Hellcatraz II Dream Drop

Theme and Design

This game brilliantly combines retro artwork with a prison theme that fans of slots like San Quentin xWays and the original Hellcatraz game will love. The grid is a prison block that represents Alcatraz prison, floating on an island looking back at San Fransisco. The theme extends to the symbols too, including prisoners and a police officer. 

While there are a bunch of prison-themed slots games, the 8-bit graphics of this one help to differentiate it from the rest. Little details like the police helicopters delivering your free spins are a nice touch too.

RTP and Variance

This game has an RTP of 93.99% which is just 0.1% lower than the majority of slots on the Dream Drops network. We can certainly forgive them this, as 12% of every spin goes directly to the progressive jackpot pool. Plus, you can shoot for the jackpot with a minimum bet of just £0.20, though your chances of striking the progressive jackpot do increase in line with the size of your stake.

The variance on this slot is high, so it can burn you fast and players on a tighter bankroll who still want to shoot for a progressive jackpot might find this a little restricting. Titles like Cosmic Rush Dream Drop and Temple of Fury Dream Drop both offer much lower volatility and that same progressive jackpot.

Maximum Win

With a progressive jackpot on offer, the top payout of this game is impressive. However, it gets even better for its generous 10,000x non-progressive max win. This game will definitely suit those players who enjoy big swings.

It is worth noting that the original Hellcatraz game (without the progressive jackpot) has one of the highest max wins out there at 51,840x and an increased RTP of 96.46%. So, if you like a big win, but aren’t fussed about shooting for that progressive jackpot, the original slot game could be a better choice.

Symbols and Paytable

The game is originally played on a 5x5 grid, which can expand to up to 9 rows high if you trigger enough exploding mystery symbols via the Mystery Reveal feature. This can change the number of win ways from 3,125 (5x5x5x5x5) up to 59,049 (9x9x9x9x9) when all reels are fully expanded. You might notice the border between the top row and the rest, this border denotes where those exploding mystery symbols can land.

This is a win ways game so you make wins by landing 3 or more symbols on adjacent reels (regardless of the row they are on) starting at the leftmost reel.

There are 8 pay symbols in total, plus a Dream Drops symbol, a Wild symbol, and a Scatter symbol, that we’ll cover later. The low paying symbols are the card suits, paying from 0.1x your stake for 3 symbols up to 0.4x your stake for 5 symbols. The premium symbols are the prisoners and policemen, paying from 0.3x your stake for 3 symbols, up to 2.5x your stake for 5 symbols.

Features and Gameplay

Hellcatraz II has a handful of well-thought-out features that really add something to the gameplay. Let’s take a closer look at them.

Cascading Wins

The cascading wins feature causes any symbols that are part of a winning combination to disappear. This makes room for new ones to fall into their place. If you make another win with these symbols, they too will disappear. The cascade of symbols continues as long as you keep making consecutive wins.

Mystery Reveal 

The top row of the pay grid is separated from the rest, being the only part of the grid where the Mystery Reveal symbol can land. At least one of these symbols will land on every spin. The symbol starts with a number from 1 to 5 on it, which decreases with every consecutive win in the current sequence of cascades. 

If you reach 0 on the counter then you trigger the Mystery Reveal feature. This expands all of the Mystery Reveal symbols in that row by between 2 and 5 rows, increasing the size of the grid. Once they’ve finished expanding, they’ll convert to regular paying symbols OR coins. If they are pay symbols, they help complete win lines as normal. If they are coins, then they are collected and paid out.

The coins can be worth between 1x and 1000x your bet.

Free Spins

The scatter symbol can only appear on rows, 2, 3, 4 and 5. If you land 3 scatters, you get 6 free spins, plus 3 extra spins for every additional symbol. During the free spins game, you’re also awarded an extra spin if you land another scatter symbol. 

Dream Drop Jackpot

Dream Drop Symbols can only appear on the top row. If you land five of the symbols on the same spin then you get to play the Dream Drop Jackpot game. The screen changes to a grid of 15 prison bar symbols. You get to pick one at a time, revealing one of the jackpots rapid, midi, maxi, major, or mega. As soon as you match three of the same jackpots, that’s what you win. The seed values for the jackpots are shown below:

• Rapid (seeded at €1)
• Midi (seeded at €5)
• Maxi (seeded at €100)
• Major (seeded at €25,000)
• Mega (seeded at €500,000 with a minimum payout of €1,000,000)