Online slots players must love a great jewel-themed game as there are more around than we can count; here’s another one from Blueprint – it’s called Jewel Strike and it’s a colourful, simple game that requires little interaction from players.
Perfect if you want to sit back and relax while those reels spin. Jewel Strike features 10 fixed pay lines across 5 reels and 3 rows; the dark reels are set within a red landscape and display an abundance of vibrant jewels and symbols.
The game is bright, but the graphics are slightly duller than we have seen in some other gem-filled games. So visuals aside, did the game manage to impress in terms of bonus features and gameplay? Read on to find out more.
Special Features
As expected, the higher value symbols within Jewel Strike are the gems themselves. The golden gem is the treasure: this is the highest paying symbol and can even win you an enormous 5,000x your bet if you cover the reels solely with this symbol. The other jewels are blue, red and green. The remainder of the symbols are typical playing card symbols from Ace to 10.
There are no wilds or bonus symbols in Jewel Strike, but there are a couple of additional features to enjoy.
Colossal Reels and Epic Spins
Jewel Strike features a random element called Colossal Reels. You may have stumbled across this before in one or two other NextGen slots games; it is a randomly triggered feature which can occur during any spin.
When a colossal symbol lands, it will catch your attention as it appears as a huge 3×3 symbol across 3 consecutive reels. The advantage of landing a colossal symbol is that you are guaranteed a win on every line, and potentially a big one if you’re lucky. These trigger quite often and really improve the otherwise quite basic game.
Play Jewel Strike and you’ll notice an ‘Epic Spins’ button at the lower left corner of the screen. Select this if you want to boost the excitement of the game, as it will activate the epic spins feature which can result in higher payouts.
How does it work? Well, increase your bet by 5x and the symbols 10, J and Q are eliminated from the reels. 10x your bet will result in 10, J, Q and K being eliminated from your reels. Finally, 20x your bet results in all the lower value symbols being removed from the reels (10, J, Q, K and Ace).
Verdict
We were grateful to see the Colossal Reels and Epic Spins features as these both really improved our experience of Jewel Strike. It’s a basic game but with some excitement injected, especially if you activate Epic Spins.
