You need patience to play this slot

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.