When you think of an online slot game, you’re probably expecting something that conforms to the usual setup. Typically, with modern online video slots such as Raging Rhino, that’s five reels, a handful of pay lines, and a couple of feature symbols and added extras to keep your on your toes. But not all slots got the memo, and some even venture closer to what you’d expect from an arcade or mobile game. Cool Jewels from WMS Gaming is one such crossover, and the result is a game that is as compelling to play as its prizes are enticing.
If you’re familiar with Candy Crush Saga, Bejewelled and other similar games, you’re going to love this game. Cool Jewels is set out across six reels and six rows, and the game interface is instantly recognisable to fans of the genre. However, this is obviously a slot, so you’d expect there to be some paylines – in fact, there are none.
Instead, you’re paid based on the combinations you can make in the game, and any four or more in a vertical or diagonal line will be sufficient to bag you a win. There’s also a neat 10x symbol nestled in amongst the jewels, which will do you favours if you complete a combo through it – it applies a 10x multiplier to your possible win.
While this is a game that has more in common with Candy Crush Saga than your average online slot, it still has plenty to offer for pure slots fans.
There’s no jackpot available as such, but with wilds, 10x symbols, free spins bonuses and more, that doesn’t mean there isn’t scope for landing yourself some decent possible wins. In common with more convention slots, there are still several feature symbols and added extras you should know about before getting into this game.
Before we get into the specific symbols that can add value to your game, it’s worth touching on the cascading reels – probably one of the most important features of Cool Jewels. Whenever you complete a payline, symbols fall from above into new positions, similar to what you’d expect in Bejewelled. This creates the possibility of a winning line leading to multiple more paying combinations, as the reels tumble downwards to fill vacated spaces. Every time you land a combo, the meter increases incrementally, up to a maximum of 0.50 – a decent win rate for every combination you’re able to clear off the board.
The game benefits from three different wild symbols, and you’ll see these cropping up on your reels from time to time. There’s the blasting wild, which clears all symbols on both its horizontal and vertical axis, creating the cascading effect that can be so valuable in encouraging new combinations to be formed. The pink wild is the exploding wild, which acts like a bomb, blowing up all symbols in its near vicinity, for the same effect. The green, or shocking wild, kills all symbols on its diagonals.
When you land two or more wilds next to each other in a winning combination, they lock in place, effectively creating a multiple wild effect for the duration of their time on your reels. They can also trail across your reels, helping to bump up the returns from prize winning combinations until they eventually fall off, so these wilds can provide a very meaningful boost to your overall game returns.
The Cool Jewels symbol is the game’s main bonus symbol, and you’ll find that comes in particularly handy for triggering the bonus rounds. There are free spins available when four or more of these symbols come into play, but unlike in traditional slots games where you’re looking for a combination, you need to explode these symbols in order to trigger the prizes they hold.
Four of these symbols exploded are worth 8 free spins, five will bag you 10 free spins, six will lead to 15 free spins, and seven will deliver 20 free spins. Each bonus symbol you explode beyond the first five is worth an additional 5 free spins, which can quickly add up into a decent run of risk-free chances to build your possible bankroll.
Cool Jewels is by no means your standard slot game, and it’s probably fairer to classify it along the same lines as various other block-busting games, like Bejewelled and Candy Crush Saga, which you can read about in our slot review section. That said, it’s key difference lies in the fact that this game pays out real money, so if you’ve ever found yourself getting good at this type of game on your phone, you might want to think about taking a paying alternative for a spin.
Check out Cool Jewels today, and see if you can line up and explode those jewels for a handsome reward.