Gone are the days when slots had only three reels and a handful of symbols. Nowadays, online slots have tons of themes, symbols, and mechanics to mention them all – and the list grows almost daily.
The design, theme, sounds, and mechanics play a huge role in any slot’s success. For this reason, when a game creator or slot provider finds a tremendously successful game mechanic, they trademark it. These slots have the “™” logo in their names.
Many casino gamers look for specific games based on the mechanics or bonus features that they possess. If you’re still new to the iGaming slots industry, here are some of the most popular mechanics out there.
Megaways
Big Time Gaming first introduced Megaways™ slot mechanics. This mechanism features a unique reel that offers 243 to 117,649 different possibilities to win for every spin. There are many opportunities to win because each spin is different, and there are different paylines on each round of the game.
InfiniReels
Players can begin a spin with three reels on NetEnt’s InfiniReel™ (also known as Infinity Reels), which expand once a winning combination hits. If they keep landing winning combos in a row, InfiniReels™ allow players to have a limitless number of reels and winning opportunities.
Gigablox
Gigablox™ belongs to Yggdrasil. Gigablox™ allows rows and columns to combine into massive blocks on dynamic reels, helping boost winnings for lucky players. These ‘blox’ can range from 2×2 to 5×5 on the grid.
Cluster Pays
Cluster Pays was first introduced by Net Entertainment (NetEnt). This very popular mechanic does away with the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal traditional payline concept and replaces it with cluster paylines. The mechanic pays out for combinations of matching symbols that touch each other and hit a corner.
Cascading Reels
Another invention by NetEnt is the cascading reels mechanic. This feature removes symbols that form part of winning combinations after awarding the win and replaces the empty spaces with new symbols to possibly create more winning combinations from the same spin.
Finding Ways to Keep Players Engaged
Many software developers are trying to develop fresh methods to engage players in light of the iGaming sector’s explosive development and the unheard-of expansion market for online slots.
When creating their unique mechanics, some well-known game developers were at the vanguard; others caught on to the trend soon after.
All in all, new and unique game mechanics add flair and excitement to the astounding variety of contemporary slot games that online casinos now provide.
