By Playn GO
RTP 96.20%
Min bet $0.10
Max bet $100
Max Win bet x 10000
Popularity Medium
Min bet $0.10
Max bet $100
Max Win bet x 10000
Gamble Feature Cascading reels, Freespins, Expanding reels, Multiplier wilds, Random wilds
Layout 8x8
Devices Support all devices
Configurable Winlines No
Volatility High
Progressive Jackpot No
Get ready for an eruption like no other with Gold Volcano. This slot will turn any preconception of Cluster Pays engines on its head.
Whereas in most other titles the tiles fall from heaven, in Gold Volcano the tiles are pushed up from the ground below. Hand of heart, it took me a while to get used to this. But I did enjoy the novelty, especially when a scatter tile moves from the grid to the crystallisation meter.
The game is played on a grid of 8 reels holding, from left to right, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 5, 4, and 3 tiles. This gives the game its volcano-like structure. Once the tiles take their place, any 4 or more connected tiles will trigger a payout.
There are a host of other features at play here but ultimately what you want most is to see that volcano erupts and spew free spins all over the place.
There are two types of symbols in place – the precious gems which are the high-paying tiles and the card suits which are the lower-paying ones. There is also the scatter tile which is a crusted magma stone.
The big wins happen when there are large clusters of the same kind of tile next to each other. For example, 30+ Gold tiles will pay out 1,000x but since these are quite hard to get to the below values are taken from the middle of the scoreboard.
The symbols in clusters of 10, from highest to the lowest consist of:
Then there is the Lava feature which will cause a mini-eruption causing a mystery-tile layer on top of the reels to appear.
Finally, the Excavate feature will cause between 3 and 5 wild symbols to be added into random locations within the volcano.
The Eruption Feature is quite fun to experience. For every spin, there is a grid eruption that extends the reels to 8×8. Here the crystallisation meter doesn’t reset and there is also a chance of also activating both the Dormant and Pressure features.
Apart from that 6 additional cascades will add an extra spin to the 5 you start with.
Volcanoes are volatile by nature and this slot isn’t any different. Its volatility is set to high (around 7/10) and this can certainly be felt throughout the game.
On the one occasion, I did manage to enter the bonus round I only got a win of 11x. This was quite disappointing considering the amount of money it took me to get there. I also never managed to enter the bonus round without the help of any of the other features. It was thanks to the Dormant features that the eruption was created.
That’s not to say that I cannot see the potential for some great winnings, especially when it comes to the bonus round and all the extra features in play. However, on this occasion, it wasn’t my turn to experience any big wins.