |
| How the multiplier grows | +2 per spin, up to 12x on an angel | +1 per reaction on a Dynamite Wild |
| Rule-based multiplier cap | 144x for two angels | limited only by the number of reactions |
| Retrigger | full reel of sticky Wilds: +3 spins | 3 or more scatters: +6 spins |
| Enhanced version for 40 hearts | the purple heart is the sticky Wild | Dynamite Wild starts at 5x instead of 1x |
The studio does not say which mode pays more on average. Be My Angel offers a predictable multiplier ladder and sticky symbols; Dynamite Lover is longer, and its outcome depends on how far the cascades run.
Forty hearts and an 85-bet buy
Each base-game spin with exactly two scatters yields one heart. When you have forty, you may pick one of two enhanced versions of the bonus. In the enhanced Be My Angel the sticky Wild is not a random symbol but the top-paying one, the purple heart, so the pinned symbols pay the most. In the enhanced Dynamite Lover the Dynamite Wild multiplier begins at 5x instead of 1x.
The second upgrade matters most on short chains. If a plain Dynamite Wild is worth k + 1 after k reactions, an enhanced one is worth k + 5: a pair with no reactions at all gives 25x straight away, which the plain mode reaches only after four reactions, while after ten reactions it is 225x against 121x, less than double.
A spin one scatter short of a bonus usually feels like a loss, and here it goes into a savings box. Forty hearts means forty such near-misses, and several real bonuses may happen in the meantime. The studio does not publish how often exactly two scatters land, so the pace of collection cannot be estimated.
The entry to free spins can be bought for 85 bets, and with a 22.95% chance the purchase opens an enhanced mode, roughly one buy in 4.4. Hearts take long to collect, while a bonus buy offers a shot at the boosted version at once, though without any guarantee.
RTP and volatility
The game data gives a return of 96.47%, while the studio’s own page lists a range of 96.31% to 96.43%. The two do not overlap, and in real play the operator decides the version, so it is worth checking before the first bet.
Volatility is rated 9.3 out of 10, and the studio calls the game extremely volatile. With a good hit rate that sounds contradictory, but the explanation is simple: many wins are tiny, and the large events, up to the 100,504x ceiling, fall almost entirely on the bonus modes and angel multipliers. It is the classic shape of high volatility: frequent small payouts and rare big ones.
Open questions remain: bonus frequency, the number of ways to reach the mode choice, the average payout of each mode, the return of a buy and the contribution of hearts to the RTP. The number of scatters that start the bonus is not stated either; the heart rule only implies that it is not two.
The devil in the BTG series
| Slot | Year | RTP | Max win |
|---|---|---|---|
| Danger High Voltage | 2017 | 95.67% | 15,746x |
| Danger High Voltage 2 | 2024 | 96.77% | not listed |
| Lil’ Devil | 2019 | 96.47% | 100,504x |
The series’ founder is Danger High Voltage, and its sequel has a page of its own, Danger High Voltage 2. On the maximum the devil is well ahead of the older brother. More games from the Australian studio sit on the Big Time Gaming page.
