Slot games are no longer just fruit and bar symbols. Many have advanced mechanics that can make new iGaming titles extremely exciting.
Long gone are the days when slots were all 3×3 reels filled with gold bars and sevens. Since then, their development has grown rapidly, with many adding unique themes and mechanics. Many of these are accessed through bonus rounds, adding literal unique spins to a game. While they may have different brand names depending on the developer, many of them follow similar concepts.
Key Symbols in Advanced Slot Gaming
There are several key symbols and features you find across a whole range of advanced slots. Even more basic, intermediate games may have some of them. The selection at Slot Masters is a great place to start for new players. They have a wide range of titles, from easy games with few reels to ones with advanced concepts like Drum Frenzy and Lock and Win features. Many of these will be found in even their simplest titles.
Wilds are the first universal feature you will encounter on slots. These are essentially a wildcard that will substitute for any winning symbol. Imagine you need three lemon symbols to win, and you get two and a wild. The wild will become the lemon to let you earn a payout.
Next are scatters. They don’t need to land on specific lines to deliver rewards; instead, they activate when visible. The outcomes can vary greatly, but they usually allow access to higher-paying bonus rounds or even free spins. These are extremely important, as they let you play without diving into your bankroll.
Hold and Win
Hold and Win may come under different names depending on the developer. It is a variation of the classic hold functions found in mechanical slots of yesteryear, which allowed you to clamp reels into place to increase the chances of a win.
A Hold and Win feature lets players lock in winning symbols, or ones of a higher value, for multiple spins. This makes it more likely that the next spin will yield a payout. In some instances, even subsequent high-paying and winning symbols will be locked into place, resulting in an increasing number of wins.
These features are usually reserved for the bonus or free spins rounds. You may find a player has a certain number of free spins in which they can use the hold and win feature. In some cases, this may allow them to trigger more free spins to continue the round.
Cascading Reels
When you use cascading reels, if you land a winning combination, the symbols involved will vanish from play. The reels will then shunt downwards, revealing a new combination. If this wins, then those symbols will vanish, meaning large winning combos can arrive from a single spin.
This is different from traditional spins. They fall, and if a winning sequence appears, you spin again. Cascading reels can provide huge wins from just one sequence. Very often, they are reserved for games with a high level of volatility. This is a measure of how often slot games pay out. Low volatility games pay out more regularly in small amounts. High volatility ones place less frequently but with more money.
Cluster Pays
Cluster pays are unique as they do away with the traditional idea of having paylines in horizontal patterns or having them adjacent to each other. Instead of linking lines, cluster pays are simply grouped amounts. This is usually four or five symbols, which can be both horizontal, vertical, and diagonal. In many ways, they are more akin to casual mobile games like Candy Crush.
Cluster pays get really exciting when they are combined with cascading reels. This can see winning symbols vanish in large groups, and even more reels fall down to fill the gaps. Thus, huge strings of wins can be made from a single wager.
Megaways
Megaways is a very unique mechanic that is patented by its developers, Big Time Gaming. Thus, its concept is often licensed to lots of existing franchises, famous popular culture licenses, and it creates its own titles. Added to its base concept are often cascading reel features, along with free spins.
When you play a Megaways title, the number of symbols on a reel can change, usually moving between two and seven. The result of this is that the ways to win increase dramatically. Where most games tend to have between ten and twenty paylines, Megaways titles can often have well over 150,000. Some of its newer variations will even pay out on identical symbols on adjacent reels, boosting this even further.
Some of these features can be overwhelming if you start with them. Instead, use your casino introductory offers to play slightly easier games and get to grips with slots. From here, you will get a better idea of the type of game you like and can venture out into these advanced mechanics.
