Mayan Stackways

Mayan Stackways Slot Review

Slot Provider: Hacksaw Gaming

RTP: 96.23% | Variance: High | Maximum Win: 10,000x

Our Score: 8.2

Play at Barz Casino
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WHY YOU CAN TRUST THIS REVIEW: The information and opinions on this page are the result of an comprehensive process of information gathering and live game testing by the gambling experts who work at allslotsites.com. Find out more here.

About Mayan Stackways

Reviewed by:

Published Date: 4th July 2023

How We Review Slot Games

We test and rate all slot games across 5 criteria, assigning a score out of 10 for each and an overall score that is an average of the 5. To build an accurate assessment of each game we gather information from the supplier and play in real play or demo mode. Find out more.

Mayan Stackways is a 5-reel, high variance Win Ways slot from Hacksaw Gaming with an Aztec theme. Stackways symbols add up to 10 identical symbols to a reel when they drop, expanding only when they will guarantee at least one win. The Stack Spins bonus gives 10 free plays with better odds of landing Stackways and guaranteed Stackways on each spin if the activator symbol lands. In the Mayan Gold bonus coins and Stackways land and are added to multiplier values at the top of each reel before being paid out when all reels are completely filled with coins.

Mayan Stackways has a top payout of 10,000x and spins start from 10p.

Mayan Stackways Game Information

  • Release Date: May 2023
  • RTP: 96.23% | 94.29% | 92.41% | 88.38%
  • Variance: High
  • Maximum Win: 10,000x
  • Progressive Jackpot: No
  • Reels: 5
  • Rows: 4
  • Paylines: Win Ways
  • Minimum Stake: £0.10
  • Theme: Aztec
  • Features: Stackways, Multipliers, Free Spins
  • Format: 5-ReelWin Ways

What We Liked

  • Up to 100,000x win ways per spin
  • Big potential in Mayan Gold bonus round
  • Rare 'Golden Opportunity' feature
  • Huge 1,000x gold coins in bonus round

What We Didn't like

  • Watch for low RTP settings at some sites
  • Mayan Bonus round will be rare

Mayan Stackways Review Scores

  • Theme and Design 8
  • RTP and Variance 8
  • Maximum Win 8
  • Symbols and Paytable 7
  • Features and Gameplay 8

What Our Reviewer Says ...

"An intriguing, but tough little game with a few tricks up its sleeve to deliver some magical wins"

Overall Score: 8.2

Theme & Design

Our Score 8

Run of the Mill Aztec Style But With Added Red-Eyed Monster!

I wasn’t as impressed by Mayan Stackways visuals as I have been by many other Hacksaw Gaming slots. It follows a fairly traditional style, set as it is in a dense jungle and the reel set housed in a stone temple framework. The symbols are not as intricate as you find in other slots in this genre, and the blurred background means you miss the usual lush vegetation.

To differentiate Mayan Stackways from the competition, Hacksaw have created a skeleton-zombie Mayan God, though his role in the narrative is unclear. He does have the red-eyed characteristics of the monster from Hand of Anubis, so maybe they are trying to add some continuity there. During your spins he just hangs out to the right side of the reel set, impatiently tapping his skeleton hand against the stones as the reels spin.

Mayan Stackways by Hacksaw Gaming
Mayan Stackways – Aztec Jungle and a Scary Skeletal Monster!

In another typically-Hacksaw fashion, the soundtrack is very sparse too. It’s a matter of taste whether you like that – personally I think it works. There is little sound apart from the thud as symbols drop into place until a Stackways arrives, then a flurry of Aztec drums comes in to add a little drama.

Overall the production isn’t bad, just not as arresting as other slots from this studio.

RTP and Variance

Our Score 8

What is RTP?

RTP (Return to Player) refers to the amount a game will pay out in cash prizes expressed as a percentage of all the money wagered on that game. For example, a 96% RTP means a game will pay out £96 for every £100 wagered. This is an average number and will vary from one session to the next.  Read more here.

What is Variance?

Variance refers to how far a game will deviate from its RTP over time. High variance games deviate a lot and produce uneven win distributions and unexpected windfalls. Low variance games provide a more stable and even distribution of wins. Read more here.

Mayan Stackways has four available RTP settings: 96.23%, 94.29%, 92.41% or 88.38%. The optimum RTP of 96.23% is good value, but not all casinos will run the game at this setting. We verified the RTP of Mayan Stackways at five UK slot sites to see what setting they had chosen. This what we found:

Your best option for playing Mayan Stackways, if RTP is an important consideration for you, is MrQ, where the RTP is set to the maximum of 96.23%.

Mayan Stackways is a volatile slot with the potential to deliver some exciting win sequences where stacks and multipliers combine, but also one that can take a long time to break down. In this respect it it similar to many other Hacksaw Gaming slots like Itero, Hand of Anubis and Rotten.

Maximum Win

Our Score 8

What Is Maximum Win?

Maximum win refers to the maximum amount a player can win from one spin. It is expressed as a multiple of the stake. For example, where the maximum win is 100,000x, from a £1 stake, the maximum win would be £100,000.  

Mayan Stackways has a top payout of 10,000x. This is the standard max win for a high variance slot from Hacksaw. There are a few with better potential if that is what you are looking for – you could try RIP City or Cursed Seas, both of which are capped at 12,500x. Or, if you want even bigger potential then try our list of highest maximum win slots.

Explore Games With Similar RTP, Variance and Maximum Win

Like the numbers? Here are some more games you might want to try.

Slot SiteSupplierRTPVarianceTop Payout
Fear The DarkHacksaw Gaming96.25%Medium5,000xPlay Here
Temple of TormentHacksaw Gaming96.22%Medium10,000xPlay Here
Magic PiggyHacksaw Gaming96.19%Medium7,500xPlay Here
Gladiator LegendsHacksaw Gaming96.31%High10,000xPlay Here
BloodthirstHacksaw Gaming96.19%High10,000xPlay Here
StormforgedHacksaw Gaming96.41%High12,500xPlay Here
Cursed SeasHacksaw Gaming96.22%High12,500xPlay Here
Beast BelowHacksaw Gaming96.29%High10,000xPlay Here

Symbols and Paytable

Our Score 7

A Win Ways Game Where StackWays Are Vital To Powering Big Wins

Mayan Stackways is a 5 reel and 4 row game with a win-ways mechanic which means that there are no traditional paylines. Instead, wins are triggered by landing identical symbols on adjacent reels, regardless of position, from left to right, starting with the left-most reel.

When combined with the Stackways mechanic which stacks up to 10 symbols per reel, that creates up to 100,000 ways to win per spin. Effectively, Stackways is a method of expanding your reels in the same way that xWays from Nolimit City does, or Megaways from Big Time Gaming.

Mayan Stacks Paytable
Paytable on Mayan Stacks

 

Browsing the paytable I immediately noticed that symbol values are low. It means that straightforward wins will rarely amount to anything significant. But don’t let that put you off. The high number of win ways available, and the use of multipliers elsewhere in the game which can boost your wins significantly.

So stay tuned to see how those features work for you.

Aside from special symbols there are 10 basic symbols in the game. Low payers are the cards 10 through to Ace. These are valued at between 0.1x for 3 on a line up to 0.7x for five on a line. Premiums are the Aztec symbols, 3 animals and 2 characters. These are valued at between 0.5x for 3 animals up to 4x for 5 characters.

There are NO WILDS in this game.

Features and Gameplay

Our Score 8

StackWays And a Classic Hacksaw Bonus Round 

Hacksaw Gaming slots are not complex and Stackways is no exception. The base game is all about the Stackways symbol and trying to unlock one of two bonus rounds – Stack Spins and Mayan Gold.

Stackways

Stackways is a variation on the expander symbol feature found in ‘Book of ..’ slots like Book of Dead and Book of Ra. When the Stackways symbol lands, IF by expanding up or down its reel it can complete a winline, then it does. The number of symbols in the expansion is determined by the number displayed on the Stacksways symbol. And the symbol chosen for the expansion is determined by which would create the longest win line.

Remember, wins are created by landing identical symbols on adjacent reels, regardless of their position, so the more symbols in the stack, the more winlines that are created.

Mayan Stackways - Stackways Win
A Stackways win with a Stackways expanding 6 ways down

Stack Spins

Look out for Skull Scatters in the base game – landing 3 or more on a spin unlocks Stack Spins. You get 10 spins with a greater chance of landing Stackways symbols. This round can also be extended by landing 3 more scatters to give you 4 more spins.

During this round, if an Activator symbol lands, it GUARANTEES that on every remaining spin in the round, a Stackways will land.

Mayan Gold Bonus Round

The main event in Mayan Stackways is the Mayan Gold Bonus Round, triggered by landing 4 Skull Scatters at once. Like many other Hacksaw bonuses, it’s all about collecting multipliers to trigger a massive payout when the round concludes.

During the round only coins, multipliers, Stackways and collect symbols land. Each coin has a value that will be added to an accumulator displayed at the top of its reel. Coins may be Bronze (valued 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5), Silver (valued 10, 15 or 20) or Gold (valued 25, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 500 or 1,000).

Mayan StackWays Bonus Round
Coin Values and Multipliers are added to the accumulators at the top of each reel

When a multiplier lands, it is applied to the accumulator value at the top of its reel (2x, 3x, 4x or 5x).

Stackways fill the reel with a number of coins equivalent to the number displayed on the Stackways symbol. Each coin takes its value from the accumulator at the top of the reel. Once this happens, the reel locks. And once all five reels lock, the round ends.

But there is a twist. You can land a Collect symbol at any point which takes all coins on currently locked reels and puts them in a vault, unlocking the reels as it does.

At the end of the round, ALL coin values on the reels, and that in the vault, are added together and multiplied by your bet value for the payout.

Golden Opportunity

There is one more bonus enhancement in this game – if you land FIVE scatters in the base game you go direct to the Mayan Gold with a value of 50 displayed on each of the five coin accumulators above the reels.

The Final Verdict

Mayan Stackways is a slot that is all about waiting for the big moments. It might not look that exciting – the theme and design are more generic than most Hacksaw Games – but this tough slot’s best attributes will be the clever ways in which it promises to eventually kick out some big wins.  From the astute mix of win ways mechanic and stacking symbols that means its more than just another expanding symbols game, to the Activator which locks in your Stackways for the full feature, and the collector symbols which extend your Mayan bonus by unlocking reels to land more coins, Hacksaw have round multiple ways to deliver a big win in style. And of course, we should add to that mix the Golden Opportunity feature – undoubtedly an extremely rare treat, but one that will set up an epic Mayan Bonus round any time it drops.

So in conclusion, whilst our own testing didn’t produce any moments of magic, what is clear when looking at the features on offer, is that Mayan Stackways has some original and exciting tricks available to produce special moments for those with the patience to chase them down.

Compare Mayan Stackways With Similar Slots Picked By Us

Here are more games like Mayan Stackways compared on configuration and features. Click through to read a review of each one.

Slot GameProviderThemeMin. StakeMax. RTPVariancePaylinesTop PayoutJackpot
Hacksaw GamingPirates£0.1096.22%High2612,500xNo
Hacksaw GamingHistory£0.1096.31%High1010,000xNo
Hacksaw GamingAnimals£0.2096.28%Medium262,500xNo
Hacksaw GamingAnimals£0.1096.23%High2610,000xNo
Hacksaw Gaming£0.1096.24%Cluster Pays10,000xNo
Hacksaw GamingComedy£0.1096.28%Medium1610,000xNo
Hacksaw GamingAncient Greece£0.1096.18%High2010,000xNo
Hacksaw GamingCartoon£0.1096.22%Medium2512,500xNo

Useful Tips When Playing Mayan Stackways

Remember, online slots are games of chance, there is NO strategy that can improve your odds of winning. However, reading our review and following these tips will help you get the most out of your time playing this slot game.

1. Collect Symbols Are Powerful

If you make it as far as that bonus round, look out for Collect symbols because they are really powerful. They can extend the round by unlocking all the reels AND they store all active coins. Effectively its like a re-trigger!

2. Golden Opportunity Is Huge Too – But Very Rare

I liked the fact that there is this Golden Ticket style event built into Mayan Stackways. It’s rare, but look out for dropping 5 scatters in one go because this will fast-forward you into Mayan Bonus with a 50x headstart!

3. Don’t Chase Your Losses

This is a game that can be very unforgiving at times, rarely even dropping a StackWays. If that happens, don’t chase your losses, just come back another time. And set a sensible stake size to absorb those tough times.

4. Always Play At Licensed Slot Sites

I recommend that you only play at slot sites licensed in the UK like the ones on this page. These are regulated by the Gambling Commission to provide safe, fair and secure slots play.

Who Made Mayan Stackways?

  • Name: Hacksaw Gaming
  • Established: 2018
  • UK License: 54059
  • Total Games: 50 +
  • Known For: Dark, high variance output and bonus rounds driven by combining multipliers
  • Popular Slots: Hand of Anubis, Itero, Gladiator Legends, Break Bones
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