Diamond Strike Free Play in Demo Mode by Pragmatic Play

Diamond Strike review

Theme and Storyline

Diamond Strike is a pretty typical fruit machine-style slot, the reels being all lucky sevens, bells and fruit of various kinds. This is in the mould of dozens of other slots with equally unimaginative themes.

Diamond Strike makes little gestures at being a distinctive entity, but there’s not much there to work with. The background and animations imply an electricity theme, while the emphasis on diamonds on the reel and in the title are leaning more towards mining.

Neither of the details amounts to much and Diamond Strike blends in with the usual suspects.

Graphics, Sounds and Animations

The graphics are perfectly serviceable. The symbols are clear and easy to read, but there is no attempt at style in any of the visual aspects.

The animations don’t add much, a few flashes of lightning when you hit a win are supposed to sell the pun in the title to the player, but fails either from subtlety or stupidity.

The music is an irritating disco track that goes poorly with the win and spin effects which are dull and feel copied from The Baby’s Book of Slot Sound Design.

The result is a bland visual with borrowed audio.

Gameplay

Diamond strike uses the typical five reels with three rows for its format. There are fifteen win lines which can be adjusted down in whole number increments.

The bonus game is a basic free spin bonus, but where the big bucks are to be won is with Diamond Strike’s fixed jackpots (full details below).

There are no gamble features or varied bonuses to spice things up and the central game mechanics are all pretty basic. This is not necessarily a bad thing but will depend on the taste of the player.

Wilds, Bonuses and Free Spins

The Wild symbol substitutes for all symbols except the Free Spin and Golden Seven symbol.

The Free Spin symbol appears only on reels one, three and five. If the player lands a Free Spin symbol on all three reels, a Free Spin Bonus is triggered with eight free spins.

The Free Spin Bonus can be retriggered by hitting another three Free Spin symbols with no upper limit to the total number of spins the player can win. During the Free Spin Bonus, there are more Wild symbols on the reels, making for more chances at bigger, multi-way wins.

The Golden Seven symbol (which looks like the regular Seven symbol but with a cluster of diamonds at its base) triggers the Jackpot Bonus. The Jackpot Bonus is a picking game. The player is presented with twelve diamonds, under each of which is a symbol indicating either the mini, minor, major or mega jackpot. The player picks diamonds until they hit three of the same symbol. They then win the corresponding amount.

The jackpots are fixed multiples of the player’s bet per spin. The mini jackpot is ten times the player's bet per spin, while the mega jackpot – the biggest – is worth 1,000 times the player's bet per spin.

Bet Sizes, RTP and Variance

The return to player of this game is 96.48%, comfortably over our yardstick for average of roughly 96%.

The range of bets on the site we tested ran from a minimum bet per spin of $/£/€0.15 up to a maximum of $/£/€75.00 per spin.

The volatility of this game is medium, which makes it a weak match for our preferred slot machine strategies, which tend to favour high volatility.

Conclusion

Diamond Strike is a pretty decent slot. What it lacks in imagination, it makes up for in solidity.

The main appeal is the jackpot system that allows players to win as much as 1,000 times their bet per spin in one go, but overall the volatility is not that high. Jackpot games normally appeal due to the high volatility and the opportunity for life-changing wins which that represents.

Overall, Diamond Strike doesn’t quite make the cut and fails to win our recommendation.