Mighty Masks

Mighty Masks: Slot Overview

Don't want to get too deep from the outset, but like author Marie Lu said, 'The irony of life is that those who wear masks often tell us more truths than those with open faces.' If that's true, then developer Hacksaw Gaming's Mighty Masks is doing the online slot version of getting on Freud's couch and spilling its internal beans. Mighty Masks is an African nature-themed slot based around Mystery Mask reveals, in conjunction with the newly introduced Nudgereels mechanic, a multiplier wheel, free spins and three bonus modes for playing the game in.

With references to the Serengeti, it appears players have been flung to a wilder, rawer part of the planet than they might ordinarily be used to. A place where Deliveroo, UberEATS, or any sort of food delivery service is non-existent. Here, you gotta grow your calories or out-wit the local fauna when you've got a hunger on. Speaking of fauna, Mighty Masks is jam-packed with animals of various descriptions, but Hacksaw Gaming has refrained from making this any sort of wildlife documentary. Instead, the studio has used a sort of Disney/DreamWorks/Madagascar-type event where the animals look like they're more likely to bust out a rib-tickling joke or two than battle over territory. Then again, some of them don't look super happy to see humans on their patch.

Played on a 5x4 gaming panel with 20 paylines, one of the main focuses is landing winning combinations of matching symbols, at least three of them, from the leftmost side of the grid onwards. Rated as 4 out of 5, Matching Masks is a medium-high volatile slot with a range of RTP settings, so if you want the highest, that would be the 96.3% version, depending on the market. With three options from the bonus buy menu covered below, base bets begin at 10 p/c and go as high as $/€100.

Time to meet the crew, which as the high pays, includes a bird, rhino, monkey, crocodile, and lion as the premium picture symbols, complemented by 10-A glowing green card ranks as the low pays. A line of 5 premiums will award 10 to 20 times the bet, while the same with low pays is worth 1x the bet. The wilds, which substitute for any pay symbol, appear on all reels will dish out 20 times the bet should you land a full line.

Mighty Masks: Slot Features

Now we get to the features section, the masks part will become clearer via the Mighty Mystery Masks extra, which is accompanied by NudgeReels, the Multiplier Wheel, Serengeti Sunset Bonus, and thebonus buy.

Mighty Mystery Masks

The Mystery Mask symbol reveals either a regular pay symbol or a wild symbol. All landed Mystery Masks in view will reveal the same type of symbol. When Mystery Masks land on three reels or more, they spread downward to cover all positions on their respective reels. Mystery Masks do their reveal after any regular line wins have been awarded.

Nudge Reels and Multiplier Wheel

Landing the Nudge Wild symbol triggers the NudgeReels and nudges the Multiplier Wheel up to 50 times. If the Nudge Wild lands with at least one winning combo in view, it activates the Multiplier Wheel sitting next to the grid. The wheel produces a multiplier value which is applied to all wins on the current spin. The Nudge Wild can also land with a nudge value. If so, then the Multiplier Wheel will nudge the number of times shown on the symbol, all the while adding each multiplier value it nudges through, creating a total multiplier above the wheel before applying it to the current total win. The Nudge Wild can have values of 1 to 50, while the values on the Multiplier Wheel can be x2 to x100.

Serengeti Sunset Bonus Feature

Hitting 3 or more scatter symbols in the base game triggers the Serengeti Sunset bonus. During the feature, more Mystery Masks and Nudge Wild symbols are present compared to the base game. Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatters in the base game awards 10, 12, or 14 free spins. Get 2 scatters in the feature, and you're awarded +2 free spins, or get 3 scatters, then 4 extra free spins are coming your way.

Bonus Buy

Mighty Masks provides players with three ways of playing the game from the bonus buy menu. The choices are:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins – each spin is 5 times more likely to trigger the bonus game for the cost of 3x the bet. Max RTP 96.38%, very highly volatile.
• Masked FeatureSpins – 40x the bet for a spin guaranteeing at least 3 Mystery Masks hit. Max RTP 96.28%, extremely volatile.
• Serengeti Sunset – 120x the bet to buy the Serengeti Sunset bonus. Max RTP 96.28%, very highly volatile.

Mighty Masks: Slot Verdict

Playing Mighty Masks was like meeting a person at a party and could swear you've met before but can't quite pinpoint where exactly. Actually, to be more accurate, it was like meeting someone who reminds you of a bunch of different people. A subjective reaction, of course, yet Mighty Masks awakened memories of slots as diverse as Mega Moolah, Big Bamboo, and Pragmatic Play's Aztec Gems. The good news is that since Hacksaw Gaming is one of the most creative teams out there, Mighty Masks avoids coming across simply as a patchwork quilt of prior ideas, morphing instead into its own beast altogether.

It's pretty staggering, really. How many ways of incorporating a multiplier system into a game can there be? If Hacksaw Gaming is anything to go by, the answer seems to be… infinite. The studio has wowed the gambling community on countless occasions with its ingenuity, and Mighty Masks is another fine example. In another studio's hands, perhaps, the Multiplier Wheel on its own could have been potent enough, and some might have left it there. Not so Hacksaw Gaming, which seriously ups the ante by incorporating a Nudge element into the wheel. At a quick glance at the word 'Nudge', you'd be forgiven for thinking the team was trying to muscle in on Nolimit City and its nudging wizardry, but no. This is something entirely different, and while the test run came nowhere close, being able to nudge the wheel up to 50 times is a crazy thought. Shoot, even just nudging the wheel several times can be a rush.

Hacksaw Gaming's math team has found a way of keeping a lid on all the nudging and multiplying, to an extent, by operating Mighty Masks within a 10,000x the bet win cap. You might have thought the max win could have been higher with so much theoretical nudging possible. Still, 10K is a solid figure and a nice old mask for Mighty Masks' clever gameplay to hide behind, and maybe even peek out of if you're lucky. In short, with the ability to stack mystery symbols and stack the win multiplier, Mighty Masks possesses the sort of one-two combo that would make a pugilist specialist like Floyd Mayweather Jr. proud.