Mejuicea: Slot Overview
History is littered with what-ifs – what would have happened if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had not been assassinated, what if JFK decided against his open-top car trip to Dallas? Our own lives, too, are filled with diverging paths where we picked a fork in the road, never knowing where the other choices might have led. Since life isn’t a video game, we can’t just reload after fumbling a scene and choose a different bit of dialogue. Software provider Thunderkick has provided the chance to do a bit of mental gymnastics in its online slot, Mejuicea. What if, instead of accepting Gorgon status, Medusa had a makeover, rebranded as Mejuicea, and set up a fruit stand on a gorgeous Greek island to refresh weary tourists soaking up the Aegean sun instead of turning people to stone upon looking at her?
Mejuicea still has snakes on her head, but she’s also carrying around a bunch of fruit, and she looks to be a friendly, non-killy host this time. She’s been placed in a blurry world that basks in greens and blues during the base game, pinks, oranges, and cyans in the bonus round. The music, too, flits between laid-back and celebratory, depending on which phase of play you find yourself in. It all adds up to Mejuicea being very agreeable to the eyes and ears, fruitily inviting, let’s say.
Played on a 5×6 gaming area, a winning cluster occurs when 5 or more matching pay symbols connect horizontally or vertically. When this occurs, the payout size depends on how many symbols make up the cluster. The theoretical RTP payers can expect is 94.18% when betting 10 c to $/€100, while the volatility is medium-high.
Six fruits make up the paytable: plums, grapes, apples, orange slices, cherries, and watermelon slices. Clusters of 5 matching symbols pay 0.1x to 0.4x the bet, going up to 20+ sized clusters, which are worth 10x to 50x the bet. Wilds complete or increase wins by substituting any regular paying symbols.
Mejuicea: Slot Features
Mejuicea mixes up a cocktail of Crush feature, Charge Meter, Collected Wilds meter, a Global Multiplier, a bonus round, Bet+ ante bets, and a feature buy.
Crush Feature
The Crush feature triggers on every win or when a scatter symbol is present. The winning symbols and scatter turn to heavy and crush all symbols below them on the reels except other heavy symbols. All heavy and crushed symbols are removed from the reels, triggering a redrop.
Charge Meter
Crushed symbols fill the Charge Meter, requiring 30 steps for a full charge. A crushed symbol adds +1 step, while a crushed wild adds +30. Each full charge adds +1 to the Collected Wilds meter at the top of the Charge Meter up to a maximum of 5. When no more wins are possible and no scatters are present, the Collected Wilds meter is activated if it contains at least one full charge. One wild is added to the grid per full charge to positions that do not contain a multiplier or another wild. After activating, the Collected Meter resets, but the Charge Meter’s progress remains and can continue to fill.
Global Multiplier
All wins are multiplied by the Global Multiplier, which resets to x1 at the start of each base game round. The multiplier increases when a Multiplier symbol is crushed. Possible multiplier symbol values range from x1 to x50, and the value is added to the Global Multiplier after payouts. The maximum multiplier level is x999.
Bonus Game
Players are awarded 10 free spins in the bonus game by collecting 3 scatters. Before the feature starts, the Global Multiplier and the Charge Meter are reset. However, during the round, both the Global Multiplier and the Charge Meter are persistent, only resetting when the bonus concludes. Landing a scatter during the feature awards +1 free spin.
Bet+ and Feature Buy
The Bet+ menu lets players increase the stake to 1.5x or 2.5x to make it 2 or 5 times as likely to trigger the bonus game, respectively. At 3.5x the bet, the bonus game is 3 times more likely to trigger, with multiplier symbols starting at x3. Alternatively, it is possible to buy the bonus round for 75x the stake.
Mejuicea: Slot Verdict
Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in what could have been, and wallow in regret over the way life might have turned out if only we’d been braver, luckier, or smarter enough to pick the other option. But who knows, maybe when all is said, done and weighed up, we’re actually wandering down the most optimal path for us possible. And anyway, like they say, it could always be worse. Mejuicea could have been a lot worse, as it turned out to be a pretty enjoyable cluster pays slot. It’s got a bubbly energy that’s easy to warm to, due in part to the bright, colourful artwork, in part the tunes, but also the fact that the snake-haired leading lady is a charmer instead of a destructive monster.
The game, on the whole, is quite charming and a neatly put-together cluster paying slot. It might be lacking wild and crazy innovations, but filling the Charge Meter with crushed symbols rather than winning symbols makes for a change, and there were times when runs of consecutive wins lined up to fill the meter. While doing so, crushed multiplier symbols add their values to the Global Multiplier, completing a tidy set of features. Again, Mejuicea isn’t the sort of slot that completely flips the script, but everything fits nicely together, there are a few twists to test out, and winning potential tips the scales at 5,000x. We’re used to seeing serious mythology treatment from Thunderkick, such as in its Midas Golden Touch range, Ways of Athena, or its Beat the Beast stuff, so taking a breather with a lighter game like Mejuicea was a refreshing tone change.
In short, some of the stats are the usual Thunderkick drek, well, the RTP, but there’s not much gamblers can do about that apart from not play it. Otherwise, Mejuicea is a fun cluster paying slot, with a bright, friendly mood, easy-to-follow features, and a nice twist on the theme to make it more cordially fruit-related.
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