Spin Vention

Spin Vention Slot Review

A brass city glitters under blue sky, cogs turning beneath the machine and teal lightning crawling up the pillars either side of the reels. Spin Vention spends more of its design effort on the strip of five spaces above the reels than on the reels themselves, and that’s the right call: the coins, multipliers and wild markers sitting up there decide what every spin is actually worth.

It’s High 5 Games building an inventor’s workshop where the paytable is the least interesting thing on screen. The numbers are plain: 96.0% RTP, high volatility, a 5×4 grid and 20 fixed paylines. The studio’s catalogue runs from Workshop Wonders to Da Vinci DeluxeWays and Shadow of the Panther Infinity, but this one runs on a coin meter rather than ways or cascades. That meter is where its fortunes are decided.

Reels, Lines and Symbols

Wins follow the classic line format: symbols must land on adjacent reels from the leftmost, on one of the 20 played lines, and only the highest combination on each line is paid. Line wins are multiplied by the bet per line. Wins are shown in credits unless marked as currency.

The cast fits the workshop. A green-hatted explorer leads the character symbols, with a goggled woman and a blue-suited robot diver one tier down. Gears, teal jars, clock dials and lightbulbs fill the low end. The paytable values are shown in credits, without any bet modifiers applied:

• WILD – three pays 20, four pays 40, five pays 200
• Green-hatted explorer – three pays 15, four pays 30, five pays 100
• Goggled woman – three pays 10, four pays 20, five pays 50
• Blue-suited robot diver – three pays 10, four pays 20, five pays 50
• Gear – three pays 2, four pays 5, five pays 10
• Teal gem jar – three pays 2, four pays 5, five pays 10
• Clock dial – three pays 2, four pays 5, five pays 10
• Lightbulb – three pays 2, four pays 5, five pays 10

The WILD badge is the richest symbol on the screen, substituting for everything except a handful of feature icons. There’s a second wild in play too, tied to the reel features. It substitutes for all but the bonus and trigger symbols, and its job is coverage, not cash.

Between the two of them, the wilds do most of the work in the bigger moments. Stacked copies of the feature wild have room to fill whole reels on a 5×4 grid, and the trigger mechanics below can put several of them there in one spin.

The Coin Meter Above the Reels

Five spaces sit above the reels, one per reel, and they’re the engine of the whole game. When you place your first bet at a given total amount, all five spaces fill with a coin showing an amount equal to two times the total bet. That’s the starting state, not the resting one.

From there, the meter shifts between spins. Coin amounts climb, wild markers appear, multipliers such as X3 stack up. Everything shown above a reel is money or power waiting to be claimed, and a single space can change from one spin to the next.

One rule matters more than any other here: all feature progress applies only at the total bet it was earned on. Change your stake and you’re building a different meter. It’s a system that rewards settling on one bet size and staying there, which suits the high-volatility maths anyway.

Reel Features and Spreading Triggers

The trigger icon is the game’s key symbol. Land one anywhere on the reels and it awards the special feature shown above that reel, whatever it happens to be: a coin amount, a multiplier, or a wild marker. The meter above and the reels below are in conversation on every spin.

There’s a second layer, and it’s the better one. When at least one trigger icon lands, there’s a random chance that one or two extra copies are added to other reels before the features fire, capped at one per reel. One icon can become three in a single spin.

Wins are only evaluated after all wilds from these features, and from a multiplier feature, have been placed. So a single trigger can cascade into a stacked set of wild reels before anything pays. That’s where the game’s biggest ordinary wins come from.

Free Games Bonus

The Free Games Bonus is the headline round. During the base game, one or more free-games icons appearing above any trigger icon starts it, and the number of free games awarded equals the sum of the amounts shown on all of those icons. Land three icons showing five, ten and fifteen and you play thirty free games.

More icons in the triggering configuration means more games, which makes every appearance of the free-games icon above the reels worth watching. It’s a trigger that pays you for paying attention to the strip above the grid, not just the grid itself.

Pick Bonus

The Pick Bonus is the quieter of the two rounds. A symbol awards that symbol’s value when it triggers, and if more than one is awarded, each Pick Bonus is played in sequence rather than merged into one. What’s picked, and from what, the game leaves for you to discover.

The sequencing is the interesting part. Multiple awards play out one after another, so a spin that lands several pick symbols stretches into a chain of mini-rounds rather than a single event. On a high-volatility profile, chains like that are where the bigger results live.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.7/10

This is a slot you play for the machinery, not the symbols. The reels themselves are ordinary; the reason to sit down at this particular brass contraption is that a single trigger icon can multiply into three, stack wilds across the grid and pay out of nowhere. When that happens, it’s the best five-reel moment the studio makes.

The strength is that everything feeds everything else: the meter above the reels gives even losing spins a purpose, because wilds and multipliers up there are only one trigger away. The weakness is the paytable underneath it all, which is thin – the low symbols barely pay, and a five-wild line at 200 credits is as rich as the symbol side of the game gets.

It’s for players who enjoy watching a system build, and who’ll keep one bet size fixed to let it. Anyone chasing rich base symbol pays will be better served elsewhere. For everyone else, the workshop lights up often enough to be worth the electricity.

Spin Vention FAQs

• What is the RTP of Spin Vention?

  The theoretical return to player for Spin Vention is 96.0%.
• Is Spin Vention high volatility?

  Yes. Spin Vention is a high volatility game, so wins tend to be less frequent but potentially larger when they arrive.
• How many paylines does Spin Vention have?

  Spin Vention has 20 fixed paylines. Line wins must appear on adjacent reels starting from the leftmost reel, and only the highest win on each line is paid.
• What is the grid size of Spin Vention?

  Spin Vention plays on a 5×4 grid, with five spaces above the reels that hold the coin meter values.
• How does the Free Games Bonus trigger?

  During the base game, one or more free-games icons appearing above any trigger icon starts the Free Games Bonus. The number of free games awarded equals the sum of the amounts shown on all of those icons.
• What does the trigger icon do in Spin Vention?

  A trigger icon anywhere on the reels awards the special feature shown above that reel. Extra copies can also be randomly added to other reels before the features are given out, up to a maximum of one per reel.
• Does feature progress carry over if I change my bet?

  No. All feature progress earned applies only at the total bet amount it was earned on. When you place your first bet at a new total amount, all five spaces above the reels refill with coins worth two times the new total bet.
• Who makes Spin Vention?

  Spin Vention was created by High 5 Games, the studio behind titles including Workshop Wonders and Da Vinci DeluxeWays. Spin Vention’s release date is 26 February 2021.