Minted Mike

Minted Mike: Slot Overview

For the graffiti artist, or vandal, depending on your point of view, the whole city is a canvas just waiting to be covered in paint, and players meet one of these 'artistes' in Hacksaw Gaming's online slot Minted Mike. Despite his name's association with money, Mike does not appear to be a relative of Donny Dough or Danny Dollar, but that doesn't prevent the wee scamp's urban adventure from technically being able to end in monetary gains. To do so means making use of such features as three Sticker symbols triggering three corresponding mechanics, in a game that's not strictly a three-pot slot, but has faint links to the concept, as well as three bonus rounds which steadily enhance the main features the higher they go.

Minted Mike makes use of Hacksaw Gaming's signature monochrome world splashed about with dashes of bright colour look. It's a style used to great effect in slots such as Chaos Crew 3, and it instantly marks Minted Mike as a product of the studio. The actual Minted Mike character is a happy-go-lucky dude in the bottom left-hand corner, spray can in hand, ready to brighten up any plain old wall he comes across - a bit like the one that sits behind the gaming area in the base game. Mike is joined by various characters as he progresses through the game, on a mission to liven up dull urban locations with splashes of bright spray paint; some may consider graffiti to be vandalism, others, art.

In an attempt to get minted, players mays stake $/€0.10 to $/€200 per base game round. Each spin lands symbols on a 5x4 gaming area where 26 paylines evaluate any winning combinations on the grid. Four RTP configurations have been designed; 96.31% is the highest return value of them, while the volatility has been marked as 3 out of 5, or medium.

The regular symbols are cans, tape players, shoes, and dollar signs as the high pays, then J-A card ranks as the lows. A winning combination consisting of 5 matching symbols awards 1x for the royals or 5x-20x for the premium symbols. Wild Ws are present on all reels where they substitute all symbols on the paytable and award 50x if 5 wilds create a win of their own.

Minted Mike: Slot Features

Stashed in Minted Mike's bag of tricks are three Sticker symbols and their associated effects, three bonus rounds - Steezy Skater, Ink the City, Tag and Dash, and feature buys.

Sticker Symbols

Pink, Blue, and Green Stickers act as activator symbols. When a Sticker lands, there is a chance it randomly triggers its feature. If more than one Sticker activates, they trigger their respective mechanics in this order:

• Pink Sticker - When it activates the Pink Marker, 2 to 26 Hot Lines are painted on the grid along the paylines after wins have been handled. A respin then occurs where new Stickers cannot land. Hot Lines have a shared Hot Line Multiplier of x2 to x183 displayed above the grid. When a winning combination occurs on a Hot Line marked payline, the Hot Line Multiplier is applied to the win.
• Blue Sticker - When it activates the Blue Spray Can, 3 to 20 wilds are added to the grid before wins are awarded.
• Green Sticker - When it activates the Green Sticker Roll, after wins have been handled, FS scatters and FS Upgrade scatters are added to the grid. This can occur in the base game and in bonus rounds where extra free spins may be awarded. The number of scatters determines how many free spins are granted when bonus rounds trigger. Each scatter equals one free spin. Scatters can only be added to the grid when the Green Sticker Roll activates.

Steezy Skater Bonus Game

Steezy Skater comes with 8-20 free spins when 8-20 scatters are present on the grid. This bonus keeps the base game mechanics but has a greater chance of landing Sticker symbols. The round can be upgraded into the Ink the City bonus if 1 FS Upgrade lands, or Tag and Dash if 2 FS Upgrade scatters land. When upgrading, the existing free spins and the newly awarded free spins (8-20) are transferred to the new bonus.

Ink the City Bonus Game

Ink the City is awarded by landing 1 FS Upgrade symbol and at least 7 FS scatters in the base game, awarding 8-20 free spins, depending on the number of scatters. This bonus also keeps the base game mechanics. In addition, Hot Lines are progressive, so they keep their positions with an increasing shared Multiplier value throughout the round. Each time the Pink Marker activates, new Hot Lines are added to the grid (if it is not already full), and the shared Multiplier value is increased by x2 to x183. This round can also be upgraded to Tag and Dash if an FS Upgrade scatter appears, transferring the current Hot Lines and shared Multiplier over, while adding the awarded spins.

Tag and Dash Hidden Epic Bonus

Tag and Dash is activated by landing 2 FS Upgrade symbols and at least 6 FS scatters in the main game, awarding 8-20 free spins, depending on the number of scatters. This feature keeps the mechanics of Ink the City, but will also land 1 Sticker symbol on each spin.

Feature Buys

First in the feature buy section is BonusHunt FeatureSpins costing 3x to make each spin 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus and Spray the System FeatureSpins at 60x to guarantee 1 Pink sticker, 1 Blue Sticker, and 1 mechanic guaranteed to trigger. Steezy Skater costs 50x to buy, or Ink the City can be triggered for 200x the stake.

Minted Mike: Slot Verdict

Minted Mike is an unmistakable-looking Hacksaw Gaming slot, utilising black, white, and neon visuals in a gritty urban-art design. Adding to the unmistakability is the use of characterisation to personalise the game, in this case, Mike the street-smart dude, skating about, popping his brand of art on the side of buildings, a menace in some ways, a charming rascal in others. Despite that, there was something about Minted Mike that felt impersonal as well. Perhaps it was because Hacksaw Gaming has used this art style a number of times now, causing the novelty effect to wear down a tad, and the hit-or-miss style of gameplay may be tempting to blame on Mike.

The hit-or-miss factor is produced largely by the way Sticker symbols do not guarantee a feature trigger, even during bonus rounds. Many a time, they landed, flew to their respective pots, and that was it; nothing else happened. Sure, this can add to the suspenseful unpredictability, as gamblers hold their breath hoping one of the mechanics will fire, and when they do, Minted Mike can apply a couple of potent modifiers to the grid (as well as trigger free spins), be that adding wilds to the reels before wins are evaluated or painting win lines and applying a multiplier to them. Either of which can completely flip a screen from nothing to something. Better yet, you might get both modifiers at the same time, if you're really lucky. Bonus rounds do appreciably ramp things up, the higher along the chain you go, but it would have been nice if there was some sort of guarantee a feature would trigger when Stickers land at some stage.

In its present form, Minted Mike is able to award wins up to a 5,000x the bet win cap, which isn't huge by Hacksaw Gaming standards. The game as a whole isn't a huge one either. It has its moments, and everything performs well enough, but at the same time, Minted Mike is drowned out by the many stronger releases in the studio's portfolio, and it didn't evoke as powerful a pull to have another crack as they often do from Hacksaw Gaming.