Living with Stan

Living With Stan: Slot Overview

Living With Stan is a prehistoric people meets dinosaurs online slot from Blueprint Gaming's buddies Lucksome. It's a game that triggered a train of thought along the lines of 'When did we humans start naming each other?' Apparently, some of the earliest recorded examples are names like Scorpion II, Narmer, and Kushem, from around the 3000+ BC mark, but humans have been wandering the Earth a lot longer than that. Maybe, just maybe, way back in the day, when language was still in its formation stage, instead of primitive grunting sounds, a name like Stan was popular? Maybe not, but anyway, in Living With Stan, players are introduced to the Rockyfella family and their hardships with local rascally dinos who have nicked their stuff.

Cartoonish was apparently the design directive when it came to the look and feel of Living With Stan. Players peer down on an idyllic prehistoric scene of waterfalls, forest, and quirky family members. It won't take long to meet Stan and 3 members of his clan, not only because they appear as pay symbols, but they also, one by one, take turns being the Sticky Character Wild. That's the symbol with the progress bar attached; more on this below. The scene would be more idyllic if it wasn't for the dinosaurs constantly parading across the top of the reels; that'd be slightly nerve-racking. Fortunately, the Rockyfellas live in a sturdy cave, which can be clicked on to reveal items yet to be recovered, as well as those returned. This isn't just a cosmetic effect, as recovered items lead to rewards for players, which is partly why they're here.

In the base game, Living With Stan's gaming area is a 5-reel, 3-row grid with 243 ways to win, paying left to right from the leftmost column. Lucksome has rated the volatility as 6 out of 10, putting it at medium, and the default RTP comes in at 96.06% when betting 20 c to $/€200 per spin.

Stan is the highest paying symbol on the paytable, followed by his wife Rockelle, mother-in-law Gravella, and father Cliff. After them are 10 to A card royal symbols. When landing winning combinations of 5 OAK, payouts equate to 1-1.5 times the bet when made up of matching royals or 4 to 15 times the bet for matching character symbols.

Living With Stan: Slot Features

Players work with the prehistoric family in Casa di Rockyfella to get their stuff back from naughty dinosaurs via features such as Character Sticky Wilds, dropped wilds, free spins, Dinosaur Hunts, Stampedes, Casa di Rockyfella prizes, and a bonus buy.

Wild Symbol

In the main game, the middle position always has a Character Sticky Wild. Flying dinosaurs may drop extra wilds in reels 2, 3, 4, and 5. Wilds are used to substitute all regular paying symbols to help make wins.

Character Meter

Any symbol except the scatter and the Character Sticky Wild can display a sub-symbol with a number of 1, 3, 5, or 10. These values are collected by the Character Meter on the Character Sticky Wild. When the Character Meter reaches a certain trigger value, a Dinosaur Hunt is activated. The trigger value depends on the current character linked to the Character Sticky Wild. If a spin does not land new sub-symbols, the Character Meter decreases by 2, down to zero.

Dinosaur Hunt & Casa di Rockyfella Prize Panel

When triggered, the current character linked to the Character Sticky Wild attacks one of the dinos in view. The attacked dinosaur drops 1 to 5 rewards, which are either a cash prize of 0.5-5x or a Casa Object. Cash prizes are instantly awarded, whereas collected items from Dinosaur Hunts are placed in the Casa di Rockyfella Prize Panel, where they award a prize. There are 31 collectable items that award 3 to 20 free spins or cash prizes of 5-30x. Collectables can be won in any order except the last item, which is a T-Rex steak. Players may win the last prize after all other prizes have been collected at least once, which awards 8-20 free spins.

Stampede

Stampede is a random feature that may trigger on any main game spin, adding several sub-symbols to the reels.

Scatter Symbol

In the base game, flying dinosaurs can drop eggs onto the reels, which may reveal scatter symbols. A scatter symbol guarantees entry into free spins. The number of free spins won is the total amount shown on the scatter symbols.

Free Spins

For free spins, an extra row is added to the reels, increasing the ways to win to 1,024. The Character Sticky Wild is double-stacked and roams around on each spin on reels 2 to 5. Dinosaurs above the reels can drop extra wilds onto reels 2 to 5, which may be 2 or 3 positions high. Dropped wilds may award cash prizes or multipliers. Hitting scatter symbols awards additional free spins.

Bonus Buy

The bonus buy gives players the chance to buy free spins for 60x the bet. Double Lux enabled bonus buys will retrigger again (once) if the total win is 20x the bet or less. The RTP for this is 96.18%.

Living With Stan: Slot Verdict

Whatever your thoughts on Lucksome's slot might be, smash or pass, you can't accuse the studio of clinging to a single type with a kung-fu grip. Instead, the team leaps from topic to topic, mechanic to mechanic, like an industrious magpie. This time players are treated to a romp through prehistory where humans clash with dinosaurs, which might not have happened in real life, but it's fun to pretend. Prehistory is something slot makers do like to explore, as seen before, to greater or lesser effect in games like Rock Vegas, The Tumbles, and The Flintstones, to name but three. Lucksome's production leans towards the better side of the spectrum for players who have ever had thoughts of putting a bone through their nostrils as a body decoration or cooking enormous slabs of dino meat on open fires.

Even if those images have never occurred to you, there is entertainment here to be had. Like Stickermania, the spin by spin collection of sub-symbol values keeps the base game moving along, triggering a Dinosaur Hunt when the Character Meter is full. Quite cool how each character has different attributes, such as hunt trigger, prizes, and prize value, all of which can be scoped at the paytable. Cash prizes from Dinosaur Hunts weren't particularly massive, but rewards from Casa Objects might be more exciting. Free spins, for example, where the grid expands and the Sticky Character Wild roaming about the joint, might be interesting.

Not like, supercharged, high vola interesting, Living With Stan isn't really that sort of slot. Rather, it crafts an amiable backstory through a pregame story sequence before moving into a charming prehistoric game world with a 10,000x max win (up to $250,000), where intertwined features are linked to the family's struggle to get their gear back. All in all, Living With Stan is a passable game but ultimately the actual gameplay doesn't quite match its audiovisual presentation.