Doom’s Digging Machine

Doom's Digging Machine: Slot Overview

We're used to seeing developer Octoplay smashing bodies against bodies in its Showdown Spins slots; this time, we get to see the studio smashing its way beneath the earth. The occasion is Doom's Digging Machine, a slot geared towards mining, gathering precious minerals, and generally trying to strike it lucky beneath the planet's surface. Players don't get free reign down here, though, and they are not joined by one of those jolly bearded prospector chaps who are rife in the slot mining genre. Instead, a partly robotic fellow, Doom, presumably, joins them on their travels in a scatter pays slot of multipliers, Mystery Artefacts, and free spins.

As well as shunning the bearded prospector chap, Octoplay has shunned the typical mining slot visuals, so you don't feel like you've travelled down a mine shaft, where beams of wood precariously hold up the roof. Doom's Digging Machine is closer in style to, say, Relax Gaming's TNT Tumble slot, where it appears as if a metallic device (the gaming grid) is tunnelling downwards into the soil. Change is good, and doing things this way helps distinguish Doom's Digging Machine from other mining games, even if it looks slightly like something Peter & Sons might possibly make, and its main character could be related to Cyborg from Teen Titans.

As a scatter paying slot, winning combinations are made when 8 or more matching symbols have landed anywhere on the game grid. There is no need for matching symbols to be connected, and no win lines or ways are required. Symbols drop into a 5-reel gaming area, with 6 symbols per reel, which is powered by a low-medium (2 out of 5) math model. The game's stake range ranges from 10 c to $/€200, where the RTP is 95.7%, though flicking to 95.81% when using the Double Chance ante bet. The benefit of using the ante bet function is that it doubles the chance of triggering free spins, adding an additional 40% to the stake for the privilege.

On the paytable are 9 regular paying symbols. From the bottom up lands diamond, triangle, heart, pentagram, and octagonal shapes, then a bone hand holding a gem, and three gem-encrusted skulls. Scatter wins with 8 of these symbols pay 0.2 to 10 times your bet, and at the upper end, a 12+ OAK combination is worth 2x to 50x. Wilds are not used in Doom's Digging Machine, but a cascade mechanic is, which removes winning symbols from the reels after they pay, then tumbles symbols downwards to fill all of the empty reel positions.

Doom's Digging Machine: Slot Features

Mystery Artefacts brighten Doom's Digging Machine's base game and also its free spins round, which not only triggers organically but may be bought.

Mystery Artefacts

Two kinds of Mystery Artefacts land on the grid - the 2x2, granting an x3 multiplier, and the 3x3, granting an x5 multiplier. Each Artefact reveals matching symbols and grants a global win multiplier that applies to all winning combinations until the end of the spin. If more than one Artefact lands on the same spin, the multiplier values are added, up to a maximum of x100.

Free Spins

Hitting 3 scatter symbols on the same spin awards 10 free spins. Every triggering scatter beyond 3 awards an additional +5 free spins up to a maximum of 30. Landing a scatter symbol during the feature awards a further? +1, +2, +3, +5, or +10 free spins and increases the win multiplier by the same amount. During free spins, the win multiplier does not reset.

Feature Buy

For 150 times the bet, players can buy their way into the free spins round. An RTP of 95.87% is attached when doing so.

Doom's Digging Machine: Slot Verdict

Like practically all forms of slot, mining slots come in a bunch of shapes and sizes. From the heavy-duty pickaxe on naked rock action of Dead Canary or Fire In The Hole 2 to the more casual friendly Gold Digger from iSoftBet, there's something to suit a variety of risk/reward tastes while burrowing around beneath ground on the hunt for treasure. Doom's Digging Machine is a neatly designed entry into the 'softer' sector of the mining slot collection, let's say. Its low/medium volatility sees to that, and players with a preference for this setting shouldn't have too much trouble enjoying the sights and features Doom's Digging Machine churns out alongside it.

What can keep the Doom ball rolling along is the way it's able to chain a number of cascading tumble wins together when the going's good, while augmenting the flow with Mystery Artefact symbol reveals and a global win multiplier. It's not the most original combination of features ever unearthed by a slot maker, but it works quite well here and is able to dig up wins as high as 5,000x the bet. Obviously, that's not the biggest pile of rocks possible to pull out of a mining slot, yet it should be an appropriately fitting figure for the sort of gamblers it seems as though Doom's Digging Machine is trying to attract.

After battling through several Octoplay fight slots, such as Legends Battle For Earth, Doom's Digging Machine made for a nice change. Like all games, Doom's Digging Machine won't satisfy every gambling appetite, but you can see how certain players might be tempted by its cartoony, slightly retro appearance, particular mathematics, and flowing, interlocking gameplay.