Volatile Slot

The scene is set somewhere off the coast of a tropical island, and judging by the smoking volcano that dominates the backdrop I’m going to guess somewhere in the Pacific. I think the volcano is meant to symbolize volatility, keeping players on edge waiting for an eruption. The imagery is completed by golden shores, sparkling blue water and lush foliage.

I was instantly taken by the fun tribal music that accompanies this slot, and I was more than happy to let it play out in the background. Unfortunately, the escalating tempo of the beating drums was just about the most exciting thing about Volatile Slot’s theme. The rest of the design was unfortunately rather uninspiring, with the designers leaning way to heavily on very basic looking A, K, Q, J, and 10 symbols.

The reels are held together within a grid that’s framed by trees, their vines twisting around the border. As we already touched upon, the symbols are a bit of a let down, and apart from the standard Royals there are a few congas, fire pits, a timber shrine, and an island girl. The Wild (which is also the Scatter) is a miniature of the active volcano in the background, and appears on only reels 2, 3, and 4.

Volatile Slot’s gameplay isn’t hard to grasp because it does without most of the flashy features and special effects you find with most of the new games in its genre. Unfortunately, this lack of entertainment value does translate into player boredom. But let’s explore the features it does incorporate and find out if the financial reward is worth the drudgery.

Volatile Slot pays out each time you land three or more low value symbols on a winning payline. But you can also unlock bigger cash prizes for just 2 of the high value symbols on a winning payline. That sounds super but there are far more low value symbols in play, which makes this harder to achieve than you might think.

The Pacific hula dancer is the most valuable symbol, with 5 of her on a payline paying out at 40 x the bet size. There to help you make up big wins across the slot’s 10 paylines are Wild Symbols, which are fixed to reels 2, 3 and 4 and come with multipliers of 2 x, 3 x and 4 x that can be multiplied by each other up to a maximum of 64 x. The really big prize of 25,600 x your bet only comes into play during free spins thanks to a combination of Exploding Wilds that land more frequently during the feature.