For anyone who plays a lot of slots, the sight of another five reel slots game probably holds little in the surprise stakes. It’s become the default format of modern video slots, moving on from the three reels more associated with AWP-style fruit machines. But every now and then, there’s a slots game that does things a little differently. That’s exactly what we’ve got on our hands with Gem Rocks slot, from the innovative game development team at Yggdrasil Gaming who also created Vikings Go Berzerk and Spina Colada.
The game is set over an unconventional six reels, with uneven reel positions making for an even more intriguing spin. This is in keeping with the overall theme of the game, which is based around mining for precious stones. Rather than a uniform grid of symbols, the reels are uneven and unbalanced, with 2×2 squares alongside regular reel positions, which can increase to 3×3 and 4×4 as things progress. This gives things a more organic feel, as well as lending a novelty factor to proceedings.
Across the 6 reels, you get paid for combinations of matching symbols, when these fall in adjacent reel positions. Another unconventional element here is the number of paylines – 4096, to be precise, which is essentially all-ways wins for any combination. This means there are multiple more opportunities to win with combinations compared to other games, which could have 9 or 20 paylines, for example.
This all factors in to make Gem Rocks something a bit different, and that’s a large part of the appeal with this slots title. Of course, there’s also the small matter of the money at stake, and there are some decent wins to be had here when you spin the high value combinations.
The value symbols are all different colours of precious stones, ranging from the red star as the highest value symbol, down to the orange cross. You can find out specifics about how much you can win in the game’s paytable, but the overall average payout percentage is 96.20% – comfortably within the top tier of all slots by payout, meaning more money for players over the long-term.
Bets start at £0.10 per spin, ranging right up to £50.00 a whirl for those who have a bigger budget in mind. The main jackpot win stands at 500x.
There are no bonus symbols, in the traditional sense, so you won’t find any wilds or scatters coming onto the reels here. Before you get too disappointed, there is one other key feature of note, which can have the same impact as bonus rounds. It’s called Dropdown Wins, and its similar to the cascading, tumbling reel features you’ve probably seen in some other slots. Basically, when a combination is formed, the blocks explode and vacate their reel positions, allowing more blocks to fall from above.
As the blocks fall, they can form new combinations, so it’s possible to rack up multiple wins on from the same original combination. There is also a Dropdown Wins meter, which determines the size of the so-called ‘Monster Rocks’.
The Monster Rocks feature starts out as a 2×2 Monster Rock for 2 wins, occupying a total of 4 reel positions. This continues through 3×3 and also 4×4, for 5 and 9 wins respectively. The game keeps track of the Monster Rocks level by the meter to the left hand side of the screen. Obviously, the bigger the Monster Rock, the easier it is to complete winning combinations with matching symbols.
The jackpot stands at a decent 500x.
Gem Rocks slot is far from your usual slot game, and within seconds of the action getting underway, you’ll know you’re spinning a game with significant novelty appeal. But beyond that, there is much more to this game than gimmicks, and it’s both incredibly fun and potentially very lucrative, for lucky players.
Try out Yggdrasil Gaming’s Gem Rocks for yourself today, available for a spin right now at our UK online slots site.