Max Elements

Max Elements: Slot Overview

Editor's note: Max Elements is still under development, and both features and audiovisuals may change. If necessary, we plan on revisiting Max Elements once it gets a full release.

Software provider Yggdrasil Gaming has teamed up with online streaming site CasinoGrounds, pooling ideas in an attempt to please the gambling crowd. What they've produced is Max Elements, a slot that features Gigablox symbols and a whole lot more besides. The collab has designed a scatter paying slot to go with the big symbols, which we actually saw quite recently while reviewing Yggdrasil's Lucky Apocalypse. While leprechauns have magical connotations, so does the main character in Max Elements, and he's able to do neat tricks with Feature Runes, Mystery symbols, as well as sundry other effects.

An enchanting wee sector of the woods is where Max Elements resides. Nifty stonework adorns the background, Max the Elemental Wizard himself seems an amiable chap, and the music mixes relaxation with a dash of magic. All brightly presented stuff then, and with its hearkening back to games like Water Blox or Monster Blox, the scene is set for a sorcerous sequence of events. Here's hoping, anyway.

Max works his magic on a 5x6 gaming grid that creates a winning combination when 8 or more matching pay symbols land in any position, with every winning combo triggering an avalanche sequence for a chance to win multiple times per spin. Highly volatile, two RTP models have been designed, where the most preferable is a 96% version. The same RTP value appears to apply whether betting 10 c to $/€20 per spin, buying free spins, or activating the Golden Bet (more on this below).

Max Elements' pay symbols are low-pay versions of clouds, leaves, water, and fire, a golden symbol, high-pay versions of clouds, leaves, water, and fire, then Max. Scatter combinations made up of 8-9 OAK pay 0.1 to 0.5 times the bet, going up to 5x to 100x for a 25+ OAK win. As is often common in scatter pay slots, the game does not include wilds but comes bundled with several special symbols.

Max Elements: Slot Features

A sizable list of features accompanies Max Elements, including avalanche wins, Gigablox, Feature Runes, Mystery Stones, free spins, super free spins, and bonus buys.

Summon Gigablox

Gigablox are clusters of 1x1 symbols brought together in an oversized 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, or 5x5 symbol. They count as the number of 1x1 symbols they consist of for win evaluations. In the base game and in free spins, after each win but before an avalanche, there is a chance to summon a Gigablox. A random Gigablox might fall down, removing symbols in its path. The Gigablox stops when it is fully visible and has no spaces beneath it.

Feature Runes

There are four Feature Rune modifiers in the game that activate immediately before disappearing and causing an avalanche:

• Transform Rune - a landed Transform Rune randomly selects 1, 2, or 3 low-pay symbol types and transforms them into a single type of high-pay symbol. Only 1 Transform Rune can land at once, and there is a chance the low-paying symbols transform into Mystery Stones.
• Delete Rune - after a Delete Rune lands, all regular pay symbol types that have less than 6 instances on the reels are deleted. Only 1 Delete Rune can land at once.
• Multiply Rune - a landed Multiplier Rune increases the Global Multiplier. The 2x2 Gigablox variant multiplies the multiplier by 3. The 1x1 variant multiplies the multiplier by 2. The Multiply Rune cannot land when the Global Multiplier is less than x2.
• Add Rune - a landed Add Rune adds a random value to the Global Multiplier. The 2x2 Gigablox variant adds 5 to 100 to the multiplier. The 1x1 variant adds 1-4 to the multiplier.

Mystery Stone

Mystery Stones can land in the base game and bonus round in 1x1 or Gigablox size. Each time an avalanche occurs, the Mystery Stones transform into a random pay symbol. Mystery Stones persist through an avalanche sequence. Only 1x1 Mystery Stone symbols can land if there are existing Mystery Stones on the reels.

Free Spins & Super Free Spins

Landing 3 scatter symbols triggers 6 free spins. Players can pick Mystery Stone Free Spins, where there is always at least one 2x2 or larger Mystery Stone symbol per spin, or Runic Free Spins, where there is always at least one Feature Rune on each spin. A Super Scatter may land in free spins. If it does, the round upgrades to super free spins and +2 free spins are granted. In Super free spins, there is at least one 2x2 or larger Mystery Stone and at least one Feature Spin per spin. In free spins and super free spins, a +1 symbol may land, each granting an extra free spin.

Multiplier

In the base game, the multiplier can be increased only by Feature Runes, and the multiplier resets to 1 at the end of an avalanche session. In free spins, the multiplier persists till the round ends. In addition, the multiplier increases by +1 on each avalanche. Furthermore, after reaching x10, each avalanche adds +2 per win; after reaching x30, each avalanche adds +3 per win; after reaching x60, each avalanche adds +4 per win; after reaching x100, each avalanche adds +5 per win. Reaching each multiplier threshold also awards +1 free spin.

Bonus Buy and Golden Bet

It is possible to buy either regular free spins for 100x the bet or super free spins for 300x the bet. The Golden Bet provides 2 betting choices: The Star Spins increase the chance of triggering free spins for 3x the bet, while Runic Spins guarantee at least one Mystery Stone and Feature Rune per spin for 6x the bet. Runic Spins also grants the Global Multiplier progress on each avalanche in the base game.

Max Elements: Slot Verdict

We name-dropped Lucky Apocalypse in the intro, but for now, Gigablox and scatter pays are two gaming components that don't have a lot to do with each other. In Max Elements, the developer has brought them together nicely, arguably even more effectively than the leprechaun slot did. A number of reasons make it so. First, an enchanting game world which brought back memories of those Peter & Sons slots mentioned above, as well as NetEnt's iconic Secret of the Stones invites players in for a look. The invitation is then extended by a generously sized package of features which deepen the game's magical touch.

Unexpectedly, Mystery symbols were one of the standouts. This is not often the case since Mystery symbols tend to just reveal something before vanishing. Not so here, where they are able to stick around on the grid, revealing and revealing again until no more avalanches occur. This effect links well with the rising multiplier, and on the whole, Max Elements is a game which ties its features together well in general. There are a fair number of effects, too, each one dropping something positive into the cauldron. The going could be painful at times, but it was possible to see the high volatility step in and kickstart the features. The multiplier, for example, when passing x100, could be deadly. On top of that, being linked to an outfit like CasinoGrounds means that seeing high-powered and somewhat pricey ante bets is less surprising than they would have been if this was an Yggdrasil only show.

All in all, Max Elements is a positive outcome from the meeting of Yggdrasil Gaming and CasinoGrounds. Along with sweetly interlinking features and a win cap of 25,000x, Max the Elemental Wizard chap has weaved Gigablox and scatter pays together in order to perform a winning set of tricks.