Gem Rocks

About Gem Rocks slot

Gem is the English word for gemstone and Rock is the English word for stone or rock. The theme clearly follows from the title. In Yggdrasil's Gem Rocks, players will attempt to hit combinations of gems that are concealed within a gray, stony world. To make everything a bit more thrilling (and more colorful), Yggdrasil has also crammed in large stony monsters half-hidden in the world of gray rocks. The story appears to be this: by rummaging around the Stone world in search of gems, you disturb the monsters in their slumber. But when they appear, they only serve to benefit your game box!

Gem Rocks casino games have many specialties. However, the graphics cannot be said to tell an incredible story. We understand that coming up with a theme like "etching" rocks and boulders might make for a design with fewer possibilities, but Yggdrasil's game designers could have put a little more into most of it, especially as the game's high volatility doesn't make every spin a spectacular story.

Gem Rocks has you spinning the six reels and four rows (4096 paylines!) while trying to get combinations of at least three of a kind. If you should do so, a function we like to call Mount Doom activates (seriously, the sound effects in this game lead us to believe we’re summoning a bunch of stone-age monsters in the Mountains of Madness), giving you the chance to rack up wins in a row—mostly because the symbols that keep lighting up are doing so in a very high manner (or super high if we’re being honest). Indeed, Gem Rocks is primarily about stacking those wins as high as eight times, at which point a new game mechanic will make appear one of the massive stone blockers onscreen—offering both the potential of a full-screen blockage and a much more satisfying game experience. And the sound of winning makes it all the more enjoyable.

Stakes and winnings

To play Gem Rocks, a slot game with six reels, four rows, and 4096 paylines, you should wager between $1 and $500. Your bet is adjusted by entering a coin value that ranges from 2 cents to $10. As the next slide explains, you do not put 4096 coins at stake in every spin. Instead, you multiply your coin value by a factor of 50. Thus, with a coin value of 0.50, you have a total bet of $25, and so on.

Yggdrasil's range features no video slot with as high a risk factor as Gem Rocks. And this is an outfit that is known for churning out games for online casinos that have a good chance of paying out—in other words, they have high volatility. In the case of Gem Rocks, the odds seem to be even tougher for players than in Yggdrasil's other high-volatility slots. It seems that this game has been designed to try to part players with their money before spitting out a generous portion of game return (which it could do, all at once, if you hit a lucky spell).

Gem Rock's RTP is 96.20%. It's better than 96.00-96.10% which is the average for Yggdrasil slots, but some impressive figure is not. The maximum profit figure is all the more impressive. In fact, there is a, albeit microscopic, chance of winning up to 9000 times the bet!

Symbols

Gem Rocks has a gallery of symbols made up of eight different stones in eight different colors. We think the design team could have worked over a few hours in the development phase to make everything a little nicer. The best-paying symbol is the one showing a red gemstone with a star. The rest are just a few different geometric shapes enclosed in square blocks. And by the way, there are no special symbols at all. You will not find wilds, scatters, or bonus symbols on the reels.

Game features

A slot can easily become a bit rough without free spins and bonus games. What's more, when a slot doesn't have any wilds, its immediate appeal is lower than low. Yggdrasil Gaming has attempted to balance things out with an avalanche feature and Mega symbols.

Avalanche function

The Avalanche function is now a commonplace element for those who enjoy online slot play. Numerous slot machines incorporate either an avalanche or drops function. Like other slots featuring boulders, such as Asgardian Stones and Gonzo's Quest from NetEnt, Gem Rocks also incorporates a drops function. It is referred to as "drop down."

The drop down attribute ensures that in every spin you get multiple chances to win. When you manage to land a hit, the winning symbols drop down to make way for the new ones. If you hit again, they drop down again, and so it goes.

Mega monster symbols

Succeed in landing a series of wins using the drop down feature, and you can look forward to playing automatic re-spins with mega symbols. Two consecutive wins trigger a stone monster that occupies 2×2 positions. When it triggers, it places itself in a way that ensures you're reaping as much profit as possible.

Should fortune smile upon you and yield three consecutive victories, a 3×3 stone monster will drop onto the screen. With four more consecutive victories, totaling nine from the moment you click Start a game, a 4×4 stone monster symbol will reward you. Depending on how the other symbols on the screen have aligned themselves at this point, you can expect to enjoy a number of four, five, or six position winning hits on the 4096 paylines.

It should be said, by the way, that Mega symbols are found on the reels even in the "base game"; however, they do not seem to show up very frequently right off the bat.

Summary

Gem Rocks just might be the most miserly online slot machine one can find. If you are even remotely familiar with the concept of variance in slots, consider this: while the variance of many online slots today is only slight, here we have a machine with a high variance at best and a very high volatility at worst. (More on what all that means in a minute.) To put that another way: you have a decent to good chance of winning something in a bonus round in most online slots today, with the bonus round itself being a great entertainment value. Here, you will almost certainly not win anything during the base game, and you may find the bonus round an exercise in futility. This is not a fun slot to play. You have been forewarned.

Putting aside the extremely high volatility, we can say we think Yggdrasil should have put more into the design. A slot with what we consider extremely high risk should offer us players a more inviting gaming atmosphere so that we don't tire faster than quick.