Fresh Slot Ideas

30 April 2020

By John Grochowski

Part of keeping games fresh and players interested is tweaking successful slot machines and creating new versions with extra bells and whistles.

At Scientific Games, the popular Ultimate Fire Link has been taken one step beyond with a new Ultra Hot Fireball symbol to give us the Ultra Hot Mega Link.

The Ultra Hot Mega Link – something to anticipate once brick-and-mortar casinos reopen – takes players to locales around the world. India and Amazon are the first two themes in a series of games under the Ultra Hot umbrella.

Ultra Hot Fireballs put extra sizzle in the Fire Link feature. Just as in Ultimate Fire Link games, the feature is triggered when at least four Fireball symbols appear on the video reels. The symbols, which include credit amounts or progressive jackpots, lock in place for at least three respins.

On the respins, every new Fireball also locks in place and resets the respin meter to three. When a set of Fireballs is completed, a new row is unlocked and added to the reels, opening the chance for bigger wins. When the respin meter hits zero, you win the amounts displayed on the Fireballs.

Those winnings grow dramatically if a respin brings you an Ultra Hot Fireball. It adds credits or a mini jackpot to up to five Fireballs surrounding it. Rewards you’ve already accumulated are stoked and blaze anew.

Also featured is a free games bonus launched when three scattered treasure chest symbols land on the second, third and fourth reels. That awards eight free spins, and you can get an extra spin any time a treasure chest lands on the fifth reel during the freebies.

Ultra Hot Mega Link is available to casino operators in several configurations. For 1-cent or 2-cent play, there are 50 paylines on the five video reels, with a 500-credot maximum bet. For 5-cent and 10-cent play, there are 20 lines and a 200-credit max bet, and for 25-cent, $1 and $1 denominations, there are 10 lines with a 50-credit max.

• Speaking of popular slot concepts with new tweaks, Scientific Games also is rolling out the latest addition to its ever-popular Monopoly games.

Monopoly Electric Win$ is a six-reel, 20-line game packed with bonus fun. It’s available in multiple coin denominations from 1 cent to 50 cents. In addition to your bets on the base game, there’s a 25-credit bonus bet that activates a special Electric Reel.

In the Board Bonus, played on a supersized version of the iconic Monopoly board, players roll dice to determine a number of multipliers to be added to the board. You have a chance at one of four progressive jackpots or one of six bonuses, all awarded randomly.

In both the Pick and Match Bonus and Community Chest Bonus, players pick for credit prizes. In the Railroad Bonus, a prize train awards credit prizes and a multiplier. In the Dice Bonus, players roll for credit prizes. Lastly, in the Free Spins Bonus, players are awarded 10 free spins, and if a MONOPOLY Electric Win$ symbol lands on the reels, an additional 10 free spins are awarded.

Away from the board, the base game includes an Electric Reel that’s activated by the bonus bet. The Electric Reel can add wild symbols to the reels for power-packed wins. Before a spin, a Hotel symbol may appear in positions on the first five reels. Then if the Light Bulb symbol appears on the sixth reel, it transforms the hotels to wilds.

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