The Volcano Eruption slot game is instantly recognisable as a title from developer NextGen, with its bright colours, detailed illustrations and appropriately ominous background music. The player sees the reels against the backdrop of a brooding volcano in a flower-filled tropical jungle, and the reels are outlined in volcanic rock.
Volcano Eruption plays on a standard 5X3 slot layout on five reels, and allows players to play between 1 and 25 paylines per spin. Bets per line can also be adjusted from 0.01 to 2.00 in the chosen currency, and the player does not have to add any additional bets, as they do in NextGen’s SuperBet titles, to activate all the bonus features. So the extras are available at any bet level.
Fiery Poker Symbols Introduce the Theme
Another feature of Volcano Eruption that is common in many slot titles is the use of Poker symbols as the low-value icons. But in this game, even the lowly 9-A get a theme-related makeover. The letters and numbers are illustrated as hot, cracked rocks, some of them still sporting flames as if they have only recently solidified.
There are four other regular icons that echo the tropical volcanic island theme: a bunch of oranges and a monkey, which both win prizes identical in value for matches of three or more, plus a parrot and a Komodo dragon.
These last two need only two matched icons on a payline, starting on Reel 1, to trigger a prize of 3 coins. For three, four or five of a kind, the parrot wins 20, 50 or 250 coins, and the Komodo dragon wins 25, 150 or 500 coins.
Volcano Serves as Both Wild and Scatter
Another feature unusual in a slot is using the same icon both as a Wild and a Scatter, but that’s what Volcano Eruption does with its erupting volcano symbol. It appears only on Reels 2, 3 and 4, but any single volcano can substitute for any other symbol on a payline to create a win.
If two volcanoes appear anywhere on the three centre reels, they count as Scatters and apply a multiplier of X2 to the entire bet for the spin. Three volcanoes increase the multiplier to X5, and activate the bonus Eruption Feature.
Biggest Wins in Eruption Feature
Having already won a 5X multiplier of the total bet, three Scatters will also give the player 5 free re-spins in the Eruption Feature. The volcano in Reel 3 erupts, stacking the entire reel with Wilds, which stick in place for all three re-spins.
The volcano also continues to erupt during the re-spins, dropping hot Wilds at random on the other reels to increase the potential number of winning paylines on any spin. The re-spins cannot be re-triggered during bonus play, but the extra Wilds they add to the reels can make them quite rewarding.
Auto Play and Gamble Options
Like most NextGen slot titles, Volcano Eruption has an Auto Play feature; it can be set for as many as 100 spins. There is also a Gamble button, for players who like to try doubling or even quadrupling their smaller wins.
It features the usual choice: players must pick a card colour or a card suit, and see if the card that is revealed matches their choice. Winning colour Gambles double the win, and winning suit Gambles quadruple it. A player can Gamble a single win up to five times.