Payday Megaways

Payday Megaways: Slot Overview

Ah payday, the epic time of the month when bills take a chunk of the cash, leaving you the rest to go wild and crazy with. UK based designer Storm Gaming rolls out their fourth Megaways powered slot in the hopes of nabbing some of that disposable income in a game themed with office work, bad bosses, and of course, getting paid. To do so, they’ve built Payday Megaways around features that have served them fairly well in the past, while adding something new. The result feels like a progression for the studio, and the unusual theme may well clinch or break the deal. The workaday action takes place on a standard Megaways grid made up of 6 main reels holding 2-7 symbols each and a horisontal bonus reel up top holding 4 symbols. As always, you never know what you are going to get each time you hit the play button, where the alternating number of symbols randomly produce up to 117,6549 ways to win.

If anything, Payday Megaways has a personality of its own. Storm Gaming has gone for bright, almost garish visuals. This seems done on purpose as the accompanying loungey soundtrack suggests they’ve gone for a 1990s vibe. When you’re being bold and doing something different, you’re bound to attract haters who just won’t dig the VGA era PC gaming circa 1991 approach. Others may well appreciate a slot set in the boss’s office for a change - and what a boss he is. Score big, and he grumbles about it; earn a promotion, and he’s coughing on his cut lunch. The dude does not like to dish out cash by any means. It’s a good thing then he’s not the one holding the purse strings, as the game is capable of producing sizeable wins.

Players join the workplace action on any device selecting appropriate stakes from 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin. This is a highly volatile rat race, with a RTP configuration of 95.18%. To get to the big bucks, three or more matching symbols must land adjacently from the first reel, or in the case of the top premium symbol, two or more. Boss man is the top icon, worth 40x the bet for lines of 6 of a kind. He is joined by a award ribbons, bundles of cash, spreadsheets, and a box of cigars - 6 of a kind wins from this lot payout 2-7.5x the bet. Moving further down the corporate ladder, we find J-A symbols, worth 0.9 to 1.75x for 6 of a kind. Helping players pull together wins, a dollar sign signet ring wild appears on the top row above reels 2-5. Wilds substitute for any regular pay symbol to complete a combination.

Payday Megaways: Slot Features

While slaving away in an office is about the furthest thing from going to a rock concert, Payday Megaways shares many of the same features as a previous Storm Gaming slot titled Monsters of Rock Megaways. This means players get the same reaction mechanism, mystery symbols, a pick me bonus, royal removals, and free spins. There is one new bit to freshen the experience though, as you will see.

As with most Megaways slots, the reaction feature is central to the action. When winning combos land, all winning symbols are removed from the reels, allowing new symbols to tumble down and plug up the gaps. Reactions can lead to consecutive wins on single spins and only end when no new combinations line-up.

Another Megaways regular is mystery symbols. They aren’t used extensively in Payday Megaways yet when they appear, all in view transform into the same matching pay symbol.

The Pick Me feature is the same as seen in Monsters of Rock Megaways but uses envelopes as triggering symbols. When 3 of them are in view, players pick one to reveal a bet win multiplier which is then awarded to the player.

Another minor modifier, which admittedly can spark some impressive reaction chains, is the Promotion feature. Like the High Voltage feature in Monsters of Rock Megaways, Promotions kick in at random to remove low paying symbols from the reels. A new win evaluation takes place, potentially sparking reactions.

Payday’s logo is the scatter, and 4 or more on the reels awards 12 free spins. Should there be more than 4 scatters, then each extra one adds +4 more spins. When free spins are active, scatters only appear on the top reel where 3, or 4 of them award +4 or +8 additional free spins. As you might suspect if you’re familiar with Megaways, free spins use a progressive win multiplier starting at x1 and rising by +1 after every reaction.

Finally, despite coming across as a bit of a tightwad, Boss Spins may trigger at random on a base game spin and award a random number of free spins. What stands out here is that the boss starts the progressive multiplier off with a value up to x10 as well as between 2-20 free spins.

Payday Megaways: Slot Verdict

On paper, Payday Megaways might sound a lot like Monsters of Rock Megaways, and in practice, the features do play out the same way. However, Storm Gaming has done a decent job of creating a rather unique Megaways experience when all is said and done. Offices might be the epitome of banality, but Storm Gaming has recreated one in a tongue in cheek, humorous way. Even the clichéd boss comes across as a guy who likes to grumble for fun, rather than actually because he’s a grump.

On the gaming side of things, you can see why Storm Gaming stuck to a familiar formula as well. Each feature can all do pretty cool things when they’re in the mood. Take the Promotion feature, for example. It can be a pleasant surprise seeing just how effective removing royals from the reels can be at linking a bunch of high pay symbol wins together. Do so during free spins when you’ve bagged a decent multiplier, and you’re laughing - to the tune of 10,650x the bet or $250,000 at most as the game is capped.

Most of the features here are pretty standard, so it might well be the theme treatment that makes or breaks Payday Megaways. Some may shudder at the somewhat dated look and recycled Megaways features. Others will relish a light-hearted Megaways game that makes a refreshing break from all the regular gold mining, Ancient Egypt, or Leprechaun slots for five minutes.