Overview
Journey to Camelot in GamesLab's Towering Pays Excalibur, an epic slot set amidst the legendary King Arthur's realm. The game presents a visually striking, detailed castle backdrop, immediately drawing you into a world of medieval myth. Its core appeal lies in the dynamic reel structure: a 5-reel setup that brilliantly expands from an initial 3 rows up to a towering 8 rows! This expansion isn't just for show, as it simultaneously increases your winning potential from 15 to an impressive 65 paylines. Designed for thrill-seekers, this High Volatility title ensures an exhilarating experience. For dedicated adventurers, activate the Quest Bet to unlock exclusive features like the Hold & Spin round, elevating your quest for riches. Prepare for a feature-packed quest unlike any other!
Gameplay & Features
There is a stack of features to go over though many of them are iterations of the same thing. Here you'll find Excalibur Magic, Stage Play, Prize Multipliers, a Feature Wheel, Win Spins, Avalon feature, four Free Spin rounds, plus a Hold & Spin game.
• Excalibur Magic
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TheExcalibur symbolappears onreels 1, 2, or 3in normal play or Lancelot and Merlin features. It appears onreels 1, 2, 3, or 4inArthurandCamelot featuresor onall reelsin theCamelot feature's 5x8 sized game grid. When Excalibur symbols land, theytransforminto the same random symbol and cancover partorall of the reel.
• Stage Play
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WheneverExcalibur appearsin at least one position on each reel that can hold one, play moves to thenext stageand anextra rowis added as well as+10 paylines. Stage play continues like this until the panel is8 rows highand resets at the end of the Avalon feature.
• Prize Multiplier
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Atrandom, aprize multipliermay occur on any winning spin. The more rows are active, the higher the multiplier may be, fromx2 up to x10.
• Feature Wheel
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The Feature Wheel is activated when3 Feature Wheel symbolsare in view onreels 1, 3, and 5. When triggered, players can win theHold & Spin,Win Spins, one of thefree spinsrounds, orWheel Upgradeswhich increases the likelihood of winning one of the better features when the wheel respins. LancelotorMerlin Free Spinsare free spins whereprize multipliersmay occur on any win. InArthur Free Spins, Excalibur may also appear onreel 4, while inCamelot Free Spins, Excalibur also appears onreel 4 or 5when the grid is8 rows high. All of these features award6 free spinsand start on the 5x3 grid. When Excalibur appears on at least one position on each of its active reels,+1 extra free spinis awarded.
• Win Spins
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On each Win Spin,Excalibur covers reels 1, 2, and 3on the current grid whilereels 4 and 5 spin. Grids do not increase in size, and a win is guaranteed on each spin.
• Avalon Feature
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This is triggered whenExcaliburappears on at leastone positiononreels 1, 2 and 4on the5x8 gridin normal game mode. The multi-level featureWheelis spun to award eitherwheel upgrades, one of thefree spin bonuses,Win Spins, or theHold & SpinifQuest Bet is active.
• Hold & Spin
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Sometimes Excalibur will revealshield symbolsif theQuest Betoption is active. If at least6 shieldsappear, theHold & Spin feature is triggered. Ifmore than 6 shieldsare in view,each extra shieldadds a row, up to 8. Once triggered,3 respinsare then awarded with all triggering shieldsheld in position. Only shields may land during the feature, resetting respins when they do. At the end of the round,prize valueson the locked shield symbols are awarded. If shield symbols display aFeature Wheel, this is awarded when the Hold & Spin ends. Filling all positions with shields gets you an extra1,000x the betpayout on top of any other winnings.
• Bonus Buy
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Last but not least is thefeature buybutton, providing2 options. For50x the betplayers spin to win Wheel Upgrades, Win Spins, or Lancelot Spins, or for80x the betyou can win any of those or Merlin Spins
Final Thoughts
Gameslab has followed up on the complexity ofValhalla Towering Payswith a Gordian Knot of a game that is even more convoluted. It's got bits triggering here and there, tying into something else, activating another, expanding this, and on it goes. For dynamic gaming that can't sit still, it might be worth a whirl; otherwise, it just seems rife with redundancies.
One of the issues is a large number of named features that do essentially the same thing. First clicking through the paytable, skim reading headlines makes it seem like Towering Pays Excalibur is an absolute feature fiesta. When you start drilling down on the details, you realise a lot of them are similar and it perhaps might have been more effective if there was just one or two really good extras rather than a bunch of average ones. Admittedly, there is a sense of progression to the bonuses some players might appreciate once they've got a handle on everything, perhaps.
Another concern is that when the grid grows, the paylines struggle to keep up. There is a lot of stacked symbol action going on, but also strange situations when, say, the 5x8 grid is active with loads of matching symbols, but just one winning line. Excalibur might have worked better if some of the excess had been trimmed away into something streamlined rather than the overabundance of too similar extras? Just a thought. Towering Pays Excalibur might lose its point then, though, which is presumably to be a feature-fest on a dynamic set of reels.
After a while, there are so many moving parts in Towering Pays Excalibur they tend to blur together, making it tough to see what was used before and what wasn't. The result ends up feeling less like a progression over what came before, than just more complexity with an Arthurian bent.
