New Slot Games — Weekly Round-up for January 19, 2018
By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Jan 19, 2018
New Slot On The Way From Yggdrasil
Ozwin’s Jackpots due for release later this month
The next game from Swedish online gambling games developer Yggdrasil is a 5-reel progressive jackpot slot with 20 active pay-lines and the opportunity to score one of 5 different jackpots.
Titled Ozwin’s Jackpots, the game has a sorcery and alchemy theme replete with magic crystals, potions and the sorcerer Ozwin himself, supporting a slot which features Wilds, Scatters, generous Multipliers, up to 10 Free Spins and those mysterious progressive jackpots.
Watch out for the magic owl symbol, which can award 200 times a player’s stake when five are matched across a pay-line. The Spellbook symbol is none too shabby either, with the prospect of multipliers boosting stake by between 50 and 500x.
However, died-in-the-wool slot players will notice a remarkable similarity between this games’ mechanics and that of Yggdrasil’s earlier Holmes & the Stolen Stones game…perhaps a little cloning going on?
Online Casinos with Yggdrasil Slots:
You Need Patience To Play This Slot
Yggdrasil’s new Gem Rocks hardly rocks
Yggdrasil’s next online slot, due for release third week February, is intriguing but requires patience on the part of the player due to its rather different format and reward structure.
Titled Gem Rocks, it’s a 96.2 percent RTP game with cascading symbols, 6 reels and 4,096 pay-lines, wrapped in a gems and rocks theme set on a barren mountainside (the rock fall sound effects that accompany the cascades are quite good). And it is possible to win over 4,300x stake, which is an incentive.
It’s a little different in that there are no wilds, scatters or bonus features, although there are 8 different cascading symbols, with the star and the Gem Rock feature probably the most important in reward terms. Wins are rewarded when 3 or more symbols of the same kind land in consecutive columns.
The Gem Rock feature triggers when the player manages (and it can take some time) to secure 2, 5 and 9 consecutive Dropdown Wins. Once triggered, an animated rock monster appears and heralds a single Gem Rock atop the reels, and the more consecutive wins that are achieved, the larger the Gem Rock and the better chance of winning combinations. Two wins in a row achieves a 2×2 symbol; five wins creates a 3×3 block; nine straight wins adds a 4×4 symbol to the reels.
The game will be released simultaneously across desktop and mobile channels, in both iOS and Android formats.
Microgaming’s Deco Diamonds For Release Soon
January release for five reel, nine pay-line game
Microgaming has announced the imminent release this week of a new 5 reel, 9 pay-line game titled Deco Diamonds.
Developed by Just For The Win (JFTW) and available exclusively to Microgaming, Deco Diamonds features a re-spin mode triggered by two, three or four Deco Diamonds wild symbols. During these the wilds lock in place and re-spins are awarded until no further Deco Diamonds symbols appear or the bonus wheel is launched.
When players get three or more Deco Diamond symbols, a three-tiered bonus wheel is triggered with a 1,000x bet maximum win. Three Deco Diamonds symbols award the silver level, four symbols award the gold level and finally five symbols award the diamond level. Once the wheel stops, the prize on the indicated tile is awarded. When the wheel stops on the level up tile, players progress to the next level.
Tiger Holmgren, chief product officer at Just For The Win, said in a statement Monday: “The Deco Diamond experience is designed to target a variety of players who enjoy high volatility gaming. Designing the game this way provides a distinct type of gameplay, different from other JFTW games on offer.”
David Reynolds, games publisher at Microgaming, comments: “Following the success of Lucky Links and Goldwyn’s Fairies, we’re excited to be releasing another exclusive game from Just For The Win. Bringing a classic casino feel with exciting features, we believe it will be a great addition to an operators’ portfolio.”
Deco Diamonds goes live to operators on 17 January 2018.
Infopowa news was a staple of Casinomeister’s news from 2000 until 2019. Brian Cullingworth was the main writer, contributor, and was one of the most knowledgeable persons I have ever known involved in the online casino industry.
We first met in January 2001 at the ICE in London where I observed him going booth to booth interviewing online casino, software, and licensing jurisdiction representatives. Brian was also heavily involved with our forum as “Jetset“, he was involved as an informal consultant to eCOGRA, the OPA, and was a player advocate who assisted countless aggrieved players with his connections to industry folks. He also published “Casino Cautions” via Infopowa news for quite a number of years. These can be found in our news archives.
His passing in February 2019 was a dark day for us. He will be forever missed.
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