We kick off this week’s round up with Power of Ten from Hacksaw, a slot that reminds me of The Luxe from the same studio. At least visually – there’s a lot of black and gold going on, and a ‘VIP area’ feel to proceedings.
The gameplay takes place on a 5 x 5 board with 19 paylines and symbols of cards, dice, and poker chips, while the main special feature at play is the Power Wheel. These are spinning reels that land and activate after any payline wins have been handled – each Power Wheel will reveal a value, and that’s multiplied by the current wager. And that’s about the gist of it. So this isn’t the kind of slot to appeal to those who like complex gameplay mechanics, but it’s perfect for players who want something quick and easy.
Rainbow Rush is a leprechaun-themed game, and – no offence – but it feels a little unusual for a studio like Slotmill to be handling such a ‘budget’ theme. However, it’s produced a tidy Irish slot that does indeed feel higher quality than the usual standard associated with this aesthetic. The visuals, music, and voice samples all have a simple charm to them, and so does the gameplay.
Yes, despite being relatively basic stuff, it’s enjoyable nonetheless. The gameplay takes place on a 5 x 6 grid with 20 fixed paylines, and the main special symbols are the Wilds, which come in standard, Expanding, and Golden Expanding flavors. The second type expands downwards, adding in a multiplier for each space it stretches across, and the Golden Expanding Wild stretches both up and down, covering the entire reel. The bonus round is the same as the base game, but with a higher chance of landing Wilds. It’s just a shame the RTP is a little low here at 95.2%.
3 Jungle Beats from AvatarUX is another ‘3 pots’ game in the style of 3 Hot Teapots, and all the others too numerous to mention. It’s not like we needed another take on this formula, but at least this cheeky version with a jungle/reggae-theme might give you a few chuckles, as the chimpanzee smacks the drums every time you land a Bonus symbol. RTP and max win are fairly average at 96.00% and 10,000x respectively.
Then 3 Daruma Dolls sticks to the same formula too! Here you get extra respins, double reels, or random multipliers as part of the Hold & Spin bonus round – all inside the same ‘3 pots’ flow. The Japanese theme is soothing, but do we really need another variation on the same old idea? Maybe Popiplay just wanted one of these games in its portfolio.
Finishing off this section, Bullshark Games usually collaborates with Hacksaw, but with Recycle Riches it’s starting to work with BGaming. It looks like a move for distribution purposes more than anything, but it means Bullshark’s games may appear differently in casino lobbies going forward – this one is listed as a limited release, for example.
As for the slot itself, it’s similar to games like Sugar Rush with cascading cluster wins and cell multipliers that grow with each win, but unlike Sugar Rush, cell multipliers here only add 1x per win, rather than doubling. We do have Reel Multipliers though – they come into play when a Tesla Coil lands, adding a random number to the reel.
The scrapyard theme fits the mechanical, granular gameplay, and the technical touches make it satisfying to look at, even if the underlying mechanics aren’t revolutionary.
New Slots
- Power of Ten – Hacksaw Gaming
- Munchy Milo – Hacksaw Gaming
- Rainbow Rush – Slotmill
- 3 Jungle Beats – AvatarUX
- 3 Daruma Dolls – Popiplay
- Recycle Riches – BGaming
- Superstar Sevens – Hacksaw Gaming
Game of the Week
Hacksaw’s Munchy Milo has ended up being our Game of the Week, as the pickings are pretty slim. It’s not a bad game at all – it’s just a clone of Sun Princess from September last year. But whereas Sun Princess had a strong anime princess feel, Munchy Milo reminds me of Super Monkey Ball, that console game from the early 2000s!
Yes, we have a cartoon monkey on a strange planet, and there are plenty of items of fruit involved, including bananas. You’ll be looking to land these pieces of fruit (and candy) in clusters on the square 7 x 7 grid – 5 or more will get things going. However, there is the potential to go all the way up to clusters of 49 symbols – the whole grid!
That’s because we have Jolt Frames that show up randomly from time to time (these were called Sun Ray Frames in Sun Princess). The Vertical Jolt Frame takes the symbol on its square and spreads it vertically, the Horizontal Jolt Frame does the same horizontally, and the Four-Way Jolt Frame spreads in all four directions.
Then the trick comes when the expansion hits a symbol of the same type – this triggers another Jolt Frame, and, as you can imagine, sometimes you get some amazing chain reactions, and the grid can fill up in an instant.
The bonus round is accessible by landing FS Scatters, or by buying the bonus, and in these free spins, you’ll just get a higher chance of landing Jolt Frames – they really are the key to this game. Another fun bonus buy is the Astronomical FeatureSpins option where at least one Jolt Frame is guaranteed in every base game spin – for what it’s worth, I managed to turn a profit with this feature turned on in my test session.
The stats for Munchy Milo are basically identical to Sun Princess, so that’s medium volatility with an RTP of 96.3% and max win of 10,000x. It’s another simple slot (seems to be a theme this week), but it’s a lot of fun when it gets going, and with the medium volatility, you’ll perhaps have fewer dry patches than some of the other games in this round up. Also, strangely, there’s no cascading/tumbling here, even with the cluster pays, but you do soon get used to it.
Give it a go below!
Play For Real
Author: Joe Allen
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