Big Time Gaming is a software developer for online slots that produces some pretty high-quality games. They have a particular series of titles called the Megaways slots, and those games are all characterized by a unique twist on the typical video slot layout. This leads to some pretty high-action games, and the series is really their biggest claim to fame in the slots industry with tons of players coming to casino sites that offer their titles to try out what the Megaways games have to offer.
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What makes a megaways slot different?
The general format of the game is what makes a Megaways slot so different. There are six reels in all of the games, and each of them follows the “all ways” format. This means that all of the symbols operate as scatters that pay on consecutive reels from the leftmost reel to the rightmost reel in order. With that having been said, there can be up to seven symbols that appear on each reel on each given spin, and that means tons of ways to hit multi-line wins.
You can also have up to 117,649 ways to win on a single spin if all six of the reels show seven symbols apiece. However, most spins “only” have between 5,000 and 25,000 individual ways to win. It’s not hard to see how the action is at an incredibly high level because of the format itself, but when you add different features and types of bonus rounds to the mix, you get even more action and chances to get paid in a serious way. This is the core of why the games in this series are so incredibly popular.
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A variety of interesting megaways slots
The Megaways series of games by Big Time Gaming includes titles that cover a lot of different concepts and motifs. You’ll see a variety of themes and features used in these slots, and that includes different approaches to bonus rounds and other goodies to give you extra value.
In what follows, we’re going to take a look at four of the most popular games in this series of slots. Each of these titles has a strong following, but they each show different implementations of the general format of the Megaways games to create awesome gameplay experiences for players.
Popular megaways slots:
Queen of Riches (Big Time Gaming).
The first title on this list is the Queen of Riches slot. It uses an Egyptian theme, and while there are a ton of titles in the industry as a whole that use this type of concept for a slot, this one stands out because of the Megaways format and the huge wins you can get thanks to the particular mix of features. This particular slot may be the most well-known of the games from this series, and along those lines, it probably has the largest following of the set. That’s even more impressive considering how common this type of motif is for a slot.This particular game has you betting between €0.20 and €10 per spin. As is the case in all of the Megaways titles, all of your wins are multiples of your bet size as a whole, so the more you wager, the more you proportionately win.
Wild Multiplier Symbols
One of the key features that drives this game is the set of wild multiplier symbols that are available. When the wilds appear on this game at all, they always come fully stacked, so they can count up to seven times for a given symbol. When you consider how many thousands of ways to win there can be on an individual spin in slots with the Megaways format, it’s not difficult to imagine how incredibly valuable this type of stacked wild can be.
Something that makes these symbols even more valuable is that they can give you multipliers on your wins as well. You can get multipliers worth up to 7x on those stacked wild symbols, and if you get multiple wild multipliers in the same winning combination, their values combine to give you even bigger wins. For example, if a 4x multiplier combined with a 7x multiplier, you’d get a total multiplier of 28x, which is enormous. Multiply that further by all of the different ways you’d win with those wilds, and there are some truly huge payouts waiting to be had.
Reel Cloning Feature
As if the stacked wild multipliers didn’t pack enough value to just be ridiculous in the first place, there’s even more to the features that this game offers. On every single spin that you have in the Queen of Riches slot, you’ll have at least two cloned reels that are adjacent to each other on random reels. You’ll get at least two and as many as six reels that show the exact same matching symbols as each other with this feature.
The significance of this is that it makes it much easier to hit winning combinations. This is especially effective with reels that show several of the same symbol since they take on a multiplicative property when you hit winning combinations using symbols that are arranged like this.
Wild symbols can also be cloned in this way, and when they do, they retain their original size and the multiplier that was connected to them.
Queen of Riches review summary
Big Time Gaming’s Queen of Riches slot is the perfect example of what the Megaways feature offers. The graphics are great, as is the case with virtually all of their games (in this series or not), and the combination of the stacked wild multipliers with the cloned reels means that you get serious opportunities for major payouts.
Bonanza (Big Time Gaming).Bonanza is a slot based on a gold mining motif. The setting of this game has different gems and rocks to mine from, and the reels are coming out of the side of a mountain with a large water wheel to the right-hand side and a small cabin off to the left-hand side. The graphics are top-notch, as is to be expected from games from Big Time Gaming, and that includes both the background and the symbols on the reels themselves. Like all of the titles in this series, this game also has a pretty unique set of features that really take advantage of the extended format to give you an exciting style of gameplay.
Scatters and Free Spins
To start things off, you’ll have four golden symbols that appear at random on the reels that are scattered bonus symbols. They spell out G-O-L-D in any order in any position on the game board, and when you get all four, you get a set of 12 free spins. More free turns can be added to the total for each scatter that you get since the G, O, L and D symbols change into “+5” symbols after the initial four. This is a smart way to give players even more free chances to win since you’ll get 12 free spins for four, 17 for five, 21 for six, etc.
Mining Carts
The first thing you’ll notice when you sit down to play this game is that there are four extra symbols over the second, third, fourth and fifth reels. These symbols arrive in mining carts, which is a fun way of tying in the motif of the slot, and they act as extra symbols on those four respective reels. They behave as if they were actually parts of the reels, and this basically just means more chances to win with combinations you wouldn’t have picked up otherwise. Adding a practical amount of height to the middle four reels increases the action and hit-rate of this game accordingly.
Reaction Feature
Most of the action in this game comes from the reaction feature. It adds and element to the Megaways format that drives the hit-rate up considerably. The way this works is that symbols from winning combinations break away, and you’re just left with empty spaces that allow new symbols to fall down into place. This gives more opportunities to win in what amounts to free re-spins in a sense, and you can get several reactions like this by chaining together consecutive wins on the same paid spin.
During the free spins, each reaction gives an incremental multiplier on each subsequent set of wins. On the first reaction, you get a multiplier of 2x. On the second, it becomes 3x, and it continues to increase by one each time along these lines.
Bonanza review summary
Wild symbols can appear on the reels to give you opportunities to get wins you would miss without them as well, and that just adds another layer to the set of bonus features in this game.
With the combination of the reaction feature and the mining carts in particular, you get a style of gameplay in the Bonanza online slot that leans more towards action and a high hit-rate than you get even in the other Megaways slots. Of the four titles we’re looking at here from the series, this is the one that probably has the highest volatility, though all four of them have levels of volatility that would be considered high by any standard.
Starquest (Big Time Gaming).There’s no shortage of games in the online slots world that are based on space motifs, and the Starquest slot in the Megaways lineup is included in that. You’ll see a pretty cool space scene in the background, and you can really get a great look at it because the six reels are completely transparent. Particles are flying around in all directions to the sides to make you feel like you really are floating in outer space, perhaps in orbit around the large planet shown in the bottom-left part of the screen, and the visual appeal is real as a result.
Full Reel Wild Symbols
You can see various characters show up in space suits, some of which will have blaster rays or other items, and they are the wild symbols. Different ones can appear on different reels, but they all act as the same kind of wild symbols, and they can count for up to five symbols each. Along these lines, they can also give you multipliers that range up to 5x as well, and those multipliers can combine if you get two or more wilds in the same combination.
To give an idea of how these wilds might combine, suppose you have a 2x wild multiplier with a 4x wild multiplier that come together in the same winning combo. That would produce a total multiplier with a value of 8x since the values themselves multiply together instead of just combining via addition.
Respin Wild Feature
The wild symbol is clearly the most important symbol in this particular game, and there’s no other title in the Megaways series that centers around the wilds quite as much as Starquest. A major reason behind this is the respin wild feature that triggers when you get at least one of the wilds on the screen at once. When this happens, you’ll get paid out as usual, and then all of the other non-wild reels will spin again to give you a free opportunity to make more payouts.
To give players even more chances for value, getting new wilds on the reel will repeat the process. Since the multipliers from the wilds combine, that drives home the point that these respins are worth a ton since you’ll be getting the full extent of the combined multipliers in the final respins of the feature.
Symbol Set and Key Payouts
The symbol set of this game is a bit different than what you’d normally expect from a space game. Aside from the “SQ” symbol with a space motif, which pays out 15 times your total bet for six of a kind, the next three largest pays come from jewel symbols. The red octagon, blue hexagon and green pentagon, in respective order, pay out 3x, 1.5x or 1x for six of a kind for each individual combination of symbols that provides the win. The rest of the paying symbols are card rank symbols A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9.
Starquest review summary
Starquest is a solid game that focuses on wild-based features. Its graphics aren’t quite as strong as some of the other titles in the Megaways series, but the gameplay is super strong. There aren’t as many features in this one as the other three games we’ve mentioned specifically, but it still works really well as a part of Big Time Gaming’s overall portfolio because not everyone cares so much for feature-driven play.
White Rabbit (Big Time Gaming).The fourth and final Megaways game we’re going to look at specifically is White Rabbit, a game based on the Alice in Wonderland story. This game is noteworthy in the series because it allows for smaller bet sizes than most of the other Megaways titles with wagers as small as €0.10 being available. It’s also noteworthy because it only has five reels instead of the typical six for the majority of the other games in the set, but you’ll still get up to seven symbols per reel. Despite these differences, it still offers up a pretty good time for players.
Scattered Rabbits and Free Spins
The rabbit is in the name of the game, and it also gives you chances to pick up some free spins. As a key character in Alice in Wonderland, it’s no surprise that this guy makes a big appearance on the reels. On the second, third and fourth reels, you’ll see this rabbit appear as a scatter. Get all three on the reels at the same time, and you will be rewarded with 15 free turns.
During these free turns, your chances of hitting wins increases by having the size of the reels themselves expand to include more symbols. If a reel reaches 12 total symbols, then it actually re-triggers the feature, and the reels return back down to their original size to start the whole thing over again. The reels increase by getting the cupcake symbols on them, which is fitting since the cupcakes are what cause Alice to grow to be giant in the original story.
Wilds and Caterpillars
There are two special symbols on the reels that affect gameplay quite a bit outside of the rabbits that trigger the bonus round. The wilds show up on the last four reels and give chances for extra winning combinations, but they only substitute for regular symbols. The bonus wild, however, can count for two or three symbols instead of just one, and they can count as cupcakes as well when you’re in the free spins mode.
The other key symbol is the caterpillar. He has an important role in the story this game is based on, and he has an equally important role in the base game of this slot. When he shows up, he moves across the reels to add between two an four of the bonus wild symbols described above, and since they can each count for multiple symbols, that adds up to opportunities for massive multi-line payouts.
White Rabbit review summary
The feature drop button at the bottom of the screen allows you to immediately trigger the free spins mode for the given price listed as well, and though that’s completely optional, it allows you to go down the rabbit hole, so to speak, to see if it’s worth it. Even this aspect of the White Rabbit slot is inspired by the Alice in Wonderland game, and with extremely solid graphics and a set of features based on ideas from the original story, this title is an important part of the Megaways series.