Shaolin Master

After a few sessions on Shaolin Master, it feels like a calm little trip up to a mountain dojo. You have the master stood on the left, the student on the right doing these poised moves, and the whole thing sits in front of a proper peaceful Shaolin Temple-style backdrop. Nice, chilled vibe.

Gameplay-wise its a 5 by 6 cluster grid, so no paylines - you just want 5 or more matching symbols touching up, down, left, right. When you hit, the cluster disappears and you get cascades, which kept my spins busy. The maths felt medium volatility, with wins popping often enough to stay interested.

The paytable in Shaolin Master is pretty straightforward: 10 to A are your low stuff, and they scale from about 0.1x up to 15x for 15+ in a cluster. Premiums are the Blue Fist and Purple Beaded Necklace, then the Golden Shuriken and the Student, with the Master topping out around 1x to 60x.

Most of the fun comes from the Chi Orbs. Blue and Red are sticky wild multipliers for the spin, starting at x1 and growing when they help a win - Blue by +1, Red by the size of the cluster. Balance Orbs only show on cascades, using the product of your Red and Blue multipliers. Then you have The Student free spins on 3 or 4 scatters, and The Master bonus on 5 scatters with refilling 3-spin lives, stone blocks, Ice blocks and Crusher blocks. Bonus buys are in too - 3x, 50x, 100x, 200x options.

I ended up liking Shaolin Master more for the flow than the drama. It borrows a lot from an older, darker grid game from Hacksaw Gaming, just with a softer atmosphere and a steadier feel. The ceiling is still 10,000x, but the real buzz is watching multipliers stack up off a good cascade chain.