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14 January 2025 
Tinkerbot Slot Review
With artificial intelligence advancing rapidly these days, along with many things becoming more and more automated with the help of technology, there’s never been a better time for a casino game provider to release a game that’s all about robots. And that’s precisely what the game provider ELK Studios is planning with the January 2025 release of a game titled Tinkerbot.
We couldn’t help but think of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell when we first came across this game, but we assure you that this game has absolutely nothing to do with Neverland. Instead, it’s all about robots, specifically robots that tinker with things 24/7 with seemingly no end in sight. After all, robots don’t take breaks, at least they don’t in this game. And we don’t take breaks either, so let’s get on with our full Tinkerbot slot review below.
Base Game & Features
Most astute players will realize that Tinkerbot is a robot-themed game from its title alone, but if there was any uncertainty at all, it’s cleared up immediately after loading this game for the very first time. That’s because this game screams robots in every way possible, from its robotic sound effects to its robotic animations, and virtually every other aspect of the game.
When you first begin playing Tinkerbot, it’s configured as a 5×5 grid slot, which means that it has 5 reels with 5 rows each. Throughout the game, the grid size can grow to a maximum size of 7×7, but we’ll tell you more about that a little further down in our review.
A quick glance at the paytable reveals that this is a cluster pays slot rather than a fixed-payline slot game. This means that in order to land a winning combination, you’ll need to get a cluster of 5 or more matching symbols anywhere on the reels. And if you do, you’re in for a treat, because this game is equipped with an avalanche feature that removes all winning symbols from the reels and replaces them with new symbols. In doing so, you’ll have a chance to create multiple wins from a single spin.
The colourful blue, green, and purple symbols in Tinkerbot are the low-paying symbols, offering payouts that range from 0.1x to 25x your bet depending on the size of the winning cluster. The robotic-looking symbols are the game’s high-paying symbols and they offer payouts that range from 0.5x to 150x your bet.
A few other core parts of this game worth a quick mention are its RTP of 94%, its medium to medium-high volatility rating and its 10,000 maximum win multiplier. And speaking of multipliers, Tinkerbot has a global multiplier that is displayed on a TV screen that sits to the right of the reels and applies to all winning clusters.
The Botbox
While playing Tinkerbot, anytime you land a winning cluster, a botbox is formed on the reels. After forming 3 botboxes, each botbox will release one of the following features at random:
- Absorb – This feature first selects a paying symbol and then collects all matching symbols in view to create a multi-symbol.
- Transform – This feature first selects a paying symbol and then transforms them into another paying symbol.
Feature Symbols
- Multisymbol – The multisymbol that’s formed via the absorb feature referenced above is simply a bunch of the same symbols stacked into a single position on the reels.
- Multiplier – The multiplier symbol adds its value to the game’s global multiplier and then transforms into a wild symbol.
- Expand – The expand symbol expands the grid size by 1 column and 1 row (up to a maximum grid size of 7×7).
- Wild – The wild symbol substitutes for all other paying symbols.
Bot Frenzy
If you’re fortunate enough to remove all paying symbols from the reels during your course of play, a bot frenzy feature will be activated, which will award a random amount of botboxes that will be in addition to any botboxes formed from cluster wins that occurred while clearing the reels of all paying symbols.
Hot Wild
In Tinkerbot, it’s possible for a botbox to release a hot wild when it opens. When this happens, the hot wild will release a random number of wild symbols onto the reels.
Free Spins
The free spins bonus round in this game is triggered by landing 3 bonus symbols on the reels. But instead of winning free spins, you are awarded 7 free drops. During the bonus round, any unused botboxes become sticky and will remain on the reels for subsequent free drops. The global multiplier and the game’s grid size are persistent between free drops for the duration of the bonus round.
Super Bonus
In order to trigger the super bonus, you’ll need to land 4 bonus symbols, which will award 9 free drops. The super bonus is played on the game’s 7×7 maximum grid size, where the global multiplier and any unused botboxes are kept between free drops.
X-iter
For all you bonus buy fanatics out there, you’ll be happy to know that Elk Studios has included their popular X-iter system into this game (where applicable). This system is equipped with the following bonus buy options:
- Bonus Hunt – For a cost of 3x your bet, you will have more than triple the chance of triggering the bonus round.
- Feature Fest – For a cost of 10x your bet, you’ll be awarded 1 drop with 3 guaranteed botboxes.
- Super Drop – For a cost of 25x your bet, you’ll be awarded 1 drop with the game’s maximum 7×7 grid size.
- Bonus – For a cost of 100x your bet, you are guaranteed to trigger the bonus round with 7 free drops.
- Super Bonus – For a cost of 500x your bet, you are guaranteed to trigger the super bonus with 9 free drops.
Our Verdict
If you happen to have seen (and enjoyed) the animated movie Robots, the game Tinkerbot by Elk Studios gives off a very similar vibe. Although the robots in this slot game don’t have faces, they somehow still manage to have a personality, which makes it easy to fall in love with this game.
And when it comes to falling in love with this game, it also helps that Tinkerbot offers a sizable maximum win multiplier of 10,000x your bet, which is quite generous for a medium to medium-high volatility slot game with an RTP of 94%. Not to mention, this game has plenty of features that are sure to pull you in like a magnet, such as a bonus, super bonus, botboxes, multipliers, and an avalanche feature to boot.
For something that ELK Studios perhaps ‘tinkered’ with, the finished product is quite impressive. It hasn’t been thrown together, yet it doesn’t scream quality and ooze appeal like some others in the ELK studios catalogue. It’s no highly anticipated Gold Series, nor is it a nail-biting Nitropolis slot. We’d say its well worth a spin, but we feel that we’re yet to see ELK truly hit their stride again after concluding both of the aforementioned series.
Overall, it’s another creative worthy of praise, but it doesn’t have that X factor.
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