Dark Vortex

Yggdrasil Gaming has a tremendous reputation for bringing a strong game both from a visual standpoint and on the gameplay side of things. Their Dark Vortex slot is a good example of how this typically works for them. This video slot has lots of monsters, magical books and other scary things going on with a bit of a dark magic theme, and the entire game is shaped like it's happening on a giant headstone. As a result, the spooky factor is turned up to 11 from the moment that you first start playing.

Format and Layout

The format of this game is a bit more flexible than what you find in most titles. The basic format has five reels and three horizontal rows with the all-ways layout in play. That means that you start off with 243 ways to win because all symbols act as left-to-right scatters. However, since you can get paid in both directions at all times, they also act as right-to-left scatters, so you're getting an extremely high hit-rate overall, which lends itself to a pretty low volatility as well.

You'll be wagering 10 coins per spin to play this game. Betting centers around you choosing which size coin that you'd like to use. The minimum coin size is $0.01, which leads to a $0.10 per turn wager at the low end. However, coins can be worth as much as $10 for bet sizes as high as $100 for high rollers.

Vortex Symbols and Vortex Spins

There's one symbol that stands out as a golden disc. This is the vortex symbol, and it's the one symbol that controls most of the flow of the slot. Get two of them on adjacent reels to start the Vortex Spins feature.

You'll start with two vortex reels on the reels where the symbols appeared to start the feature, and you're given three vortex spins to begin. Each vortex reel gives you more ways to win, wild symbols, a more favorable set of symbols and more. If you get more adjacent vortex symbols during these spins, two more vortex spins are added to your total, and they also become vortex reels.

Free Spins Bonux Round

During the Vortex Spins feature, if you're able to turn the whole game board into Vortex Reels, then you'll trigger a free spins mode once those turns are over. During this mode, you'll get wild symbols on the middle three reels that show up super stacked. During this mode, you'll be given 3,125 ways to win by having five symbols on each reel instead of just three. You can also enhance your free spins by collecting different orbs for different benefits during the remaining vortex spins between when you earn the free spins mode and when it actually starts.

Buy Bonus Option

At any point in the regular mode, you have the completely optional choice to buy your way into the free spins mode. It costs 800 coins to do so, and you'll select a randomly chosen wild stack size and number of free spins for the mode before seeing them actually play out in front of you.

Monster Symbols and Book Payouts

Five monster symbols make up the upper end of the pay table. Five of the monster in red gives you a 60x win, and you can also earn 40x for five of a kind of the purple or green monsters. The blue monster pays out 30x for five, and you can get the same 30x win for five of a kind of the purple rat. Note that all of these can be won several times over at once thanks to the all-ways format.

The lower half of the pay table consists of five book symbols. They're all super creepy with a lot of detail, and they follow a similar color pattern as the monsters. The wins are 12x for the red, 9x for the purple or green and 7x for each of the cyan and blue.

Overview

Dark Vortex gives players a degree of depth that they don't always find in online slots. This is brought with a layered approach to the features that makes a lot of sense and a fresh way of giving players value when they activate these features. On top of that, you get a super high hit-rate because of how the format is set up, and that's the kind of thing that brings a ton of excitement.