Diamond Staxx Multipays

Diamond Staxx Multipays: Slot Overview

Mark Twain famously said, 'The past doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme', and we get a taste of the past rhyming in developer Stakelogic's retro-futuristic online slot Diamond Staxx Multipays. It is one of those games that might have looked totally radical and to the max back in like 1987, yet now looks somewhat dated. Then again, whisking players back in time was likely one of Stakelogic's goals when they designed Diamond Staxx Multipays, which mixes parts old-fashioned with more avant-garde (ish) bits into one uncomplicated, somewhat bare concoction.

One glance is probably all it really takes to know whether Diamond Staxx Multipays is going to be the right fit or not. Stakelogic has gone full old school with the visuals, including a stack of eye-catching chunkified gem symbols on the game grid. Its background imagery, arguably quite mesmerising, reinforces the retro angle as well, being a mix of wireframe modelling, purple hills, and a glistening triangle-filled sky. It's a bit like in the movie The Thirteenth Floor when Hall drives to a place he would never normally think of going, only to discover that his day-to-day 'world' is a simulation, and anything outside it hasn't been fully rendered. This thought-provoking film missed out on winning Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film to the Matrix.

Back to the game, which is played on a 5-reel, 3-row grid with 10 fixed paylines and a winning mechanic called Multipays, which is covered below. The game is medium-high volatile and comes with a default RTP of 96.24%; this apparently applies whether playing in the regular mode picking a bet of 10 p/c to $/€ 100 per spin, or activating Super Stake. Why you would want to activate Super Stake isn't entirely clear. The only guidance offered in the paytable is 'Double your bet to activate a special Super Stake Mode for extra chances of hitting insanely valuable winning combinations.'

That might be a little vague, but Diamond Staxx Multipays keeps things simple when it comes to symbols. The game has no scatter, bonus symbol or wild, relying completely on regular pay symbols to power the entertainment. Paying symbols include red, pink, yellow, and green gems worth 15-30 times the bet for five-of-a-kind. These are followed by Double Bars, bells, and diamonds, awarding 80x to 500x the stake for a five-of-a-kind win. All payout when matching symbols land from the left-hand side of the board across a payline on at least three consecutive reels.

Diamond Staxx Multipays: Slot Features

Simplicity is the name of the game, with the Multipays mechanic being the only thing to go over here. How it works is that pays are awarded for three-of-a-kind wins on the first three reels, then if the hit becomes four-of-a-kind when the fourth reel stops spinning, the second payout is added. Moreover, the payout is added to again if the hit becomes a five-of-a-kind when the fifth reel stops spinning. A bit like ReelPlay's Infinity Reels in some ways but held to five reels instead of 'infinite'.

Diamond Staxx Multipays: Slot Verdict

Whilst chasing the nostalgia dollar makes sound business sense, getting it right can mean metaphorically walking a slippery tightrope between two sides of a canyon as the wind picks up and it starts to rain. Oh, and there's no safety net dangling below to catch the unwary or unlucky if they fall. The trick is getting the right balance between looking and sounding old-school and looking and sounding, well, just bad. Diamond Staxx Multipays teeters precariously between these two extremes. The background Tron thing is quite neat, but the rest, dunno; it feels a little closer to miss than hit. As in, maybe it's just a little too retro? Who knows, the roaring 80s atmos combined with the Starburst-esque symbols might be just the olde worlde hit certain players are craving. For others, Diamonds Staxx Multipays might be akin to washing their eyeballs with handfuls of sand.

To the gaming then, which has its ups and downs. For the ups, well, it's a simple game if keeping things as uncomplicated as possible is a requirement. Multipays is a fairly interesting idea in some ways, yet one without major staying power, after we'd seen it do its thing a few times. All Diamond Staxx Multipays really has to offer is line wins, leading to potentially consecutive line wins, depending on how the fourth and reel fall. There's no bonus round or any other explicitly stated modifier to look forward to. Perhaps if Stakelogic had bolted on something to complement the simplicity, maybe incorporated with the Multipays mechanic to help lift it out of the round of repetition it got mired in. Super Stake is there though it's so vaguely worded it's hard to tell what it does.

By the end, Diamond Staxx Multipays felt incomplete, like it was missing something, or it was rolled out in beta stage. The Multipays system generated a modicum of intrigue, and it wouldn't be the worst thing to see used again in the future, but it might be more impactful if implanted in a game with a bit more going on.