Consider this; it's late February 2020, and you've decided to make a deposit and try your hand at a few of the most popular slots currently available online – what is one of the first games you'll be attempting to hit lucky on? Well, of course Multifly! is the answer, Yggdrasil‘s early 2020 release that became so popular upon release, players were already suggesting it may take the coveted title of Slot of The Year, even as early as February. Multifly! made use of a relatively simple game layout, offering players additional wilds after each win, cascading symbols, and the opportunity to build multipliers within free spins, of which 10 were awarded. This year, Yggdrasil are returning to the jungle to bring us Raptor DoubleMax, which at first glance looks like a follow-on to Multifly! – in every way bigger, better, and exciting, even making use of impressive dinosaurs to dwarf the previously friendly characters in its predecessor. Could this be a perfect follow-on?
Raptor Doublemax is highly volatile, with an RTP of 96.01% and win potential up to 20,000x bet – double that of Multifly!. The scenes return to, presumably the same jungles from before, however things take a darker turn this time around, with moss covered branches, and small amounts of sunlight just managing to break through the canopy of this dense area. Bright flowers stand tall at the front, thriving in this unexpected landscape, and fireflies circle ever so subtly close to the “Buy Bonus” button – a design choice or coincidence we're unsure, but we can't help but look towards that direction. Audios are light, upbeat, and perhaps even quite forgettable, but they do a nice job of keeping things ticking over and not being too distracting.
Raptor DoubleMax Base Features
Most notably, Raptor ditches the any ways win mechanic, and instead employs 25 fixed pay lines to facilitate wins, wherein players must land 3+ of any symbol across one of these lines. Symbols include lower paying J, Q, K and As, paying between 1 and 1.2x bet for 5 of a kind, followed by an assortment of dinosaurs making up the premium end. Paying between 2 and 5x bet for 5 of a kind, the extraordinarily colourful dinosaur lineup consists of a parasaurolophus, a t-rex, a triceratops, and a velociraptor. Scatter symbols are golden with red cracking dinosaur eggs, and the final symbol visible on the screen will be a gold ammonite wild, which replaces all symbols except Scatters.
There's not too much happening within the base game of Raptor Doublemax, and yet there is enough happening. First of all, symbols involved in every winning combination are removed from the reels, allowing for more symbols to drop onto the reels to continue forming wins, with Dropdowns. Alongside this, after any winning symbols have been removed one position at random will be chosen to turn wild, and if players successfully trigger another Dropdown without using the wild symbol, another will be added. Once wilds have been used they will be removed from the reels, and if no more winning combinations can be formed Dropdowns will end.
Working with this Dropdown mechanic is a multiplier, which keeps the base game exciting. Beginning at x1, this multiplier will increment by +1 after every successful Dropdown, and will reset back to x1 when no more wins are possible.
Finally, Golden Bet is available in this release. Turning it on will charge an additional 25% per spin, symbol payouts will not be affected, but the chance of triggering free spins will be doubled.
Raptor DoubleMax Bonus
Landing 3, 4, or 5 Scatters triggers 7, 10 or 13 free spins, at which point players can choose to risk their feature for the chance of additional free spins. First up, there's a gamble to move from 7 to 10 free spins, wherein players can choose from two eggs, giving 50/50 odds of progression. Behind one egg is 10 free spins, and behind the second egg is 0 free spins, so players risk their entire feature for the chance of 3 additional spins. Next, the most fearless players can attempt to gamble for 13 free spins, again with a 50/50 chance. At any point during this process players can choose to collect their feature rather than gambling.
Free spins work much the same as the base game, with the exception that the multiplier does not reset between free spins. This gives the potential for the multiplier to continue doubling and climb upwards of x16,384 – at which point even 0.10x bet wins would be worth over 1,600x.
Players in appropriate regions can choose to buy the feature for a cost of 100x bet. The feature buy will always be a purchase of 8 spins, and no more than 3 Scatters can land. The gamble feature continues as mentioned above when the feature is purchased.
First Impression
In spite of having its own name and simply sharing a mechanic, some will consider Raptor DoubleMax to be a sequel to Multifly!, and if we consider it as a sequel, we have to admit it's one of the best. RTP remains roughly the same (a small 0.2% dip), however the maximum win has been doubled, the hit frequency has just less than doubled, and volatility has been turned up even further, all whilst not actually changing our favourite feature – the random wilds. Considered as a sequel, Raptor DoubleMax ticks every box, and builds tension, so we expect players to be massively excited for this one.
As a standalone game, since this isn't officially a sequel, there's still no complaints. The incrementing multiplier in the base game keeps things exciting and although in our experience we didn't hit anything huge, some nice wins were still dropping in even at the lower levels of x8, x16, x32 multipliers. Moving into free spins, and this feature has been elevated to some of the most exciting levels of any release. Just like we mentioned above, when you reach heights of x4096 or x8192, even some of the smallest wins available on the reels still amount to monstrous wins. It can take a while to come to terms with the fixed pay lines rather than 243 ways, and this can be quite frustrating if you think a win is dropping in at these levels, only to find it doesn't happen.
The first 16 spin feature we had the chance to experience was entirely worth the gamble, paying in excess of 3,000x bet – however, there were more than a handful of losing gambles prior to this. The step from 12 to 16 free spins is a savage one, which will probably be reserved for lower bets or the bravest players.
All in all, Raptor DoubleMax offers players the chance to experience the random wild feature working alongside Dropdowns and incrementing multipliers in newer, fresher ways, and the chance to reach multiplier heights that we very rarely see in any release.
*The screenshots taken of games reviewed on this site are taken from Demo Play, as reviews are often written before games are released for real play.
