Mechanics
What a game does, rather than what it looks like. Each mechanic is explained once and that explanation is reused on every title carrying it, so the same feature under three studios’ three names is one entry here.
45 mechanics in 10 categories · 4 of them can be switched off by a regulator
Win evaluation
How the game decides a win happened
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Wins come from groups of touching identical symbols anywhere on the grid, usually five or more, rather than from lines or reels. It is almost always paired with tumbling reels, because clearing a winning cluster is what lets the next one form.
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Each reel shows a different number of symbols on every spin, so the number of ways to win changes spin to spin rather than staying fixed. It is a licensed mechanic from Big Time Gaming, which is why studios with nothing else in common all ship games carrying the name.
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Symbols pay only when they land on one of a fixed set of patterns across the reels, read from the leftmost reel. The pattern set is drawn in the game info screen.
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Symbols pay on count anywhere on the grid rather than along a line, so position does not matter.
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Winning symbols are removed and new symbols drop into the gaps, so a single spin can pay several times before it ends.
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Adjacent symbols pay left to right regardless of position on the reel, giving a fixed number of ways rather than lines.
Reel modifier
The game changes shape
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The grid gains rows or reels when a feature starts and keeps them until it ends, so the number of ways to win inside the feature is larger than in the base game. This is not the same as a grid that resizes on every spin and never keeps its size.
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A symbol occupies a block of the grid, counting as that many individual symbols for evaluation. Common in Asia-first designs where a single giant symbol can cover most of the visible grid.
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Before a spin evaluates, two or more adjacent reels are forced to show identical symbols in identical positions, so a single reel becomes a linked twin, triplet, quadruplet or quintuplet block. Which reels link is randomised each spin; the symbols themselves are drawn normally, so no new symbol or value is introduced.
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Reel positions land face down and reveal a single shared symbol once the spin stops, rather than showing individual results.
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A reel moves up or down by one or more positions after it stops, usually to complete a symbol that landed partly in view.
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A Nolimit City trademark. An oversized wild nudges into full view one position at a time, and its multiplier increases by one for every position it moves before it lands.
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A Nolimit City trademark. A symbol splits every other symbol on its reel, or on the whole grid, into two. Positions double, and where multipliers are already on the grid they compound.
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A Nolimit City trademark. A special symbol unpacks into between two and twelve copies of one revealed symbol, which changes the row count of the reel it sits on and so changes how many ways that spin has.
Symbol behaviour
What individual symbols do
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Symbols carry a printed cash value as a multiple of stake and are collected rather than matched into a paytable line.
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An ordinary paying symbol, chosen at the start of a feature, expands to cover its whole reel wherever it lands for the rest of that feature, but keeps paying only as itself rather than substituting for other symbols.
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A wild symbol grows to cover its whole reel and substitutes across it.
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A symbol lands blank and cycles through other symbols before settling on the one it actually pays as, rather than showing its value up front.
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After the reels stop, one symbol type is converted into another across the grid: low-pay to high-pay, or everything to a single symbol.
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A symbol counts as two or more of itself in the same position for evaluation purposes, without changing the grid geometry.
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A wild symbol stays in place for a set number of spins or for the remainder of a feature, taking part in every winning combination it touches while it holds its position.
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Winning symbols are banked into a meter above the reels. When the meter reaches set thresholds, it triggers a feature instead of a normal win.
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A symbol on the grid is marked, and winning with it promotes it to a higher tier, either once per feature or progressively as a counter fills, sometimes ending as a Wild.
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A wild does not stay where it landed. It moves each spin, sometimes one reel at a time until it leaves the grid and sometimes to a new position at random, and it usually keeps its multiplier while it travels.
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Substitutes for other paying symbols to complete a win, usually excluding scatters and bonus symbols. This is the baseline symbol behaviour, present on the overwhelming majority of titles, and its exclusions are what actually differ between games.
Free spins
The round the game is sold on
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The player picks between free spins variants before the round starts, more spins at a lower multiplier or fewer spins at a higher one, built to the same return.
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A triggered round of spins that costs nothing and usually changes the maths.
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Landing the trigger again during the feature adds more spins, sometimes without a limit. Whether a game retriggers is often the difference between a feature that pays and one that does not.
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A round that leaves the reels entirely: pick objects, advance a trail, or spin a wheel.
Multiplier
The number that makes the tail
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Multiplier values are banked over the course of a feature and applied together at its end, or on the spin that collects them, rather than being used one at a time as they land.
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A symbol lands carrying a multiplier that applies to the win it takes part in, or to the whole spin.
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A wild that carries a multiplier of its own and applies it to any win it completes. Where several land in the same win their multipliers are multiplied together rather than added.
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The multiplier does not reset between spins inside a feature, and in a few designs it survives into the next one. What was won in the first spins keeps counting for the rest of the round.
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The multiplier climbs each time a condition repeats, such as every tumble or every retrigger, and usually resets when the feature ends.
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A fixed multiplier factor applies to wins, usually inside a feature, stated as a single value or a capped range rather than a progression.
Respin
One reel spins again
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Cash symbols lock in place and a respin counter, usually three, resets each time a new one lands. The round ends when the counter runs out or the grid fills, and it is the most transplanted feature in the industry under a different trademark in almost every studio's catalogue.
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Part of the grid is held while the rest spins again, without a new stake.
Purchase
Paying to skip the wait
Bonus buy
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The free-spins round can be bought outright for a fixed multiple of the base bet, skipping the wait.
Tiered bonus buy
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Several purchasable entries are offered at different prices, each a different variant of the same feature: cheap and long, or expensive and enhanced. Each tier carries its own return figure, stored separately rather than as one number.
Jackpot
A prize outside the paytable
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A top prize worth a fixed multiple of the stake, awarded by a defined combination rather than by a pool that grows. It is a paytable entry with a name on it, and it is stored here as a multiplier because a cash figure describes one operator's stake range and nothing else.
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The jackpot is decided by a bonus round, a wheel or a pick, usually with Mini, Minor, Major and Grand tiers. Frequently attached to Hold & Win.
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A prize funded by a slice of every stake, growing until somebody wins it. The slice comes out of the game return, so the base game pays less than a comparable game without one.
Risk
The player chooses to expose money
Ante bet
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An optional stake increase, typically 25 per cent, that improves the odds of triggering the feature.
Feature gamble
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The player can risk a won feature, such as a batch of free spins, for a better version of it rather than staking cash directly.
Pacing
Speed of play
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The player ends the round themselves, taking the multiplier reached at that moment.
What is not loaded yet
The published taxonomy is larger than the database.
Our mechanics vocabulary defines 66 entries across 10 categories. The database holds 45 across 10, because a mechanic only gets loaded when a title we hold actually carries it. The missing categories are not a gap in the vocabulary; they are titles we have not added yet.