Machina Megaways Slot Machine
You thought you’ve seen it all when it comes to Megaways slots? Think again, as the next developer to sign a licensing agreement with Big Time Gaming to use the patented engine has just presented their first creation.
Read our review of the Machina Megaways slot to be taken into a distant future where cyborgs and androids reign the world.
Up to 46,656 ways, a free spins round with symbol upgrades, and three personal progressive jackpots can lead to wins of up to 26,000 times your bet. It also has a crazy Hyper Bonus buy option, where players can stake up to 337x their bet for access to the free spins round with the maximum amount of free spins. And no, that is not a typo.
Face the Cyborg on Six Slot Reels
The relatively young game studio is known for creating games with bold, crisp graphics and elaborate animations. Upon loading the game, our review team of the Machina Megaways online slot felt as though it was beamed into a scene of the Blade Runner movie.
A futuristic city in blue and purple neon colors, as well as flying machines dashing through the screen, serve as the backdrop to the giant Megaways reel set. Four fierce human warriors are the main characters on the game that will be ultimately replaced with the cyborg in the free spins round. A generic but suspenseful soundtrack accompanies the usual reel sounds.
All symbols from the pay table, except the wild, scatter and circuit board symbols can appear stacked on any spin in the base game and free spins.
You will find at the low end starts the commonly used card royals from 9 to A, continuing on the high level with two female human warriors, in pink and turquoise colors, and two male human warriors in blue and purple colors. The top paying symbol is the cyborg Machina.
The wild symbol is a gold-plated circuit board, substituting for all symbols except scatters and circuit board accumulation symbols. The scatters are tiles with what looks like a meteor hit with the word bonus across. The circuit board accumulation symbols only appear during the free spins and contribute to the symbol upgrade counters.
Check out the Futuristic Numbers and Stats
Machina Megaways is a video slot with six reels, six rows, and up to 46,656 ways to win. Using the patented Megaways engine, under a licensing deal signed with Big Time Gaming in 2018, the game randomly selects two to six symbols on each reel for every spin to create anything from 64 to 46,656 ways to win. Pays are then awarded for adjacent symbols from left to right only.
Our review experts of the Machina Megaways slot machine were pleased to see that the game can be played on desktop and mobile devices, and with bet sizes ranging from 0.60 to 35.00 credits.
The default RTP of this game with high volatility is set at 96.56%. Using the Hyper Bonus Buy will increase it up to 97.42%, based on which feature you choose to buy. Autoplay will let you set 10 to 100 consecutive spins to be played without interruption.
Win Big With Three Personal Progressive Jackpots
The Machina Megaways slot comes with three progressive jackpots – Silver, Gold, Platinum – that are displayed on the left of the game window. The default value is set at 20x, 50x, and 1,000x your total bet. These are personalized jackpots specific for each player and each casino account with the balances stored when the game is closed. Roughly 3% of each bet contribute to the jackpots – 1.66% to Silver, 0.34% to Gold, and 1% to Platinum.
To win one of the jackpots, you need to hit a number of Machina symbols on a spin in the base game or free spins. They do not have to necessarily land in winning combination. A total of 10, 12, and 16 symbols are needed to win the Silver, Gold, and Platinum Jackpot respectively. Any line wins landing on the same spin are added to the jackpot amount.
Take the Shortcut With the Hyper Bonus Buy
Feature buy options on slots are a relatively new phenomena where players stake a fixed amount to gain direct access to the free spins round or the bonus game. As our review team discovered, the Machine Megaways online slot offers no less than four different options with different amounts of free spins. Each option will slightly increase the overall RTP of the game.
To access the feature buy panel, players need to click on the Hyper Bonus button on the right of the game window. The four options are displayed, and you can select any of them or return to the default game.
Level one will cost you 52.08x bet and will trigger the round with 10 free spins and an 97.20% RTP. Level two will give you 12 free spins with a 97.27% RTP for 89.58x your stake. Level three will require a stake equal to 183.33 times your bet for 15 free spins with an RTP of 97.27%. The ultimate is Level four, which will cost you a whopping 337.08x your standard bet and will trigger 18 free spins with an RTP of 97.42%
Once selected, the game will deduct the total bet amount and will start the bonus round. Our review experts of the Machina Megaways slot recommend some caution on using the feature buy option as there is no guarantee that a bonus round will produce sufficient wins to cover the increased bet amount. However, it is a good choice if you don’t want to wait for an organic free spins trigger.
Turn Into a Cyborg in the Free Spins
The feature is triggered organically in the base game by hitting three to six scatters anywhere on the reels in one spin. The game will award 10, 12, 15, or 18 free spins respectively, which cannot be retriggered.
Additionally, coins wins ranging from 2x to 15x the total bet are awarded. Alternatively, the round can be triggered via the Hyper Bonus Buy feature.
There are no extra multipliers in the free spins, but instead a reel modifier that will have a big impact on the winning potential. The aim in the free spins is to transform the four human warriors into Machina cyborg symbols by collecting scattered circuit board symbols. Reaching the last level will then see only Machina and card royal symbols on the reels, providing much higher potential to trigger the personal jackpots and mega line wins.
For each level, players need to collect four or five scattered symbols which will be stored in the progress bar on the right of the game window. Plus, two extra free spins are added for each transformed symbol.
The pink female warrior will transform into the Machina symbol after four circuit board symbols are collected. A total of eight symbols are needed to see the blue warrior turning into the Machina cyborg. Accumulate a total of 13 symbols to have all turquoise female warrior symbols transform into Machina symbols. Ultimately, 18 symbols are required to transform the purple male warrior.
Any further four circuit board symbols will award two extra free spins only, and that’s without limits.
A display at the bottom of the progress bar indicates which characters have been transformed. All jackpots can be won during the free spins. The round ends when no more free spins are left.
Try Other Games With Symbol Transformation
Transforming lower-value symbols into high-value icons in the free spins is a broadly used mechanic on online slots to add extra win potential. If you like the mechanic, then our review experts of the Machina Megaways online slot recommend you try Pink Elephants from Thunderkick or Ever After from NextGen Gaming.
The Verdict From a Human Reel Warrior
The patented Megaways engine shows yet again the versatility that comes with such a sophisticated and flexible game format. The possibilities are virtually unlimited. Kalamba Games have firmly given it their own take with the personal progressive jackpots and the twist in the free spins that turns symbols into the Machina cyborg. Well worth a go in your next gaming session.