Electro Cubes: Slot Overview
The gambling community has been knee-deep in the scatter pays movement for a while, so knocking together a Sweet Bonanza 1000 or Gates of Olympus 1000 imitator to pull punters through the gates just doesn’t really cut it. Nowadays, innovation or at least an eye-grabbing gimmick is needed to help a scatter pays slot stand apart from the encircling bandwagoners. Software provider AvatarUX has repeatedly proven itself to be a creative bunch in the past, complimented by design buds Mr Wu, and the two teams have joined forces to produce Electro Cubes, a scatter pays slot with a few interesting tricks stashed away in its sleeve.
However, Electro Cubes didn’t make an amazing first impression since it’s not the most visually arresting piece of work Mr Wu and AvatarUX have teamed up to produce. It’s got an electronic, futuristic thing going on, in a similar vein to Hacksaw Gaming‘s Cubes (2020) or Big Time Gaming‘s Star Clusters Megaclusters (2020). It’s like being the captain of an interstellar freighter, hauling chunks of ice between star systems, just you, the stars, and the void for light years in every direction, cold, dark, and a bit lonely. Nudge the game to life, though, and Electro Cubes is also like a gambling-enabled Rubik’s cube that twists and flips between or even during rounds.
One of Electro Cubes’ interesting qualities is the ability to be either highly volatile or low volatile, depending on user preference. A slider at the lower left-hand corner of the screen allows players to toggle between their preferred settings. According to the rules section, depending on the chosen strategy, the RTP varies from 95.97% to 96.05%. When betting, it is possible to wager 10 c to $/€100 per spin, and to win, 6 or more identical symbols are needed to land in any position, creating a scatter win combination. Winning symbols vanish, and new symbols appear in the empty positions, providing another chance to win on the same spin.
Cubes are a pretty good way of describing Electro Cubes’ pay symbols. There are 6 lows and 6 highs of various colours, awarding 0.2x to 2x for a 6-7 OAK scatter win, up to 4.5x to 500x the bet for landing a 12+ OAK scatter win. Wilds are actually quite prominent in the game, and when in view, they can substitute for any regular paying symbol.
Electro Cubes: Slot Features
Flipping and twisting about Electro Cubes’ features are Cube Nudges, a Collect Meter, which triggers wild symbols and bonus games, as well as the opportunity to buy features.
Cube Nudge
The Cube Nudge randomly shifts whole rows or reels, vertically or horizontally, within the gaming area to potentially create new winning combinations.
Collect Meter
Winning symbols fill the Collect Meter in the base and bonus games. When reaching a marked collection point on the meter, the Electro Wild Throw feature triggers placing 1 to 3 wild symbols onto the grid. When completely filling the meter, triggering 3 consecutive Electro Wild Throw features in the process, the bonus game is triggered.
Bonus Game
The bonus game is triggered by achieving 3 consecutive Electro Wild Throws. Players win 5 free spins where there are more frequent wild throws, nudges, and multipliers. Multipliers of x2 to x10 can appear on wilds and are additive. Achieving 3 consecutive Wild Throws in the bonus round awards +5 free spins.
Xpress
Xpress is the name of Electro Cubes’ bonus buy menu. Here, players can guarantee wilds on a spin for 5x the bet or buy 5 free spins with low volatility or high volatility for 50x or 100x the bet, respectively. From the Xpress, it is also possible to activate the Ante Bet, which triples the chance of triggering the bonus for an extra 50% added to the stake.
Electro Cubes: Slot Verdict
One of Electro Cubes’ more compelling tricks is its willingness to load the gaming grid with wild symbols. Okay, loading is probably too optimistic of a word, but given the way symbols in scatter pays slots are able to create wins from any position, wilds are often left out of the equation. They aren’t completely absent from this style of slot, but wilds are often replaced by multiplier symbols or other supplementary features. Not so in Electro Cubes which bases a lot of its potential thrills on adding wild symbols to the grid. The Collect Meter is critical in this instance for triggering the Electro Wild Throw feature, and if the collection is going swimmingly, ultimately awarding free spins as well.
Free spins further up the ante by not only keeping the wild symbol throws going but by allowing multipliers to be added to them as well. Wild multipliers were the real game changer during the review, despite symbol values being quite high at the upper end of the pay table hierarchy. So while a bare naked, non-modified full grid of the most valuable low pay symbol comes to a thoroughly unexciting 9x the bet, 500x is possible when hitting 12 of the best premiums. Still, multiplier wilds in free spins were essential to really shunt the action along.
Encouragingly, Electro Cubes could get pretty decent rolls on, collecting winning symbols, shooting wilds onto the reels, nudging every so often to produce exciting moments, and so on. It was kind of like getting paid to solve a Rubik’s cube, where monetary rewards are added to the satisfaction of making a full side. Completely solve the puzzle, well, get lucky, in other words, and Electro Cubes theoretically performs up to a cap of 10,000x the bet. So while Electro Cubes might not be the most visually engaging slot AvatarUX and Mr Wu have ever designed, should it really get rolling, optical shortcomings fade when a good flip and twist is on.
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