What Is An Avalanche Feature?

Slot games have changed a lot since the first online slot was released. In fact, if you look at it closely, you’ll see that online slots aren’t that new, the first game was released more than 20 years ago. While the older games were quite simple in terms of features, characteristics and options. Today we have slots features that are quite refined and complex. The avalanche feature proved to be a hit, and this is a feature that we can see on many modern online slots, including some of the most popular games. What is an avalanche feature? – you may ask, and we are going to answer that exact question.

Still, before we answer that question, we would like to get a bit more into features in general and explain how slot games work. We will need to give you a bit of a historical retrospective of online slots and even regular slot machines. If you were wondering when were slot machines developed, it was quite a long time ago. More than a century has passed since the first slot machine was developed.

If you asked any slot maker from the first half of the 20th century ‘What is an avalanche feature?’, they would’ve probably given you funny looks or perhaps start talking about types of avalanches and what causes an avalanche.

Early Slots

There was no trace of special features or anything unusual on the slots from a century ago. Most of these slots featured just three rows and a single payline. In order to win on one of these games, you had to get three instances of the same symbol across the central line on the game and that was it. The number of winning combinations matched the number of symbols in the game.

Things started changing gradually. After the WWII a range of new options became available to slot developers, both in terms of graphics as well as gameplay. Even before online slots, the available video slots were very different from the old mechanic slots from the beginning of the 20th century.

Avalanche Feature Slots – Gonzo’s Quest

The first online slots resembled the land-based video games of that era, but things changed relatively quickly. The technology that was available to online slots developers was much more advanced and they soon introduced new exciting symbols. Fruits, bells and 7s were symbols of the old days and even though there are several old-fashioned retro games that come with such symbols on the reels, most popular slots nowadays are thematic slots with theme-specific symbols.

If older slots had more of an arcade feel, nowadays slots tell a story. Let’s take Gonzo’s Quest slot for example. This NetEnt game was not just one of the most popular games in the year when it was released (2011), but it remained in the spotlight in the upcoming years. In fact, it still is one of the most played games. It is available here at Secret Slots, so if you want to see why Gonzo’s Quest is so special, register, claim your bonus, make your first deposit and check it out.

There is another reason why we mentioned this game, namely it comes with the avalanche feature. So, if you want a practical and a direct answer to the question – ‘What is an avalanche feature?’, play Gonzo’s Quest and see for yourself.

Slot Bonus Features – Free Spins

We could say that the avalanche feature is a bonus feature. There are different types of bonus features. First, we have free spins – the most popular and most common bonus feature. Most slot games nowadays come with a free spins feature.

There’s a difference between in game free spins and free spins that are awarded by online casinos. The second type is when you get extra spins on a game, without having to make a wager. So, if a casino offers 10 free spins for every £10 deposit, this means that you need to put £10 into your casino account and you will then be awarded ten free spins.

In game free spins are slightly different. This feature is activated within the game. It depends on the game, but it usually requires at least three scatter symbols to appear anywhere on the reels. When that happens, you get to play free spins, i.e. the reels spin for a number of times, but you don’t have to click the spin button or to make a wager.

Avalanche Feature Explained

While free spins are the most common bonus feature, there are plenty of other available features and there are games that come with more than one, often with several features. The avalanche feature is a special bonus feature that’s activated after a win.

Basically, after a winning spin the symbols that completed the winning combination disappear, which causes all symbols on the reels to get rearranged. When this happens, symbols that were at the top of the reels fall onto the lower positions on the screen and the whole thing looks like an avalanche. Another term used for the avalanche feature is cascading reels. And if you think about it, it does make sense.

Tumbling reels is another phrase that’s used synonymously with avalanche feature. What happens is that you get another chance to win, as the symbols get completely rearranged which might trigger another winning combination, but you don’t have to make a subsequent wager, you get to play another spin with the same stake amount.

What Is An Avalanche Feature? – It’s A Fun Bonus Game

So, hopefully, this answer the question – What is an avalanche feature. It’s not just that you get a second spin, in many cases the avalanche feature also activates a multiplier. So, when the first avalanche spin occurs you get a standard win, but if you get a subsequent winning combination you will get a second avalanche spin, this time with a multiplier. In Gonzo’s Quest for example, you can trigger a x5 multiplier if you manage to get five winning spins in a row.

We have more than few games with the avalanche feature at Secret Slots. All you have to do is register, claim your bonus and then play your favourite avalanche feature slot.