Over the years, we’ve had the chance to witness a fair share of expanding symbols slots in online casinos in NZ. Ever since the debut of the Book of Ra slot over a decade ago, these slots have been blooming on online casino sites.
This gives us even more of a reason to go through some of the most popular games of the genre. If you are on the lookout for games that work on this principle, only with modern aspects, you’re on the right path!
We will cover some of the most exciting games of this type available to online players in 2023, so stay tuned!
What makes Symbol Expanding slots so special?
The symbol expansion slots are special in the online casino world because of their incredible bonus feature. Although this is one of the most famous online slot machines in the world, it wouldn’t hurt to go through it again.
So, the essence of these games lies in their potential to award players with full screens of matching symbols. This is possible due to the exciting bonus round that is often triggered with 3 scatter symbols.
The whole point of these games is to award players with:
- High variance symbols with higher payouts
- Low variance symbols with greater full-screen potential
- Some games include double expanding symbols
- Re-trigger potential to prolong the free spins
Ultimately, these games can’t bring you massive wins during the base game round. However, the whole point of the games is the free spins bonus with symbol expansion. It works like a charm as proven by millions of slot fans that gladly play these games.
Gameplay aspects of the Bonus Round
With online slots of this type, it’s of utmost importance to understand how the bonus round works. As your entire game potential will depend on the outcome of the bonuses, you should know everything about them.
So, once you trigger the bonus round in one of these games, you will get a single expansion symbol. Some games even feature the double-symbol expansion that we will be discussing a bit later.
There will be a designated symbol awarded before the start of the bonus round. Afterward, once the bonus spins take place, you will be on the hunt for those particular symbols.
By landing 3 or more of the symbols on the reels, the symbols will expand to cover the entire reels. It’s important to mention that some games feature premium symbols that only require 2 symbols to expand.
Naturally, the more symbols you manage to land, the higher your total payout will be. The main goal is to try and land as many symbols as you can, preferably one symbol for each of the game reels. By landing 5 expanding symbols in a 5-reel game, you will get the maximum payout depending on the symbol.
Best Symbol Expansion games in 2023
As always, we are here to bring you some of the most exhilarating game variants to play online. As much as these games could seem the same, some aspects make specific games desirable for online play.
If you can make the right choice of the game, you won’t even have to rely on casino bonus offers for big wins. The potential of the games alone should be enough to get you started with some impressive wins.
So, without further delay, here are some of the best symbol expansion games to play this year!
Book of Dead Slot by Play’n GO
There is no point in mentioning symbol-expanding games without including the Book of Dead slot in the list. This game makes a perfect instance of a game of its type and the payouts for high-value symbols are outstanding.
The game mechanics allow you to land full screens of even the high-value symbols. Payouts are also more than decent, as the birds and Anubis pay up to x150 for a single-line hit. This means that if you can land the entire screen in the bonus, it will result in an x1500 payout!
Pharaoh symbols award up to x400 for a single-line hit, while the explorer brings up a payout of x1000 for one full line!
The Mysterious Egypt Slot
The Mysterious Egypt slot is one of the best games of this type as it features the double-symbol expansion. Before the start of each bonus round, the game will award two expanding symbols to players.
With this in mind, you just need to land combinations of at least one of the designated symbols to expand on entire reels. Also, it’s possible to even land full screens of both symbols in theory. Although it seems less likely in reality, the game potential surely allows high hopes for such a scenario.
Books and Temples slot
One of the most exciting games of this type is the Books and Temples slot designed by Gamomat. This game features a double-bonus option as it comes with 2 types of scatters.
The books will grant you access to the bonus round with expanding symbols mechanics. On the other hand, the temple scatters will provide you with a symbol upgrade bonus round. It’s somewhat similar as expanding wilds are added to the reels and each wild upgrades one game symbol.
Finally, once all the wilds are collected, only premium symbols will be left on the grid for maximum game potential!
Book of Atem Slot
The Book of Atem slot is a standard instance of the expanding symbols game to play in 2023. However, its impeccable visual features and graphics make it more than desirable for online play.
Being developed by Microgaming, this game will open the pathway towards a symbols expansion bonus with 3 books. If you succeed to enter the bonus round, great wins await with premium symbols.
You can also get some good wins with lower-value symbols in case you hit four-of-a-kind or five-of-a-kind hits.
Besides these games, some of the honorable mentions are the Book of Ra 6 deluxe slot, Leprechaun’s Magic, and Golden Ark slot.
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