Jewel Strike

Jewel Strike Slot Review

Violet smoke curls behind a silver cabinet with loose cut gems lined along the top rail like stones lifted from a display case. Jewel Strike, from Blueprint Gaming, holds one genuinely odd conviction for a game this shiny: the route to bigger wins isn’t adding features, it’s deleting symbols. On a 5×3 grid with ten paylines at 96.09% RTP, both of its modifiers take things off the reels rather than piling them on, and what’s left behind is a 50,000x ceiling on the total bet.

It’s a spare build next to the studio’s bigger licensed machines like Ted and The Goonies, closer in spirit to Eye of Horus in that one idea carries it. That idea deserves a proper look.

Base Game & Features

Wins land the traditional way here: three, four or five matching symbols on adjacent reels across one of the ten winlines. Adjacent pays means the leftmost reel has to start the run, but the symbols don’t need to sit in any particular row, so a stack on the first two reels connects plenty of lines at once. Only the highest combination counts on each line.

Wins across different lines add together into a single total, and line wins are multiplied by the value bet on the winning line. If multiple lines hit at once, the totals stack, which is how a full screen of a single symbol turns into the game’s biggest payout. All line pay symbols must appear on a played line and on consecutive adjacent reels, so a gap anywhere in the run kills the win.

Stacked symbols do a lot of the heavy lifting. With gems filling whole reels, the ten-line setup produces full-screen moments more readily than a sparse five-reeler would. A reel full of Orange Gems covering every row turns three adjacent stacks into simultaneous wins on all ten lines at once, each one paying at the top symbol’s rate.

The symbol set runs from a red rune letter up through four coloured gems, with the Orange Gem on top. All pays are multiples of the total bet shown on screen:

• Orange Gem: 100x for three, 500x for four, 5,000x for five
• Red Gem: 80x for three, 200x for four, 400x for five
• Blue Gem: 40x for three, 100x for four, 300x for five
• H rune letter: 20x for three, 50x for four, 200x for five
• Green and Purple Gem: 10x for three, 30x for four, 100x for five

The spread between tiers tells you where the game’s money sits. The Orange Gem pays fifty times more for five than the Green and Purple Gem does. Line up five of the top gem and nothing else on the grid matters much.

The drop from first to second place is steep as well: five Orange Gems pays more than twelve times what five Red Gems does, and the gap only widens between the lower tiers. Anything below the Blue Gem is filler, there to keep the reels busy between the moments the top symbols stack.

There’s no wild and no scatter in the usual sense. The special symbols here are the Colossal symbols, and they only arrive with their own modifier. Everything else is gems, more gems, and the rune letter.

Getting started is a two-button affair. The TOTAL BET button opens a list of available stakes, which vary by operator configuration and currency equivalent, and SPIN starts the game. The paytable sits behind a button in the top bar and shows every reel combination alongside both modifiers.

Auto play is there too, subject to operator configuration and jurisdictional requirements. It’s a lean control panel for a lean game.

Jewel Strike Bonus Features: Colossal Reel and Epic Spins

Colossal Reel

During any spin, there’s a chance the Colossal Reel activates. Nothing you do influences it and nothing signals it in advance. After a short animation, the reels change to include a Colossal Reel: three standard reels joined into one oversized block.

From there, the reels continue spinning before stopping, and the result guarantees a win on all ten winlines. Colossal symbols can appear on any three adjacent reels, which is what makes the guarantee work. Whatever lands, every line pays something.

The size of that something depends entirely on which symbol fills the joined reels. A low-tier fill across all ten lines is a modest pile of small line wins added together. A full grid of the Orange Gem is where the 50,000x ceiling lives, and it’s the game’s loudest moment by some distance.

Epic Spins

Epic Spins is the other half of the game, and it’s a bet mode you switch on yourself rather than a triggered feature. Pressing the EPIC SPINS button on the left-hand side of the button panel below the reels changes the game over at any time, at one of three tiers:

• 5x Total Bet
• 10x Total Bet
• 20x Total Bet

Each tier eliminates symbols from the reels depending on the Epic Bet selected. The mechanics don’t change: same ten lines, same adjacent pays, same paytable.

Nothing here is locked in. The EPIC BET button moves you between tiers mid-session, and STANDARD SPINS drops the game back to its normal reels. You can run a few spins at 20x, drop to 5x, and step back out entirely, all from the same panel.

The arithmetic is blunt: pay five to twenty times your stake per spin, strip out the filler, and let the stacked gems do the rest. The top Orange Gem paying 5,000x for five gets a lot closer when the weaker symbols aren’t crowding the reels, and a Colossal Reel landing mid-Epic-Spins is the combination the whole game is built around.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.2/10

Jewel Strike spends most of its time being a quiet, handsome gem slot, and then three reels fuse into one and every line on the screen pays at once. That guarantee is the one reason to choose it: very few ten-liners promise you all ten lines in a single spin.

The Colossal Reel is the best thing here, because a random feature that always pays but still scales with whatever fills it stays worth waiting for. The cost is everything around it: no wild, no free spins, nothing to break up the stretches where the gems just fall and don’t connect, and the vault starts to feel more display case than treasury.

Epic Spins gives it a wrinkle classic slots rarely have, and 20x a spin is a price only someone who enjoys that lever should be paying. Anyone chasing a stacked feature set will find this too bare. For anyone who wants one strong idea done properly, there’s real sparkle here, as long as they know how much of the cabinet is glass.

Jewel Strike FAQs

• How does the Colossal Reel work in Jewel Strike?

  The Colossal Reel can trigger randomly during any spin. The reels change to include one Colossal Reel, made of three standard reels joined together, and the spin then stops with a guaranteed win on all ten winlines.
• What are Epic Spins in Jewel Strike?

  Epic Spins is a bet mode you activate at any time with the EPIC SPINS button. You play at 5x, 10x or 20x your total bet, and each tier eliminates symbols from the reels depending on the Epic Bet selected.
• Can you change your Epic Bet or return to normal spins?

  Yes, at any point. The EPIC BET button switches your tier, and STANDARD SPINS takes the game back to its ordinary reels.
• Can you buy the bonus on Jewel Strike?

  There’s no traditional bonus buy. The closest equivalent is Epic Spins, which lets you pay 5x, 10x or 20x your total bet per spin to eliminate symbols from the reels for higher payouts.
• Does Jewel Strike have wild or scatter symbols?

  No. The only special symbols are the Colossal symbols, which appear on any three adjacent reels as part of the randomly triggered Colossal Reel. Everything else on the reels is a paying gem or the rune letter.
• What is the RTP of Jewel Strike?

  Jewel Strike runs at 96.09% RTP, based on long-term payback and gameplay.
• What is the maximum win on Jewel Strike?

  The maximum win from a single game is 50,000x the total bet.
• Who makes Jewel Strike, and when was it released?

  Jewel Strike is made by Blueprint Gaming. Its release date is 15 September 2015.