Hexaline Pokie
It’s unusual to find a pokie that’s radically different from the normal 3 reel or 5 reel formats, but Hexaline, from the Microgaming range, is just that. Amazing 3D animations and a layout that does away with reels and paylines makes it hard to actually describe this as a pokie, but some of the principles are the same and anyone looking for something truly different should give this game a spin. Even though no spinning is involved.
It’s immediately obvious that this is no ordinary pokie. Instead of reels we have a grid of 18 hexagons linked together in 5 columns of 3 or 4 hexagons each. The game looks like it’s angled away from the player to add to the 3D effect, while on each side of the play area we see information about how it all works.
It all looks a little futuristic and the text style adds to the sci-fi atmosphere, with the game title above the play area and a control panel beneath it. Unlike normal games where players can choose how many paylines to bet on, or how many coins to have on each, all that’s needed here is for them to click the + or – buttons to set a wager per ‘spin’ that can be between 0.10 and 50.00, so it’s perfectly suited to casual gamers and high stakes gamblers alike.
Clicking the Play button sees coloured hexagons fall from above into the 18 positions and players get a win whenever a row of 5 or more identical ones lands across the game from left to right. Complete lines are needed, but they can start running up one side in vertical columns and then make up horizontal rows or go in a diagonal, a ‘V’ shape or any other pattern. All that matters is that the line runs from one side to the other, while the format means that multiple wins are possible with each play.
Hexaline
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Betting Options
As with pokies, the more symbols that make up a winning combination, the higher the payout will be. Assuming a 1.00 bet, the purple and green hexagons pay 0.20 per hex that makes up the line, while yellows are 0.30, reds 0.50 and blues are valued at 0.80 each.
With relatively few symbols to line up, it should be quite easy to get a winning combination, or often several in one spin which is helped by the pink and white wild symbol which acts as any other if it will complete a winning line. The wild is also worth 1.50 each when making up a row on its own.
Despite it being quite easy to land a win, players can be in for an even bigger treat, as any symbols which are part of the winning combination will flip over and in a nice animation that looks like something from Star Trek, appear to get beamed into space. This leaves empty spaces which will get filled by new hexagons, potentially making up another winning line or more, whereupon the process gets repeated until a non-winning spin.
To top it all off, there’s even a bonus symbol, with any 3 of them in view at the end of a round triggering an extra game. All hexagon colours are hidden, and players pick them in turn to move around the board winning a prize with each successful line created. Uncovering the star-emblazoned Win All symbol adds all the hidden prizes up, while finding it on the 5th column awards a 40x bonus as well. But if players uncover the hexagon with a big red ‘X’ on it the round is over.
Aesthetics
Visually, Hexaline is a colourful pokie that’s very different from anything that players will have seen before and the Microgaming developer certainly deserves credit for thinking up something unique. There are a couple of downside though, with the main one being the relatively low value attached to most wins.
It’s a trade-off between lots of winning spins and the size of the resulting payouts, with Hexaline definitely going for the maximum frequency but at low returns with each win. This does however, make it quite exciting to play, especially when more than one winning line is created, and the cascading symbols feature is triggered.
A nice bonus game that’s fairly easy to trigger rounds Hexaline off nicely.