How many six-reel slots have you played recently? We guess you will have tried many more three- and five-reel games than those with six reels. That’s purely because six-reel games are not that common.
However, the question here is whether they work or not. We’ve looked at these games to find out what they can offer.
The sixth reel is sometimes a bonus reel
When you think of a game with six reels, you typically think of one where all six reels form part of the main game screen. However, this doesn’t always happen.
In some cases, the sixth reel acts independently of the other five. It does influence what happens on the other five though. For example, the sixth reel could show nothing but random multiplier values. The value shown on that reel would then be applied to whatever prizes were won on the main reels.
In other games, the sixth reel has shown a selection of bonus elements that might be triggered if the correct combination is seen on the remaining reels.
There is more variety with the paylines
If a game has six standard reels in play, there is a chance you might see more paylines coming into play. Alternatively, since there are six reels, you will get six positions on each line. That means you get the chance to win prizes for three to six matching icons, rather than merely three to five of them. Therefore, it opens the way to bigger prizes if you get lucky.
Scatters can take on new meaning in six-reel games
We have played a couple of games featuring multiple scatters in action on the six reels. In both cases, the scatters were all represented by letters. You could win scatter prizes in the normal way, but you could also spell a word relevant to the theme of the game. If that occurred, a bonus would be triggered.
You can see that having an additional reel in play can boost the playability of that game. It might be used as an extra reel or as a bonus reel, as we’ve seen. But there are great possibilities to look for whenever you see a game with six reels in play.
In fact, we are surprised more games with that extra reel haven’t been released. We shall be waiting to see how many more providers will create them.
