Diamonds Up

Diamonds Up: Slot Overview

Fans of gambling fruit salads are spoiled for choice with a countless galaxy of options available that gets ever larger as the years power by. The fruit thing's been around since virtually the dawn of slot machines, and Evolution-owned Red Tiger has made another contribution to the long-standing genre. It's not the first time, we might add, and today's game goes by the name of Diamonds Up, using as it does Diamond Wild symbols to level up a progression feature to upgrade lower-paying symbols on its reels.

Diamonds Up inhabits a fairly plain, generic domain, a 'seen it many, many times before' domain, of classic slot symbols, cheap and cheerful background decor, as well as a cheap and cheerful tune. So common are the audiovisuals it might be easy to overlook Diamonds Up entirely if old-school fruit is not your jam. But let's stay hopeful for now. That 1/30 counter above the ladder of symbols is mildly intriguing, and Diamonds Up does conceal a big win number beneath the generic veneer.

25 paylines are built into Diamonds Up's gaming grid, evaluating winning combinations from the leftmost reel. There are 5 reels in total, equipped with 3 rows of symbols on each. Winning potential is surprisingly large (on paper, at least), which might explain a stake range of just 10 c to $/€4 per spin in what is a medium-high volatile slot. The default RTP comes in at 95.69%, or a smidge higher at 95.7% when buying free spins.

You've very probably seen this lot before, more than once. Diamonds Up's pay symbols are cherries, plums, oranges, grapes, watermelons, Bars, horseshoes, bells, and sevens, paying 2x the bet for hitting 5 of the fruit, 4 to 40 times the bet for 5 of the 4 most valuable symbols. Diamond Wild symbols land on reels 2, 3, and 4, substituting all of the regular paying symbols.

Diamonds Up: Slot Features

In Diamonds Up, Diamond Wilds are used as the progression symbol to progress along the symbol upgrade ladder, upgrading the lowest symbols on the reels.

Symbol Upgrade Ladder

Spins in Diamonds Up runs in cycles from 1 to 30, and a counter beside the reels keeps track. Landing Diamond Wild symbols during the cycle progresses the symbol upgrade ladder. The ladder displays symbols from the lowest paying at the bottom to the highest paying at the top. Each level has 3 steps to complete, each step is filled by a landed wild. Filling a level upgrades all the current lower-paying symbols to the symbol that has just been filled. Upgrades continue till the end of the 30 spins cycle when it resets. The ladder resets when 30 spins are complete.

Free Spins

In the base game, hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols awards 9, 12, or 20 free spins, respectively. Scatters pay 5x, 20x, or 100x when 3, 4, or 5 of them land, respectively. Symbol upgrading is active during free spins, and landing any Diamond Wild progresses the upgrade ladder as it does in the base game. The round can be retriggered in the same manner as triggering the bonus. At the end of free spins, the state reached on the upgrade ladder transfers over to the base game, where the spin cycle continues where it left off before free spins were triggered.

Feature Buy

Diamonds Up comes with a larger feature buy selection than usual in a Red Tiger slot. Players can get free spins triggered by 3 or more scatters with the second level filled at 20x the bet, the third level filled at 120x the bet, the fourth level filled at 200x the bet, or the fifth level filled at 800x the bet. The saved base game state is restored after completing the bonus round.

Diamonds Up: Slot Verdict

Fruit slots are a dime a dozen, so it can be hard to sift through the morass to find the gems. Or, at least, find better examples of this kind of gaming. Not that Diamonds Up is a gem as such, but it turned out to be better than expected. Not only was the 20,000x max win a big ol', eyebrow-raising surprise, but the accompanying gameplay was fairly interesting as well for what it is. Spin cycle slots drop every so often, partner studio NetEnt doing one not too long ago before this in the form of Babylon Riches, for example, and Diamonds Up offers things few, if any, of the others do.

You don't really see batches of 30 spins, for instance. Usually, it's around 10 or so. With luck, 30 spins will turn out to be enough to get some decent levelling up happening and ensure higher paying symbols land in place of the levelled out lower value ones. During testing, playing with the upper levels of the upgrade ladder could be enjoyable due to hitting almost full screens or even completely full screens of matching symbol wins. A full screen of seven symbols would put 1,000x in your pocket, so you can kind of see how 20,000x might be possible.

Diamonds Up didn't do enough to reach next big thing status; however, in the right player's hands, its strong max win number and particular modus operandi might be just the fruit fiesta they've been looking for.