Dream Zone

Theme and Design

Dreamzone has a deep space theme with shades of NetEnt’s Starburst or Red Tiger’s Laser Fruit. Though in this case the action takes place on a grid rather than standard reels and rows. The backdrop is a black with bright laser lines that are reminiscent of the film Tron. The grid floats and the paytable is made up of jagged gemstones. The visuals are complimented by an electro soundtrack with an 80s vibe. It’s got a nice feel to it though I reckon it might start to drive you a little mad after a while.

RTP and Variance

The RTP of Dreamzone is 96%. That is about average for online slots and certainly good for a game from this provider, many of which come in at 94% or 95%.

This is also a medium-high variance game, rated 7/10 on the game info sheet published on ELK’s own site. This is balanced with a win frequency of 27.7% which means around 1 in 3 to 4 spins will produce a payout of some kind.

What does all that mean? I would expect fairly frequent wins but they will be small in size. And from time to time Dream Zone will also knock out a big payout.

Maximum Win

Wins are capped at a rather disappointing 2,500x per spin. This is well under what we normally see from high variance slots these days and there are many more from Elk with much higher potential like Avalon Gold (25,000x) of Frog Blox (25,000x) for example.

Symbols and Paytable

Dream Zone plays on a fixed-size 5x5 grid. It is a cluster pays slot, but unusually, the minimum cluster size is just 3 symbols which must all be in adjacent positions on the grid.

Symbol values start small but the bigger the clusters, the greater the payout.

There are 10 symbols in the table. They are low value purple, blue, green, orange and red that range from 0.1x for 3 purple up to 6x for 11 or more red; and high value purple, blue, green, orange and red which are valued at from 0.4x for 3 purple up to 100x for 11 or more red.

In addition to the regular symbols, there is also the golden ‘W’ which is the Wild which subs for any pay symbol to complete a cluster.

Features and Gameplay

There is a clear objective when playing Dream Zone. You want to clear the grid through avalanches to trigger the bonus round. Along the way you get a helping hand from some extra features.

Avalanche Wins Remove Symbols From The Grid

After any cluster if formed, all symbols in clusters are removed from the reels and existing ones drop in to replace them. If another win is created then the process repeats.

The key point here is that new symbols DO NOT drop down to replace the ones that are removed. So with each win more of the grid is cleared. If you can empty it completely, you trigger the bonus round.

Every Win Collects Dream Features Which Activate Later

On any winning spin, Dream Features are collected which can be triggered on future spins where you don’t win. There are FOUR to collect.

• Added Wilds - at random to help produce wins – up to FIVE may be dropped onto the grid
• Symbol Explodes - up to FOUR symbols are removed at random and replaced
• Symbol Upgrades - ONE low value symbol is upgraded to a premium one ACROSS THE GRID
• Scatter Affect – ONE symbol becomes scatter pays for the spin and pays out wherever it lands, regardless of whether its in a cluster or not

Bonus Drops – Your Chance to Clear The Grid for a 512 Multiplier

Clear the grid and you enter the Bonus Drops game.

The round starts with THREE free drops (spins) and a 2x win multiplier applied to all your wins. If you clear the grid again you go up to the next level with an increased multiplier.

There are NINE levels to go through with multipliers of 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x, 64x, 128x, 256x and finally 512x.

Let’s be honest, that’s the stuff high variance dreams are made of – a compelling, relentless journey of free drops and progressively bigger multipliers. What a shame they capped the wins at 2,500x though!