Fatz’s Diner Gigablox Slot Review 2024

The humble diner is a quintessentially American product, symbolic of a welcoming nation where hungry patrons can walk in a stranger but walk out a friend.

It has provided the setting for some of the most memorable moments to ever grace the big screen.

Who can forget Sally, played by Meg Ryan, letting out a prolonged series of sexualised yelps over an innocent turkey sandwich – followed up by the mother of all quips from one fellow diner: “I’ll have what she’s having.

Or when Harry (Jeff Daniels), one half of the hilariously hapless duo Dumb and Dumber, inadvertently tosses a salt shaker over his shoulder right in the direction of a redneck beefcake who immediately seeks to exact revenge. The ensuing exchange is the stuff of legend.

Diners have also provided inspiration for various slot makers over the years. One of the latest to try out their burger flipping skills is Swedish studio Yggdrasil Gaming with October 2023 release Fatz’s Diner – a game that injects its own fair helping of humour into proceedings in a lighthearted way.

Yggdrasil has sure created a pleasant ambience for a bite to eat, where gently pastel colours dress the walls and reel frame, retro jukebox blasts out hits of the era to one side and the sun shines brightly through the front door. All is well in Fatz’s Diner.

Fatz's Diner Gigablox Base Game

Fatz’s Diner Gigablox Base Game and Features

Stepping inside this 1950s-inspired fast-food joint we find a game matrix comprised of 5 reels and 4 rows housing a total of 40 paylines, governed by a highly volatile math model.

Fatz’s Diner’s paytable contains 9 symbols, paying out when identical combinations of three or more land adjacently from reel 1 onwards. At the lower end of the spectrum, we have bananas, berries, a mix of foliage and meat.

The restaurant’s chefs are a goofy-looking bunch of exotic animals – no less – on hand to serve up ample servings of greasy goodness, and with a little luck, some tasty wins for afters. Acting as the premiums are a crocodile, a monkey, a goat, a lion and a hippopotamus who we think is the head chef. Regular line wins formed of 5 symbols pay up to 4x the stake – a relatively lowly amount that hints at other features in store.

Look out for the record symbol wild, meanwhile, serving its regular purpose as in symbol substitution when it shows up.

Gigablox

Let’s get our chops around the game’s main extras menu, where first up is Yggdrasil’s proprietary Gigablox feature. Guaranteed to land on every spin, Gigablox are oversized clusters of symbols 2×2 to 5×5 in size that see two or more reels conjoined.

When included in a win, Gigablox symbols are broken down into their respective singular form for the purpose of payout calculation.

Expand & Respin

Be on the lookout for the Expand & Respin symbol, served by an arrow. When this lands, it triggers a Respin where the Gigareel (the reel containing the Gigablox) increases one reel in size in the direction of the triggering symbol. Multiple Expand & Respins are possible in any one spin.

Game Provider Yggdrasil Gaming
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Minimum Bet 0.20
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Maximum Bet 40
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Maximum Win 9,052x
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Paylines 40
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Release Date 05/10/2023
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RTP 96.00%
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Mechanics Video Slot
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Volatility High
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Reels 5
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Fatz’s Diner Gigablox Free Spins

Gorge on a main course of Free Spins when you land 5 or more scatters in the Fatz’s Diner base game, kicking off with 5 spins in addition to the number of triggering scatters. For example, 6 scatters give you a starting haul of 11 spins.

Once the round is underway, Expand & Respins symbols take on added potency. For every 3 collected, the Gigareel expands for the remainder of the round, while the highest-paying hippo gets a multiplier boost starting at 3x and increasing by 3 each time it’s involved in a win. Even better – the multiplier does not reset.

Fatz's Diner Gigablox Free Spins

Fatz’s Diner Gigablox Bonus Buy

Where legally permitted, players have the option to buy their way into Free Spins via a Bonus Buy option. Players can pay 100x the bet in exchange for 10-30 Free Spins. Or if you’re feeling fruity, 30 Free Spins with the hippo multiplier beginning at 9x can be yours for 600x your stake.

Fatz’s Diner Gigablox: Our Verdict

Yggdrasil have been rolling out Gigablox-powered titles at a fair rate of knots in recent times, those numbers swelled further by the increasing amount of studio partners looking to get in on the act.

While it still ranks way behind the likes of Megaways in the ubiquity stakes, the mechanic’s novelty factor has begun to wear off somewhat since debuting in the Japanese-flavoured Lucky Neko.

What that predicament does is charge Yggdrasil with devising new and exciting ways to keep the thing fresh with each subsequent release. And to be fair, Gigablox enjoys a measure of originality in Fatz’s Diner, notably for the way it interacts with Expand & Respin symbols and its ability to blow up during Free Spins.

In addition, the game brims with Yggdrasil’s characteristically eye-pleasing artwork and packs an abundance of personality, while dangling a decent 9,000x the bet max win on top.

All in all, an agreeable Gigablox entry is sure to please fans of the feature plus anyone hungry for casual diner-based casino entertainment.