Slot Mechanics

Cascading Reels

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Slot Mechanics

Slot games in operation today have many different features incorporated into their game play, and one of these features is something known as cascading reels. Of course, if you’ve ever played a slot game with these included, you’ll be familiar with how different they work in comparison to standard slots.

Two meshed gears beside a reel window — game mechanics
Two meshed gears beside a reel window — game mechanics

The reels take on a movement of their own instead of just a standard spin, bringing an ultimately new experience to playing such a game.

Such features may seem minor when looking at the full scale of an online slot game, but really, every little feature comes together to create the entire finished product, and a game that incorporates such a wonderful feature into its interface adds that little touch of extra style and polish to what could be otherwise considered an average slot offering.

What are they?

For those gamers who have found themselves intrigued enough to spin through rounds of slot games with vigour, it’s quite probably that the layout you’ll have been provided with sees a three reel or a five reel game, and every time you press the spin button, that’s exactly what the reels do. Spin. These then come to a halt, providing you with the possibility of spinning a winning combination or having to take another go at it.

When cascading reels are brought into play as the alternative to the norm, this brings forth a new way of seeing how the reels move. This particular game feature sees the symbols included on the reels fall from the screen as though gravity has just taken its toll on them and sent them tumbling to Earth. Once these symbols have cleared off the screen, new ones drop from the top to fill their empty spaces. So, rather than the reels and symbols spinning, they cascade off the bottom of the screen and on from the very top.

However, generally speaking, this is not the only interesting feature that they offer. Should any of the symbols fall from the top and create a winning combination, the icons included in the win will also cascade down and off the screen to be replaced by even more new symbols. Therefore, such a feature not only provides a unique and interesting visual experience in terms of the way that symbols are provided after a spin, but it also provides players with extra chances of winning even further. It’s recommended playing and seeing these in action on some of the Vegas Slots games.

Cascading Reels vs. Standard Reels


It’s clear that there’s a big difference between slots that include standard spinning reels and slots that include the reels that fall. The standard spinning reels will be all that many people are aware of considering that they have been utilised in slot games since the creation of such products. However, is there really a better type of reel function?

While standard reels tend to provide a standard slot game experience in terms of the way they operate, the ones that we’re discussing here obviously have an alternative appearance and animation. The extra feature of cascading reels makes them slightly more appealing overall, considering the winning symbols disappear to make room for more new ones. As mentioned previously, this does give players of the games with this feature a bit more opportunity to create consecutive winning combinations, and therefore the possibility to trigger more in-game features and stronger winnings from a single

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