WaterBlox Gigablox

Water Blox Gigablox: Slot Overview

Crafted in association with partner studio Yggdrasil, Water Blox is the second slot from designer Peter & Sons to use the flourishing Gigablox feature. The first one, Monster Blox, was an exquisite looking game that was so Peter & Sons it was easy to forget you were playing a Gigablox powered game. The follow-up, Water Blox, is no different, and along with Gigablox, delivers roaming wild respins, an increasing multiplier in free spins, all located in a land where the forests of Walarya meet blue water in fjord country.

When dealing with a Peter & Sons release, 'crafted' is a more appropriate word than usual as their games have a distinct look which is utterly unique to the studio. Water Blox is a prime example and provides players with a bizarre (in a good way) almost mystical world, celebrating a piscine side of life. At the bottom of the screen is a lily pad laden pond, replete with a jumping fish, while more creatures living in or around water litter the 6x6, 50-payline game grid. Mystics and magic are popular Peter & Sons tropes, and we get one in Water Blox standing next to the game panel. Occasionally, he dons a fish suit, as if embodying the spirit of our aquatic brothers and sisters, to blast modifiers onto the reels. We've come to expect a bit of magic when we review a Peter & Sons game, and Water Blox did not disappoint.

Stats don't disappoint either, and Water Blox's highly volatile math model produces a neatly average theoretical return value of 96%. Players can expect a win to hit 21.01% of the time, or roughly 1 in every five spins, occurring when at least three matching symbols land from the lefthand side on a payline. When it comes to bet selection, choices range from 20 p/c to $/€50 per spin.

Players get 8 regular paying symbols in Water Blox. The 4 lower values are neatly designed spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds, paying 0.8x the bet for a line of six. Then comes 4 premium animal symbols – frogs, pufferfish, purple fish, and a truly excellent octopus, paying 2 to 10 times the stake for six of a kind. The wild is represented by an angry gold coloured fish, which lands on any reel to replace all paying symbols. If a winning line made up of six wild symbols hits, it has the same value as the octopus, 10x the bet.

Water Blox Gigablox: Slot Features

In Water Blox, Yggdrasil's Gigablox feature shares the reels with roaming wilds, respins, Monster Free Spins, and a buy bonus.

Gigablox

Gigablox are oversized symbols that can be anything from 2x2 to 6x6 in size. They can appear on any reel, and for win evaluations are split into their 1x1 sized tiles.

Wild Respins

At random in the base game, 1-3 symbols are changed into wild symbols. After any wins are awarded, a respin is triggered, where the wilds move to a random position. The number of roaming wilds depends on the size of the symbols transformed – 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, or 6x6 sized blocks create 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 wilds, respectively. During the respin, if a roaming wild lands on a big block, it converts the whole thing into a wild.

Monster Free Spins

Landing at least 5 scatter symbols in the base game triggers free spins. The number awarded is equal to the number of scatters in view, and any scatter landing in the bonus round awards an additional free spin. The Wild Respin feature is active on every free spin, so 1-3 random symbols on the panel are changed into wilds, as described above. In addition, each wild symbol is collected, adding a point to a meter. When collecting 20, 45, 75, or 125 wilds, the win multiplier increases to x2, x3, x5, then x10. Also, at each collection level, +2 free spins are awarded. Keep in mind wilds from respins are not collected.

Buy Bonus

If available, players have access to three bonus buy options. Paying 58x the bet gets you 5 free spins, 580x for 20 free spins, or 140x the bet for a random number of free spins.

Water Blox Gigablox: Slot Verdict

We were impressed by the look of Monster Blox, and Water Blox is not bad either. The game is chock full of the sort of intricate touches Peter & Sons are masters of and appear to be getting better at. The studio is adept at ramming a load of superb details into their slots to create something special, and Water Blox is an excellent example. Just feast your eyes on that octopus or the way the fish belted shaman pulls on his fish skin disguise. Water Blox's world is weird, in all the right ways, and is another P&S game which is easy to surrender yourself to. Ever read the children's book Where the Wild Things Are? Water Blox has a similar feel.

So the visuals are nailed, how about the gameplay? For the most part, it's pretty decent too. Using Gigablox means the studio is straitjacketed, in a way, by the core rules governing the mechanic. Still, Gigablox can be thrilling in its own right, and roaming wilds is a clever feature to combine with it. They led to some nice moments in the base game when they transformed larger Gigablox tiles into wilds and even nicer moments in the bonus round.

The chances of collecting big wins seriously improved when a greater number of initial free spins were awarded. You can say that about any game, but it was noticeable in Water Blox since it could take time to collect enough wilds to activate better multipliers. Starting with a low number of free spins generally made the task a lot more difficult. On the topic of potential, the game advertises wins of over 10,000x the bet, meaning solid wins are possible when your luck is in.

Ultimately, how you view the Gigablox feature will be a strong determinant of your overall enjoyment of Water Blox. In the end, it's an attractive P&S stamped entry, and the use of roaming wild respins makes it a highly playable addition to the Gigablox family of slots.