Mayan Stackways

Review Mayan Stackways

Hacksaw Gaming clearly isn’t the first game developer to explore the rich history and mythology surrounding the lost Mayan civilisation. If we only take a look at the theme we’ve seen plenty of other providers that have put this theme into their games, but for Hacksaw it’s a rather new style. They gave the theme their own touch by making it darker than what most players are used to, although some would agree that Mayan gods can be quite frightening. If you are one of the many players who enjoys pokies that have a creepy twist to it, Mayan Stackways might just make it to your fav list.

How to Play

Mayan Stackways is one of the latest titles by Hacksaw Gaming, displayed on a 5×4 grid layout. This free online pokie can be found at many of the NZ online casinos featured on CherryRedCasino.com. If you’re wondering how to play Mayan Stackways, we’ll be happy to guide you through the basic steps and make you understand this entertaining pokie.

• Launch the game at your favourite casino and use the “+” and “-” buttons that can be located on the right-hand side to adjust the bets. This can be done from anywhere between $0.10 and $100.
• The bet is the amount that will get deducted from your balance per game. Playing the game is done by hitting the “Spin” button.
• As with many pokies, Mayan Stackways comes with an advanced Autoplay feature. Advanced means that you can play without needing to hit the play button, but also that you can customise the bet (with loss limits for instance) up to a max of 1000 spins.
• Lastly, the Menu icon will show a list of other options, including the “Info” button.

Symbol Wins

There are 10 symbols in total with 5 low values and 5 high values. As always, there are different other special symbols you’ll come across whilst playing as well. Wins happen if 3 or more identical symbols land in adjacent reels; seen from the left to the right side. The symbol payouts in the paytable can be consulted to see the current stake. The low values include the standard 10 to A royals awarding 0.1x, 0.3x, and 0.7x the bet. For the high value symbols make sure to pay attention to the Chameleon, Bird, Lizard, Mayan Queen and Mayan Chief. Landing 5+ will give you payouts of 2x, 2.2x, 2.5x, 3x, and 4x. In addition to the game’s standard symbols, the Reel Activator, Skull, Collect scatters, and the Stackways symbol will turn out to be highly rewarding as well. Although they don’t come with individual wins, they will help you to trigger different features in the game.

Bonus Features

It is rather striking that there is no wild symbol to be found in the Mayan Stackways pokie. There are special “stackways” symbols, which actually form the basis of the gameplay. In addition, you also have 3 different free spins features in Mayan Stackways. For those who want to take the shortcut, there is also a bonus buy feature. Let’s go through all of them:

Stackways Symbols

Hacksaw Gaming introduces the new Stackways symbols in this online pokie which will remind players of the Megaways mechanism by BTG. Each time a Stackways symbol lands, it will stack 2 to 10 units of the same symbol suit on the same reel it landed on itself.

The symbol type whose units are piled up is not chosen at random. This is done by the symbol which is the longest garland on the playing field. If there is a tie between 2 symbol types, then a random choice will be made. During a single spin, the same symbol type will therefore always be stacked.

Mayan Stackways Free Spins

There are 3 free spins features included in Mayan Stackways. We’ll go through them one by one as there are some significant differences between each of them:

Mayan Gold Base Free Spins

10 free spins can be earned by spinning 3 scatters in the base game. During these free spins, the chance of spinning stackways symbols is considerably higher, which of course makes the game a lot more interesting.

In addition, a new symbol is introduced: the reel activator symbol. The reel on which this symbol lands becomes active, which means that for the remaining duration of the free spins feature you have the guarantee that a stackways symbol will land on that reel.

Mayan Gold Bonus Feature

The Mayan gold bonus feature from Mayan Stackways can be activated by spinning 4 scatters in the base game. This feature is all about spinning coin symbols, which land with a certain cash prize. They add this cash prize to the collector in addition to their own roll. There are 3 different types of coins:

• Bronze coins with a value of 1 to 5x the bet.
• Silver coins with a value of 10 to 20x the bet.
• Gold coins with a value of 25 to 1,000x the bet.

However, a multiplier symbol can also land that increases the cash prizes by a factor of 2, 3, 4 or 5. The stackways symbol also has a special role during this feature. The stacked symbols are always coin symbols. The value assigned to this coin is equal to the active position of the reel collector of the reel it lands on. This does not mean that the prize money of all these coin symbols will be paid out automatically. In order to get to this point you will need to spin a collection symbol. After the cash prizes of all coin symbols have been collected by a collect symbol, the reel is available for new symbols on the next spin.

If at some point all reels consist of stacked coin symbols – and therefore no longer spin – then the feature is over. The total prize money is then equal to the values of all collected coin symbols together plus the values of all stacked coin symbols on the grid.

Bonus Buy Feature

Below, we have listed all you need to know about the bonus buy feature in Mayan Stackways:

Payout Metrics

We’re happy to inform you that the RTP of Mayan Stackways comes with an RTP of 96.23%. Do note that Hacksaw Gaming have produced versions that come with lower RTP’s, set at 94.29%, 92.41%, and 88.38%. In order to find out what applies to you we suggest always have a look at the game’s paytable. The game’s variance is labelled as medium-high with 4 out 5 giving an indication of what to expect. The hit frequencies depend on the RTP versions with the following stats revealed by the developer:

• 96.23% RTP version: hit frequency rate is 31.35% which means that a win will land every 3.18 spins on average.
• 94.29% RTP version: hit frequency rate is 31.23%.
• 92.41% RTP version: hit frequency rate is 31.12%.

Lastly, the Mayan Stackways pokie game comes with 10,000x stake max wins. The good about it is that this top rate can be won in the base game and the bonus features.

Summary

StackWays is quite a strong alternative to BTG’s Megaways and it comes with the same, dynamic grids. Other game developers have launched their variations of Megaways and it’s fair to say that Mayan Stackways might just be one of the best spin offs available. What we enjoyed as well is that Mayan Stackways can come with top payouts in the base game which keeps this pokie interesting at all times so you won’t have to wait until the bonus features for some action. At the same time it is true that the Stack Spins round is the most lucrative round so make sure to pay some extra attention when you make it there. With top payouts of 10,000x the win and up to 100,000 ways to win, Hacksaw have shown their ambition once again. We can’t wait to see more Stackways games being dropped.