Cluster Slide

Overview Cluster Slide

Do you like your gaming experiences with a little surreal escapism and a lot of light-hearted and multicoloured fun? If so, ELK Studios have created a game that will suit you down to the ground. The vibrant and creative online slot game Cluster Slide has visual cues that look like a fabulous mix of Dr Zeus and Star Wars. It also comes with tons of fun playing dynamics and a whole heap of exciting fun prizes to win. The key gaming mechanic for this slot is something that the studio has dubbed the “Gravity Mechanic”

This is in reference to the slightly tilted gaming window which slides symbols into new positions from right to left. It is similar in a way to the cascade feature that you see on this game but instead of filling in from the top, new symbols slide in from the right, following the slope of the board. Although this dynamic seems odd for a little while, after a few spins you get the hang of it. What you also need to remember for this slot is that it is a cluster win game rather than a straightforward spinning reel one.

Theme and Symbols

Cluster Slide takes place on a magical mystery planet in the dark and mysterious realm of deep space called Jellyton. This galactic theme is hammered home by the incredible background. Looking around the game screen, you will see looming planets in amazing colours, steep mountains, cliffs, as well as a view into the depth of space, where twinkling stars sparkle in the black beyond. The board on the other hand seems to have been hewn from an indigo coloured crystal, tilting the symbols gently from right to left.

Speaking of the symbols, these comprise the strange multi-coloured inhabitants of this planet, the Jellytons if you like. They come in a range of colours and textures. Some are smooth and jelly-like, whereas others are furry, like little Chewbaccas. The lower value monsters are the ones made of jelly in green, blue, yellow and red. The higher value ones are the furry monsters, which come in green, purple, orange, and red. Each of these strange lilliputian monsters is liable to eat each their fellow monsters as the game progresses when they are part of a win.
You can burst anywhere up to 15 symbols at a time, these larger clusters can reward you with multiplier bonuses anywhere in the range of 100 to 500x your stake.

Game Play

Cluster Slide is played on a 7-column, 8-row grid with a cluster win game mechanic. This means that instead of matching symbols across the reels, as you do in traditional slot games, you instead match bunches of symbols in clusters of 5 or more in a Tetris-style popping dynamic.

The betting range for Cluster Slide is between 20p and £100 per spin. Changing your bet level is easy, all you need to do is toggle it up or down using the tool located to the left of the gaming window which looks like two stacks of coins. The control for setting up auto spins on the other hand is in the top right-hand corner of the screen. The full menu, including the paytable, is located via the three stripes icon in the top-left hand corner of the screen. The return to players percentage for Cluster Slide is 96.05%, perfectly average for a game of this nature. The volatility for this slot is rated between medium and high, so wins should be slightly less frequent than average but more rewarding when they come. The top payout for Cluster Slide is a very enticing 10,000x your stake.

Features

As mentioned in the introduction, Cluster Slide has a lot of features on offer, so ready yourself for quite the ride.
Number one in the bonus features department is the Avalanche feature. Winning at this game is all about creating clusters, the more clusters, the more wins, the more wins the more prizes. When you create a winning cluster, the Avalanche feature is triggered. This means that all the symbols which were part of the win explode and new symbols tumble into their place from the top of the reels.

However, the fun doesn’t stop there. For this game you will notice that the board is tilted to the left, this enables new symbols to slide in from the right to the left if there are any empty positions before the avalanche commences, this leads to a greater mingling of the symbols which helps to create more wins. Both of these features continue until there are no new wins created.
As you create cluster wins, you will notice that a meter located at the top left of the playing window fills with gold magic. When it becomes full, the game grants players 1 of 5 special wilds to come directly onto the board.

These are explained below:
The Big Wild: A random symbol is expanded to a 2x2 format.
The Random Wild: 2-4 symbols on the board are turned instantly into standard wild symbols.
The Multiplier Wild: The win multiplier gets a 1x boost.
The Upgrade Wild: One symbol on the board is upgraded to one of the high-value symbols.
The Removing Wild: All of one type of symbol are removed from the board.
The other wild to look out for is the feature wild, this type can land at any time, however. If they are triggered as part of a win, they add to the multiplier win bonus. Activating 5 of these will add 5x to the multiplier.

Bompers (the purple B symbols) are also worth looking out for. They reward 3 wild drops if you manage to land three of them as part of a winning cluster. The first of the wild drops transforms all of the B symbols on the board into wilds as well as adding 3 of the 1x1 size wilds to the board. The second drop applies the same but will 2x2 format wilds and the third as you may have guessed is the same again but with 3x3 wilds.
In addition to all these in-game bonuses, there is the X-citer feature, which is like a feature buy shop, where you buy certain features for varying coin values.

Conclusion

Cluster Slide must be one of the most creative and exciting slots to have been produced in some time. The superb and unique theme, the innovative gaming dynamics, and the pure fun that players can have playing this slot are all great reasons to have a spin. If this wasn’t enough, the top payout of 10,000x your stake is more than enough to attract new players.