ALL ABOUT JOKER GEMS SLOT
ELK Studios have had some pretty whacky creative moments in 2018 – think of their heist slot, Lake’s Five, the jungle-themed Platooners and the cyborg fantasy, Kaiju. They certainly deliver in terms of high production values. But what about gameplay and win potential? Whilst we’ve seen some clever bonus rounds mixing mad animations with original concepts, big wins are not always associated with this studio.
Are we going to see this pattern change with Joker Gems? Well, interestingly, they have introduced a fixed jackpot set up to this release – and that means a chance to win up to £50,000 regardless of your stake. There are also two other smaller jackpots available on every spin.
What else makes Joker Gems worth a spin? Well check out the epic deep space design, incongruously mixed with a traditional gambling Joker theme! ELK have also opted for the marmite, love it or hate it, Cluster Pays set up that makes this a little different from their other releases. Game on!
Joker Gems Game Set Up
Joker Gems is a cluster pays slot – that means it doesn’t have traditional paylines, but instead to score a win you must collect a cluster of identical symbols. Three or more are needed to trigger a payout. Clusters can be formed by adjacent symbols in vertical, horizontal or diagonal rows.
The symbols sit in a 5×5 grid floating in deep space with stars and galaxies forming the backdrop. After a winning cluster is formed, a re-spin is automatically triggered and new symbols drop. Every consecutive winning spin leads to another re-spin.
This game has a medium-high variance and an RTP of 96.3%.
Joker Gems Game Symbols
There are four low value symbols in the game – gemstones of orange, red, blue and green. The premium, or high value symbols, are the traditional fruit machine symbols, 7, Bar and Joker. The latter is the highest paying with 700x for 16 in a cluster.
Joker Gems Features
There are two features in Joker Gems – the fixed jackpots and the Light Chaser.
Light Chaser Feature
The Light Chaser is a random feature that can award extra wins and re-spins. When it happens, a light beam travels over the reels before stopping at random to create a cluster of 4 or 5 identical symbols, followed by a re-spin.
Fixed Jackpots
There are three fixed jackpots in Joker Gems slot. They are Bronze – £10,000, Silver – £20,000 and Gold – £50,000. They are available at any stake value although higher stakes mean higher chances of winning one. You can win any of these fixed jackpots an unlimited number of times.
Each jackpot has a particular pattern associated with it which must be filled to trigger the payout. The Bronze is the center positions in the grid with a 3×3 cluster. The Silver is the surrounding 16 positions. The Gold is every position on the grid.
Betting with the top stake of £100 per spin it is therefore possible to win £120,000 in one play – £100 x 700 + £50,000 fixed jackpot!
THE SLOT BUZZ VERDICT
Joker Gems is something a bit different from other slots by ELK Studios. This is their first foray into the Cluster Pays arena. For our money there are better titles out there that use this mechanic – try Push Gaming’s Jammin’ Jars or Sweet Alchemy for starters. Nevertheless, Joker Gems does have a funky deep-space theme which we kind of like, plus the chance to win a £50,000 fixed jackpot on each spin isn’t bad. In short, not their best work, but definitely worth a spin.
