Gnomes & Giants: Slot Overview

Come step into a fantasy world of magic, gnomes, and giants. The name, incidentally, is Gnomes & Giants and is the work of Armenian casino game maker Peter & Sons, who has a soft spot for this particular theme, having appeared before in a number of its slots. The gameplay, too, has a familiar ring, partly due to the Gigablox connotations of the Monster Blocks, which are joined by syncing and expanding characteristics, as well as a free spins round where collecting scatters can bestow a win multiplier of up to x10.

Gnomes & Giants' base game presentation is pretty neat, providing a sort of gnome's eye view of the world, taking in a towering pitchfork, sword, keys and other miscellaneous items. At the top of the grid, peeking out of a window is a wizarding fellow who is a common sort of addition in several Peter & Sons slot. It all seems cosily familiar, if a little bit predictable at the beginning, as does much of the middle and end.

A highly volatile slot, Gnomes & Giants' RTP depends on how the game is played, and there are several options. One is to stake 20 c to $/€100 per spin, where the return value is 96.19%, whereas the other methods players can take is buying free spins and activating the Golden Bet - details on these are provided below. Up here, we've got the gaming grid which Peter & Sons has imbued with 6 reels, 6 rows and 50 paylines, awarding wins left to right, beginning on the leftmost reel.

A collection of card suits and creatures make up Gnomes & Giants' paytable. The lows are diamonds, clubs, spades, and hearts, while 4 odd yet friendly characters are the high pays. Landing winning combinations of 6 matching low pays awards 0.6-0.8 times the bet, or 1.5 to 5 times the bet is paid for a line of 6 matching premium symbols. Wilds help by substituting for all regular pay symbols. Wilds land on all reels, and a winning line of 6 wilds pays 10 times the stake.

Gnomes & Giants: Slot Features

Whilst not a Gigablox game, Gnomes & Giants does feel distantly related, delivering Monster Blocks, Synched Blocks, Expanding Blocks, free spins, a Golden Bet, and bonus buys.

• Monster Blocks - Monster Blocks are big symbols that land in sizes of 2x2 up to 6x6 in formation.
• Synced Blocks - The Synced Blocks feature occurs at random, and when triggered, it transforms all Monster Blocks into the same matching symbol.
• Expanding Blocks - This feature also happens randomly. When triggered, the Blocks on the screen expand up, down, or in both directions. If there are overlaps with other Blocks during the expansion, the overlapped symbols become wild.

Free Spins

Getting at least 5 scatters in the base game triggers as many free spins as there are scatters in view. In the free spins round, collecting scatters unlocks higher tiers. A multiplier increases with each tier starting on x2.

• Tier 0 - x2 multiplier.
• Tier 1 - x3 multiplier, 3 scatters collected.
• Tier 2 - x5 multiplier, 9 scatters collected.
• Tier 3 - x10 multiplier, 18 scatters collected.

Golden Bet

Players are able to pay 50% extra on each bet to activate the Golden Bet. This increases the chance of getting Monster Blocks and triggering free spins. The RTP is 96%.

Buy Free Spins

Gnomes & Giants also lets players buy their way into free spins. The two choices are 6 free spins for 72 times the bet (RTP 96.03%) or 6-24 free spins for 150x the bet (RTP 96.33%).

Gnomes & Giants: Slot Verdict

In many ways, Gnomes & Giants is a classic Peter & Sons production. Its look is an obvious indicator, and the quirky characters and beasts in a fantasy setting are right up the developer's street. Gnomes & Giants sits comfortably alongside slots like Monster Blox or Johnan Legendarian, for example, as if they're all blood relatives. Another familiar factor is the Monster Blocks feature, which gives Gnomes & Giants a slight Gigablox vibe.

However, where a Gigablox game might sync reels on each and every spin, in Gnomes & Giants, the big Block phenomenon is a less common one. Monster Blocks are complemented, however, by two other features: Synched Blocks and Expanding Blocks. Synced Blocks are basically a mystery symbol type feature, so they're not super exciting as such, though the Expanding Blocks and their wild creation abilities are pretty good. The feeling of being 'pretty good' was the one that persisted while playing Gnomes & Giants. Really, it's not a bad game at all, with satisfactory features, gameplay, and stats. Yet, there was something not quite off exactly, yet something was lacking that might have made Gnomes & Giants really pop. It ticked the right boxes and all, but it felt on the middling side for a Peter & Sons slot.

The game's max win might give pause, too. Not so much the respectable figure of 10,000x the bet, but the fact 10,000 was achieved once in 62.5 billion spins is not super encouraging, nor overly motivating. So, Gnomes & Giants was alright, nothing amazing, nothing terrible. It possesses a helping of Peter & Sons charm but isn't the most exhilarating example of the studio's work.