If you’re interested in stealing some digital gold, you might want to check out Neon Villains DoubleMax from Yggdrasil Gaming. You play as a group of “professional tricksters” who are trying to, uh, fool their way into some serious cash. Or close to it. Neon Villains DoubleMax is a slot machine game that continues the DoubleMax series by offering a multiplier that doubles in value with each dropdown win.
Before the meteor that wiped off the dinosaurs, there was Raptor DoubleMax, the first of the DoubleMax slots. Its visual quality was stunning and immediately raised expectations. Neon Villains DoubleMax’s visuals weren’t as striking at first glance. Although there is a lot of neon in the game, I found it less interesting than its more reptilian sister. The main game takes place in what seems like an alley, while the bonus round takes place in the vault (or at least the area where the vault is). The visual and auditory elements are serviceable, but nothing special.
Play continues on a familiar 5-reel, 3-row grid, but gone are the previous 25 paylines in favor of an expanded 243-ways-to-win structure. If you land at least three identical symbols in a row, left to right, across three reels, you win. Florageddon-style both-ways-pays are not an option. The high level of volatility predicted has been confirmed, and players may choose from many variations of the RTP, with a maximum return of 96%. Select a wager between 10 p/c and £/€40 each spin, with the opportunity to use the Golden Bet if it is presented. The Golden Bet raises the bet by 20% but doubles the likelihood of triggering free spins.
The following set of tiles contains symbols, and there are eight of them that always pay. The lowest paying symbols are the four suits of playing cards (spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts), while the highest paying symbols are four different types of characters. If a player gets a winning combination of five identical symbols, they will get a payout of between 0.5x and 2.5x their wager, depending on the type of symbol they hit.
Features of the Neon Villains DoubleMax Slot
Dropdown winnings, a progressive win multiplier, free spins, and a purchase bonus can all be found in Neon Villains DoubleMax, just like they could in Raptor DoubleMax.
One-Page Triumphs
There are a few outcomes when a winning strategy is implemented. Before new symbols may fall into place on the reels, the winning ones must be eliminated. Wild symbols are used to fill in gaps before the rest of the symbols are replaced. If another win occurs after the dropdown, the cycle will continue.
The DoubleMax Factorization
A multiplier path can be seen on the left side of the grid. The multiplier increases by a factor of two with each successive dropdown. In the regular game, the multiplier resets after each spin; in the bonus round, it doesn’t reset until the session ends.
No Risk Turns
Players receive 7, 9, or 11 bonus spins, respectively, when they land 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols. The multiplier also resets between free spins, and you can’t retrigger the feature while it’s active.
Spend Money on a Bonus
Free spins may be purchased by the player instead of being earned via normal gameplay. Seven, nine, or eleven free spins can be purchased for 100x, 200x, or 500x the initial wager.
Slot Decision: Neon Villains DoubleMax
The difference between Neon Villains DoubleMax and Raptor DoubleMax is the result of certain tweaks performed by Yggdrasil Gaming. However, the two are still extremely similar in use. It didn’t veer off the beaten path quite as much as Florageddon! Although there are now 243 ways to win instead of the previous game’s 25 paylines, the method has a reduced hit rate. Neon Villains DoubleMax has a hit rate that is around 10% lower than its dinosaur ancestor. Rather defeats the purpose of changing over to the methods system, no? Possibly, it all boils down to how the players’ ideal winning positions look on the board.
The concept is subjective, but we didn’t find Neon Villains DoubleMax as engaging to the senses as Raptor DoubleMax. The previous game had a MultiFly!–inspired neon jungle aesthetic. Despite all the bright, this one came out as being less exciting. The visuals are OK, but there’s nothing particularly memorable about the environments or the bad guys. There is discussion of a “stealthiest mission” and the hunt for “riches within the vault” in the game’s narrative. Unfortunately, for a heist episode, it was about as exciting as watching an Ocean’s flick on a muted wristwatch. There was obviously something missing there.
Neon Villains DoubleMax’s multipliers are capable of the same kind of trickery as previously, at least in theory. In contrast to Florageddon!, the method seemed more familiar because the multiplier once again doubled after each win rather than increasing by a fixed number. Since the multiplier doubles when momentum is building, it doesn’t take long to reach lofty heights. The game sheet states that the multiplier has the “potential to climb to infinity,” which is mind-boggling when you put it that way, but in practice, the maximum payout is capped at 25,000 times the initial wager. To answer your question, yes, Florageddon! has sold 5,000 more copies than Raptor.
Overall, the excitement level of Neon Villains DoubleMax was lower than that of Raptor DoubleMax. Technically, it’s on par with previous games and has more promise, but the presentation isn’t quite as strong and the adjustments it introduces aren’t exactly revolutionary.