Judgement Day Megaways

Judgment Day Megaways: Slot Overview

'Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.' – Haruki Murakami. Surely, not everyone, everyone has the end of the world in their hearts? We could be wrong, of course, but a good number of people apparently do. According to an Ipsos survey in 2012, 1 in 7 people questioned thought the world would end in their lifetime. Hopefully, if/when it does, humanity has been deemed good, or at least good enough, because the end of the world often coincides with some form of judgement, and being found wanting in these situations is hardly ever a good thing. Something that is good, perhaps, is the chance to mentally prepare for any potential end-time event with the help of Judgment Day Megaways from developer Red Tiger. This end of days slot features the breaking of Seals, the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and the chance to scoop a few coins along the way.

Judgment Day Megaways is an exceptionally sombre slot for Red Tiger. The studio is no stranger to dabbling on the darker side of life, as seen in a game like Monsters Unchained, but rarely are the studio's games this menacing. From the get-go, too, as players are welcomed into Judgment Day Megaways with the message 'Their Wrath Has Come' beneath a picture of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse amidst a fiery scene. Doesn't look like a great final scene for the human race. When heading into the game properly, the mood doesn't lighten up much then, either. Backgrounding the gaming grid is a dark, misty wasteland of torn flags, piles of skulls, and ominous stonework. You get the feeling Red Tiger wasn't in the best of moods when it came up with Judgment Day Megaways, or the team felt the desire to explore a heavier, judgmental side than they usually do. If the latter, they have succeeded.

The gaming grid is no more cheerful either, its 6-reel matrix is surrounded by bones, and each of its reels lands 2 to 7 symbols on each spin. The number of symbols may vary from spin to spin, as do ways to win, maxing at 117,649. Wins pay left to right, in any row, from the leftmost reel onwards. Judgment Day Megaways is highly volatile, unsurprisingly given the topic, and generates a return to player of 96%. Stakes of 10 p/c to $/€4 can be selected without an ante bet or buy feature in sight.

The symbols forming winning ways are removed, making space for symbols to drop down from above and may create new wins. Chain Reactions end when no new win hits. The pay symbols have a very Red Tiger-ish look about them, and there are ten in total. The lower 5 are clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, and stars, while the high pays include various judgey symbols adorned with arrows, a double-sided axe, purpley stuff, a sword, and another skull in case you haven't seen enough skulls already. Hitting a 6-symbol winning way awards 0.4 to 0.8 times the bet for the lows and 1 to 5 times the bet for the premiums. Wild symbols of various types pop up all over the place, as you will see, and all types substitute for any regular pay symbol.

Judgment Day Megaways: Slot Features

Within Judgment Day Megaways, the cascading win system is joined by Seal symbols which activate random horsemen features, plus a round of free spins.

Seals

Seals may land on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5. When a Seal hits, it triggers a random horseman. The horseman executes its modifier, and the triggering Seal symbol transforms into a wild of the same type as the horseman – Conquest Wild, War Wild, Famine Wild, or Death Wild. Up to 4 Seals may land on a spin – one for each horseman. When more than 1 horseman feature is summoned by landing multiple Seal Wilds, they trigger in this order – Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. Each acts like so:

• Conquest – shoots arrows in the sky, which fall as Skull Wild over other symbols on the reels. Arrows do not land on free spins scatters or other wilds.
• War – slashes random symbols in two, increasing the number of possible win ways. Slashing occurs only once per spin. Only symbols on reels with less than 7 symbols may be slashed, and no more symbols may be slashed on a reel which has reached a count of 7 symbols. Free spins scatters, and Seals do not get slashed.
• Famine – selects 2 random reels and applies the symbol count of each reel as a symbol multiplier to the other. Multipliers are applied to all symbols on the reel except Seal Wilds or free spins scatters. Symbol multipliers may be x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, or x7 depending on the symbol count, and for example, a symbol with x4 counts as 4 symbols.
• Death – drags down 1 or 2 of the middle four reels to reveal wilds with symbol multipliers. The further down the reel is dragged, the bigger multiplier of the dragged wild. A reel may not be dragged with more than 3 positions in total, and a reel with 2 symbols may not be dragged more than 2 positions. Dragging stops if a free spins scatter or Seal Wild reaches the bottom position. Skull Wilds appear with an increasing symbol multiplier. Each next Skull Wild dragged down will get an x1, x2, or x3 higher multiplier than the previous highest symbol multiplier, which appeared on any symbol on the reel. If no symbol multiplier is present on any of the symbols on the reel, a starting multiplier of x1 will be assumed when dragging in the first Skull Wild.

Free Spins

Landing 3 scatters awards 8 free spins. The Judgment phase plays first, where a random horseman is selected to be active on every free spin. The other horsemen can still activate at random by landing Seal Wilds. Landing 3 scatters during the feature awards +4 extra free spins, and another horseman is randomly selected to activate on every spin for the rest of the round. Seal Wilds will not land if all horsemen have been activated, and when more than one horseman is activated, they play out in the order mentioned above.

Judgment Day Megaways: Slot Verdict

In some ways, Judgment Day Megaways is a typical Red Tiger release; the graphical quality and general feel of the game have a familiar RT-ness about them. However, the studio has pushed itself into a darker corner than it usually traverses, and the heavier subject matter suits it like a charm. The graphics, the atmosphere, it's all got a bit of extra bite than normal. Picking a topic like Judgement Day is full of pitfalls if executed poorly. However, done along similar lines as some of Play'n GO's metal-themed slots as a loose comparison, Red Tiger has risen to the challenge by designing an entertaining game full of intrigue, mystery, and judgement.

What also helps is that Judgment Day Megaways' features are varied, potentially potent, and cleverly tied to the four horsemen. Some of the Seal-triggered modifiers are fairly standard such as Conquest's wild symbol additions or War's symbol slashing; others, like Famine or Death, possess greater originality. Each one is capable of doing positive things on their own, but combining them potentially ups the thrills. This is technically possible in the base game, when more than one Seal hits, as well as in free spins, there helped by the fact at least one horseman is guaranteed to trigger on each free spin – extra if you can manage a retrigger or two.

The icing on the cake is the Red Tiger record potential of 100,000x the bet, which is much larger than anything we've ever seen before in slots from Red Tiger. A big number like that adds additional heft to an already hefty game, though if it's all been a bit too much on the heavy side, why don't we close out with some reassuring-ish words from alt-rock band REM; 'It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.'