THE SAME, BUT DIFFERENT
Slot suppliers put their own twists on game events that are basically the same
By Frank Legato
In the casino industry, autumn marks an important annual event, the Global Gaming Expo (G2E). This is the event at which the top slot manufacturers roll out their new games for the coming year. Next month, I’ll give you my annual “Top 10” report, a subjective list of what I feel are the strongest games displayed at the trade show, held the second week of October.
However, as I preview the games to be displayed in the October edition of Strictly Slots, our sister publication, I have already seen the majority of games to be displayed, and I can use this space to identify the general trends in the features of the newest slot games.
There are two features that are found in the majority of slot games these days—the hold- and-spin bonus and the “pot collection” bonus.
The hold-and-spin bonus was pioneered by Aristocrat’s Lightning Link game. It involves what are known in the trade as “cash-on-reels” symbols—basically a numerical credit award. The feature is normally triggered by a set number of cash-on-reels awards during a normal spin. (It also is triggered by a collection pot; more on that later.)
The cash-on-reels symbols lock in place as guaranteed awards, and the reels spin. A three- spin cycle is indicated on a counter. Any additional cash-on-reels symbols landing lock in place, adding to the award, and returning the counter to three spins. The feature lasts until three spins occur without a cash symbol, ending the bonus and tallying up the cumulative award—or, by filling all 15 reel spots with cash symbols, which normally returns the game’s top jackpot.
Aristocrat’s Lightning Link and its follow-up Dragon Link were wildly popular, so other slot manufacturers began coming up with their own versions (paying into a license pool for the privilege). Later versions of the feature add lower-level jackpots to the cash-on-reels symbols that lock in place during the feature.
Before long, hold-and-spin was as standard a slot game feature as the bonus wheel once was. Today, every manufacturer has its own version of the bonus.
Two years ago, we began to see another slot feature that is now everywhere. It’s called the “pot-collection” or “metamorphic” bonus. This feature was around many years ago, with games like 88 Fortunes from Bally (now Light & Wonder). A special symbol on the reels would send coins into a pot displayed on the top box. The pile of coins would grow larger until spilling over, triggering a bonus feature, normally free spins.
The modern version of this feature typically has three or more “pots,” displayed as coin piles, piggy banks, pandas or other characters, which grow larger or fatter until they burst to trigger a free-spin bonus. Each of the pots represents an enhancement of some type to the free spins—multipliers, extra wild symbols, additional free spins.
These days, a lot of slot games combine these two features. The pots, or piggies, or pandas, appear to grow larger until one or more of them burst to trigger the hold-and- spin round, which proceeds with the enhancements applied— multipliers applied to the cash-on- reels symbols, boosts to the values of the locked cash symbols, a lifeline that throws coins on the reels to renew the three-spin cycle after three spins without a coin.
The function of these popular game features are basically the same among manufacturers. The slot makers, meanwhile, have realized that players love both of these bonus features, so they incorporate them into most new games. What is fun to watch as the new games are revealed at the big trade show is how each manufacturer is putting its own twist on the bonus. Here are a couple to watch for as the new games roll out in the coming year.
Several manufacturers are coming up with new enhancements tied to the collection pots. One of the coolest is the “split,” which targets a random cash-on-reels symbol and splits it into two or even three cash symbols of equal value. Those two or three symbols either remain locked in place for the entire feature or travel to other reel spots, contributing to the goal of filling all 15 spots to trigger the top jackpot.
Another popular pot enhancement is the multiplier. Historically, this enhancement would apply multipliers to one or more locked cash-on-reels symbols. The newest version of this feature throws in a new twist, and is more popular when the pot triggers a free-spin bonus. A frame will appear— marked “2X,” “3X” or another multiplier. That frame will remain in place, and any cash symbol—or even jackpot—landing in that reel spot will be multiplied, for the remainder of the feature.
Finally, the hold-and-spin feature itself is being improved with new twists by several manufacturers. One twist being seen more frequently of late is the “feature within a feature.” A special symbol landing in the hold-and-spin round will trigger a secondary hold-and-spin round. Typically, a three-by-three grid will appear, and another three-spin cycle will occur, returning the player to the main feature after it is complete. Filling all nine spots will trigger a special jackpot. One new game this year features a $500 secondary jackpot; another, a progressive resetting at $1,000.
Slot-makers are having fun with this secondary hold-and-spin feature. There is a cowboy- themed game, for instance, that displays the chamber of a six-shooter, and landing bullets in the hold-and-spin round to fill the chamber will yield the secondary prize.
Stay tuned for more fresh versions of these popular game features—or maybe even an entirely new bonus feature that will come along, to be copied and individualized by slot designers to distinguish their own versions of the new bonus.
Whatever that bonus may be.
