The concept of variable ways games is still a new one on the casino floors, and one of the games leading the charge is Buffalo Gold Max Power. I recently had my first free games bonus on the game, and the variable reel counts, the Buffalo retriggers, and the wild multipliers can make for a potent combination.
Neily 777 recently played the game and uploaded a pretty unusual video to his channel featuring it. The gameplay starts at 4:32 on this video:
He was betting $6 a spin on 2 cent denomination. The bonus, like standard for three coins on Buffalo, yields 8 free spins.
The first couple of spins were uneventful but spin 3 is where it gets interesting. The reels offered 3,240 ways to a win, a good number. He managed three wild symbols and clumped symbols of 10s across the first five reels.
He didn’t get a 10 on the final reel, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t even get 3x multipliers; all three were 2x multipliers, but it didn’t matter either. 5 10s pays 400 credits, x8 for the wild multipliers, and x24 for the clumps he had across the five reels. 400×8 is 3200 credits, x24 is 76,800 credits.
But don’t forget it’s 2 cent denomination, so that pushes him to a $1,536 handpay. And again, this is just 10s. This was a 256x multiple of his bet, on 10s.
It really shows you what the potential of these games are. What if he had a 10 on the sixth reel? What if he had some 3x multipliers? What if it was a better paying symbol? This quite wonderful hit could’ve been astronomical.
Aristocrat isn’t one to shy away from some volatility, and this game is no exception. Neily captured an exceptional hit on what is, for now, an unusual game on the casino floor.
The Slot Moments series selects videos that can show the real potential of a slot machine game. Do you have a moment that stands out for you? Share in the comments and it may be featured in a future edition!
Is is true that a machine calculates how much it will pay on the instant the spin button is depressed? Doesn’t that make all of the free games, multipliers, etc. just entertainment as the machine cooks up different ways to show you how much you ultimately won?
Hi Phil – in many cases, not quite! The random number generator in slots generally determines where the reels will stop. In most cases this determines if the spin is a winning one or not and how much it pays as a result of the symbols that come up related to that spin. But in the case of a bonus, the bonus is often not predetermined, so the machine goes back to the RNG for the free spins, hold and spin, or whatnot, and the outcome is determined in real time.
That’s not to say that there aren’t predetermined bonuses, or even machines that take a “prize-first” approach as you describe – the amount being paid is determined at the time of the spin, and everything else after that is window dressing to make it more fun than just displaying “you won X.”