Mayan Stackways (Hacksaw Gaming) Slot Demo & Review

I don’t know why the Mayans get so little love in comparison to their Aztec cousins when it comes to online slots! Just skim our review library, and you’ll find it bustling with games such as Aztec Wild Megaways, Aztec Bonanza, and Treasures of Aztec, but the one Mayan-themed game that I thought that I could remember turned out to be based on the Inca instead! Perhaps nobody likes the Mayans anymore after all that ridiculous 2012 ‘end of the world’ stuff from a few years ago? The mind boggles! What I will say is that this game looks fantastic in my eyes – I love the presentation of the playfield, the dragons on either side of the reels look great, and it’s just simply a visually stunning game all around.

Ah, but does my enthusiasm carry over to the paytable? Well, I’ll first note that in addition to all the regular symbols I am about to list, the game includes a bunch of Bronze, Silver, and Gold Coins worth bet multiplies ranging between 1x and 1,000x the total bet. As for those regular symbols, however… the most generous Mask symbol will only pay you 4x your bet back for a full payway of five of a kind, followed by another mask at 3x for all five symbols. Next, there are three animals – a Snake’s Head that pays 2.5x for a complete payway, an Eagle at 2.2x, and then a Fish that offers a return of 2x the bet for a five of a kind combination. That just leaves the Five Royals, all of which return 0.7x for all five symbols.

We know what to expect from Hacksaw as far as betting ranges are concerned nowadays – there are minimum/maximum bet limits of €0.10 and €100.00, respectively, with lots of intermediate bets available in between the two extremes.

The standard playfield used in Mayan Stackways boasts five reels of four rows each, resulting in a total of 1,024 default payways. I say default, as the Stackways symbols can increase this up to a maximum of 100,000 under certain conditions. All symbols require at least three matches starting from the leftmost reel to award a win.

Stackways Symbols

Land a stackways symbol, and it will expand to cover the entire reel with the number of positions represented by the label displayed on top of the symbol. The stacked symbol chosen is based on what symbol would result in the largest win – for example, if you have a high-paying symbol on either side of it, the stackways symbol will create symbols that match those same high-paying symbols.

Skull scatter symbols appear on all five reels; hitting three of these will trigger the stack spins feature, whilst four or five activates the more generous Mayan Gold free spins.

Stack Spins Free Spins

This bonus round awards ten free spins initially, which come with lots of additional stackways symbols added to the reels. There’s also a reel activator scatter in play in this mode – when this lands, it will activate its reel to guarantee that a stackways symbol will land on that reel for every other spin for the remainder of the feature. Landing three further scatters in this mode will add four more free spins to your remaining counter.

Mayan Gold Free Spins

In the Mayan Gold free spins, your goal is to collect coins and save their values above the reel where they land. Bronze coins can have the following values: 1,2,3,4,5. Silver coins can have the following values: 10, 15, 20. Gold coins can have the following values: 25, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 500, and 1000. Landing a multiplier symbol will multiply the total value of coins currently shown above the reel where it lands. Multiplier symbols can have the following values: 2x, 3x, 4x, or 5x.

Landing a stackways symbol on a reel will fill that reel with a stack of coins, where each coin takes on the value above its reel at that time. Landing a collect scatter will bank all of the coins you have previously collected and remove all stacked reels, allowing you to keep on collecting on subsequent spins. The feature ends when all five reels become locked full of stackways symbols.

Bonus Buy

As ever, Hacksaw has included several options on their bonus buy menu:

• Bonushunt Featurespins (3x bet) – Each spin is five times more likely to trigger a bonus round.
• Stackways Featurespins (40x bet) – Each spin guarantees that at least 2 stackways symbols will land.
• Stack Spins (110x bet) – The three-scatter feature, with increased chances of landing stackways symbols.
• Mayan Gold (200x bet) – The four-scatter feature, with coin collection mechanic.