Crystal Catcher

Theme and Design

Deep Underground Go Mining For Crystals

It’s clear that Push Gaming has taken great inspiration from their previous release Fire Hopper. With that being such an extremely high volatility slot, it’s nice to have an option that feels similar in layout and gameplay but has a much lower variance. Anyway, in terms of design, you’ll find a crystal mining theme where you’re invited to follow a crystal-collecting beetle deep down into a cave. Some lanterns glow on the walls, illuminating beams above and glimmering crystals, the game’s play symbols. 

The grid is certainly the focus and the pay symbols are pretty, but there’s nothing particularly innovative about this design.

RTP and Variance

This game has the option of six different RTP values, which are chosen by the operator, but the default is 96.3%. This is pretty generous and combined with medium volatility will suit both players on a budget and those who are a little more risk-averse.

Other RTP rates for this game are 88.3%, 90.3%, 94.3% and 95.3%. You can check for yourself which RTP rate your slot site has chosen by browsing the game rules page within the game before you spin. We recommend playing at MrQ which runs the game at the optimum 96.3% rate.

Maximum Win

The max payout of 5,000x your bet is alright. It’s not a groundbreaking amount of money, but for the RTP and fairly friendly volatility on offer, you can’t expect to climb into the tens of thousands. If you’re looking for a much higher payout then Fire Hopper is the opposite end of the spectrum, with its max win of 50,000x your bet and high volatility.

Symbols and Paytable

Crystal Catcher is played on a 7x7 grid with a cluster pays mechanic. This means that instead of regular paylines, you can make wins anywhere on the grid as long as you match 5 or more symbols that are connected to one another either horizontally or vertically.

There are 6 pay symbols as well as a wild symbol, a scatter symbol, and a crystal symbol which we’ll investigate shortly. The pay symbols aren’t split into low and premium, but do each have slightly different values. At the lower end are the purple, blue and green crystals which award 0.2x the bet for 5 symbols up to 12.5x the bet for 16+ crystals. The higher paying symbols are the pink orange and red crystals, these pay 0.5x the bet for 5 symbols, up to 100x the bet for 16+ symbols.

Features and Gameplay

Crystal Catcher has some interesting features that help to give this slot the wow factor. Let’s take a look at how they all work in detail.

Cascades Follow Every Win

Like many cluster pays slots, Crystal Catcher uses cascades to build win sequences. When a winning cluster is formed the cascade mechanic begins. All of the symbols that are part of the winning cluster are removed from the reels and new symbols cascade down into their place. This enables you to make more winning combinations. The cascade continues until no more winning combinations are made. 

Wild Symbol

The wild symbol in this game is the beetle, which substitutes for all regular pay symbols to help build clusters. There are 2 types. The normal beetle has a multiplier of 1x attached to it and that value increases by 1x each time it moves across the grid in the Crystal Catcher feature explained below. The golden beetle is left behind when the normal beetle moves position.

Crystal Symbol

If you land a wild beetle and a crystal symbol at the same time then the Crystal Catcher feature begins. The crystal isn’t a pay symbol, it only starts the Crystal Catcher round. 

Crystal Catcher Feature

This is the main event.

The crystal catcher round begins either as above with a crystal symbol and a wild beetle landing at the same time, or if a wild beetle lands as the same time as an instant prize symbol. The wild beetle files off to collect the crystal or instant win prize. As it does, it leaves a gold beetle behind each time. And each time a wild beetle collects a prize or crystal, it's multiplier grows by 1x. Multipliers are then applied to any win the wild beetle forms part of.

Remember, each win triggers a cascade too, so more symbols are dropping onto the grid, potentially creating more clusters whilst all this is going on. Ideally you want as many beetles on the grid as possible, all contributing to cluster wins with their multipliers in play as well.

Instant Prize Symbol

You can land instant prize symbols which will be collected if you land a wild beetle at the same time. Prize values range from 1x the bet up to 500x the bet. Each time a beetle picks up an instant prize, the beetle’s multiplier is applied to it. Once the win is paid, the multiplier increases by 1, leaving a golden beetle behind. 

Free Spins

There is also a free spins round triggered by landing a BONUS crystal symbol and a Wild Beetle at the same time. That gets you 7 spins where multiplier values are retained from one spin to the next so they can just keep growing bigger and bigger.

Ante Bet

If you find the going too hard a the normal game configuration, then for an extra 20% of your bet, you can activate the ante bet feature. This causes more wild beetles to land, increasing your chance of activating the crystal catcher feature.