Ryze

Ryze: Slot Overview

If there's one mythical creature that lusts for gold and riches even more than we covetous humans do, it's dragons. The image of a dragon resting on a mountain of riches roasting anyone crazy enough to try and grab a few trinkets is a common one in fantasy and has been put to use by game designer ELK Studios. Ryze is the name, and it is a cluster paying slot with a falling gravity effect and a bunch of extra features. A couple of standouts, for more reasons than one, are the multiplier wild feature and coin clusters, not only because they are potential doozies but also on account of their familiarity from other settings. We'll get to the dissection soon enough, though; for now, why not suspend disbelief and come join a seriously cashed up Wyvern and cross your fingers it's going to share a portion of its hoard?

Ryze, presumably, is the name given to the dragon character who is introduced during a pre-game animation and who stands guard over its loot throughout the game. That's him or her to the left side of an active gaming area, made up of 6 rows of symbols, alternating between having 5 or 6 symbols on each row. This out-of-kilter alignment feeds into the gravity effect when symbols Avalanche, tumbling to the left or right when they drop. It's a concept ELK Studios has pulled out in the past, during Cygnus slots, for instance. Visually, Ryze is easy on the eyes, but sonically, the game layers on a soundscape of haunting stringed instruments, drum beats, and fluttering wind instrument effects to create a real treat for the ears.

On the less poetic side is Ryze's math model, which is highly volatile and produces an RTP of 94% when betting regularly or making use of options from the X-iter bonus buy menu. Players may choose a stake of 20 c to $/€100 per spin by clicking on the coins button to display the bet choices. As a cluster pays slot, a winning combination is created when at least 5 identical pay symbols (or coins) are adjacent to each other on the reels.

For paying symbols, Ryze has a bronze coin, a silver coin, a turquoise jewel-like object, a blue one, a purple one, and a gold item. Clusters of 5 OAK pay out 0.05 to 0.75 times the bet, while at best, a 15+ cluster win is worth 2 to 15 times the stake. All instances of the symbol types included in wins explode, creating spaces on the reels for symbols to drop down and fill. The Avalanche mechanic continues as long as new wins occur.

Ryze: Slot Features

Ryze's features are many and include an Avalanche function, Sticky Multiplier Wilds, coin wins, burst symbols, a bonus game, a super bonus game, and 5 X-iter bonus buys.

Multiplier Wilds

A winning cluster of pay symbols only (not coins) creates an x1 Multiplier Wild in one of the empty spaces formed after a win. The Multiplier Wild increases its multiplier by +1 for each winning cluster it is part of, then moves to an empty position. Multiplier Wilds substitute for anything except bonus and burst symbols. The multiplier values of all Multiplier Wilds that are part of the same winning cluster are added together, and the sum is applied to the win. After the win, the individual multipliers increase, then they merge into a single Multiplier Wild. Multiplier values multiply each other when they merge.

Coin Wins

Coins display bet multipliers. A winning cluster of coins pays out its total value, then all of the winning coins merge into a single coin, displaying the total value when the cluster is removed. The values of all Multiplier Wilds in a winning coin cluster are added together before being used to multiply the winning coin cluster.

Burst

The Burst symbol transforms itself and all adjacent symbols into the same matching payout symbol or coins when no more wins or Avalanches can occur and before free spins trigger or retrigger if applicable. This does not affect bonus symbols, other burst symbols, coins, or Multiplier Wilds. Adjacent burst symbols transform all applicable adjacent symbols into pay symbols or coins.

Bonus Game

When a bonus symbol drops down the reels to reach a bonus key mould below the game grid, 7 free spins are triggered. Multiplier Wilds are sticky between free spins. A bonus symbol reaching a position below the grid with a super bonus key mould triggers 7 super free spins. Both coins and Multiplier Wilds are sticky between free spins. During a bonus game, if a bonus symbol reaches the bonus key mould, +3 extra free spins are awarded. The bonus round upgrades to the super bonus round if the bonus symbol drops into a super bonus mould.

X-iter

Bonus modes may be activated from Ryze's X-iter feature, such as: Bonus Hunt - 2x the bet for more than triple the chance of triggering a bonus or super bonus game, Wild Concoction - 10x the bet for 1 spin with a number of Multiplier Wilds, Coin Burst - 25x the bet for a spin, guaranteeing a burst symbol on the first drop, and all burst symbols give coins, Bonus Game - 100x the bet, or Super Bonus Game - 500x the bet.

Ryze: Slot Verdict

Ryze is quite the DNA mix, with contributors coming in from all over the place. On the ELK Studios side, Ryze is like a relative of the Cygnus range, with symbols clustering up, falling left or right, and feature symbols hitting a certain side of the reels to trigger the bonus round. From the non-ELK Studios side, things start to get quite interesting, with possible influences including Slotmill's Coin Cluster action as seen in Coin Quest 2, for example, where winning coin clusters also merge into one coin bearing the accumulated total, sticking to the bottom of the reels in its super free spins round. Another gotcha is the Multiplier Wild, which is very similar to the Fire Portal Wild feature found in Pragmatic Play's slot Fire Portals.

They say familiarity breeds contempt, but that's not so much the case in regards to Ryze's features since ELK Studios has 'borrowed' a couple of good ones, which get better when progressing up from base game to free spins to super free spins. Merging coins provide the chance to power up future coin wins, and giving them sticky abilities in super free spins makes that round highly desirable. Multiplier Wilds are arguably just as good here as they were in Fire Portals; the attraction is not only their stickiness but also the way Multiplier Wilds multiply their values when they merge into one. Symbol values have been somewhat depressed, but Ryze is good for wins of up to 10,000x the bet and has the ability to toss together highly satisfying event sequences.

The game's main issues are the usual RTP concern some gamblers may have and the potential 'copycat' element. If you can turn a blind eye to those things or just don't give a hootenanny, then Ryze pulls together some really nice gameplay goodies, whether they are entirely from the mind of ELK Studios or not.