Atlantis Crush: Slot Overview
When Relax Gaming decides to start tumbling stuff around the place, gamblers do well to sit up and take notice. The studio has dropped some exceptional tumble/cascading driven slots, climaxing in the phenomenal Ancient Tumble. Coming fairly hot on its heels is the cascading slot Atlantis Crush. For this mythologically minded release, Relax Gaming has spun the action off in a different direction, designing an inventive scatter-paying slot like no other. Putting significant distance between itself and the top dogs in the scatter scene like Gates of Olympus 1000, Atlantis Crush makes use of two separate yet interacting gaming spaces, a chonk load of special Block symbols, two free spins rounds, and more.
Visual and Audio Design
According to some, the island of Atlantis was located in the Atlantic Ocean west of the Strait of Gibraltar, and Atlantis Crush has a Canary Islands look about it, being mountainous, palm-treed, blue-skied, exotic, warm, and inviting. Stone statues stand guard over the active cc6 gaming area, which is made up of a 5-reel, 2-row block symbol-only space and a 5-reel, 3-row pay symbol or wild-only space. Free spins rounds move indoors, and no matter the phase, Atlantis Crush’s graphical quality is high, the audio tensely atmospheric.
Scatter-Paying Mechanics
A 5×3 play area might not seem very big for a scatter-paying slot, but as compensation, combinations only require 4 matching symbols, in any positions, to create a win, plus wild symbols land on the reels as well, potentially helping matters. Winning symbols are removed from the matrix, and symbols cascade downwards to replace them. A highly volatile math model producing an RTP of 96.09% runs the game, and players are able to select a wager of 10 c to $/€100 per paid round.
Symbol Types and Payouts
Atlantis Crush’s pay symbols are grouped into fire (red), water (blue), and plant (green) types. They are further divided into 3 low-pay droplet type symbols, 3 mid-pay representations of water, plant, and fire, plus 3 higher-value face/mask symbols. Landing 4 matching cc6 symbols pays 0.1 to 0.3 times the bet, while full-screen 15 OAKs pay 3 to 16 times the bet. Wild symbols substitute for all pay symbols on the grid.
Block Symbol Mechanics
Sitting above the pay symbol area is the two-row Block symbol space. Block symbols are activated or destroyed when a winning pay symbol appears directly under them or by the effect of another activated Block symbol. Appearing on the upper area are the following symbols:
- Empty Block: has no effect.
- Horizontal Destroyer: activates and destroys all symbols in its row.
- Vertical Destroyer: activates and destroys all symbols in its column.
- Diagonal Destroyer: activates and destroys its corner symbols.
- Bonus Block: the free spins counter is increased by the number displayed on the Block.
- Multiplier Block: increases the win multiplier by the number displayed. Possible values are x2 to x500. Any win multiplier greater than x0 applies to wins in the current cascade.
- Fire Gem Block: all fire class symbols (red) on the grid are destroyed, and only the same kind of symbols drop in on the cascade.
- Water Gem Block: all water class symbols (blue) on the grid are destroyed, and only the same kind of symbols drop in on the cascade.
- Plant Gem Block: all plant class symbols (green) on the grid are destroyed, and only the same kind of symbols drop in on the cascade.
Destroying All Symbols and Blocks
If all pay symbols are destroyed in the same cascade, then all pay symbols dropping in on the following cascade will be of the same matching type. Landing a full screen of the same kind of symbol from this feature clears the symbols again but does not trigger an infinite loop of same-of-a-kind cascades. If all Block symbols are destroyed in the same cascade, then for the rest of the round, only Multiplier, Bonus, or Gem Blocks appear.
Free Spins and Super Free Spins
Activating 3 or more Bonus Blocks triggers free spins. The number of awarded free spins is the sum of the numbers on the activated Bonus Blocks in that round. The win multiplier transfers from the base game to the free spins round and does not reset between cc6 free spins. When Bonus Blocks are activated, their value increases the free spins count.
When free spins are triggered, there is a chance Super Free Spins are played. For Super Free Spins, players benefit from having only Multiplier, Bonus, or Gem Blocks in the Blocks area.
Feature Buy Options
Buying free spins is possible for the cost of 70 times the bet and starts a round with 3 to 10 free spins. For 250x the bet, players can buy 5 Super Free Spins. The feature buy RTP is 96.48%.
Verdict: A Compelling Slot Experience
One mark of a successful cascading slot is the urge to hit the spin button one more time, like a little voice on your shoulder, just in case the next game-round kick starts a chain of consecutive wins, tumbles, and thrills. Atlantis Crush is able to produce this feeling in a variety of compelling ways. One is the way pay symbols have their own reel set down below while Block symbols have their area up top, and cascading wins don’t just provide an extra chance to win – adjacent winning symbols also blast Block symbols to unlock the goodies they cc6 contain. The effect is a little like ELK Studios’ Tropicool slots but is by no means the same. There’s quite a variety of special Block symbols, too, though the better effects are likely to be harder to obtain than the lesser stuff.