If you’ve never played a multiplayer slot game before then it can be a little bit complicated. It’s worth reading this review so that you can get your head around how that side of it works, plus you’ll want to know what we think of the game overall. Our in-depth review should tell you everything you need to know to help you to decide whether Marine Mayhem is the game for you.
Special Features
There’s only really one special feature in the proper slot game of Marine Mayhem, but we’ll also talk you through the Multiplayer aspect of the game here so that you know what you’re letting yourself in for. Read on to get to grips with all sides of this interesting take on a deep-sea slot:
Treasure Chest Wilds
Marine Mayhem only has one special feature that you’d find in a normal slot game, which comes in the form of the Treasure Chest symbol acting as a Wild. That means that it could substitute in for any other symbol on the reels and turn a line into a winning one, provided there were enough of the other symbols to cause this to be the case. The most frustrating thing about landing a Wild is when you do so but there are no other symbols helping it to create a winning line!
Multiplayer Community Jackpot
The Multiplayer aspect of Marine Mayhem is where the game’s more interesting aspects kick in, as well as as when the RTP shifts up a gear. We’ll talk more about that a bit later, but for now let’s give you a quick explanation of how the Multiplayer side of the game works. In essence, the game plays like a normal slot, with your spins winning you money if you get a winning combination of symbols on your active pay lines. You’ll also get points on random symbols that land on your lines, which will be added to your Points column for the game. You get them by landing three, four or five matching points values on consecutive symbols, with amounts ranging from one-hundred to nine-hundred points.
You may well be wondering what the point of those points being accumulated is, exactly, with the answer being that there is a countdown clock in the top righthand corner of the game that will have a random time of between two and five minutes on it as you enter the game. When the clock gets to zero, the Community Reels become active and will spin to determine how much of the community jackpot, that all players have been contributing towards, will be won. It will be shared between the top ten players with the most points on the leaderboard. Points reset to zero at the end of each Community Reels spin, meaning that only the points gained over the previous few minutes worth of reel spins will count.
The Community Reels
In Marine Mayhem, the Community Reels are made up of a number of coloured 7s. The combination of those 7s once they’ve landed will determine how much of the Community Jackpot will be shared between the top ten players on the leaderboard. If it’s three randomly coloured 7s then it will be 20%; 40% of the pot will be shared out for three Blue 7s; three White 7 symbols will see 60% shared out between the players; 80% will be given out for three Red 7s, whilst 100% of the Community Jackpot will become active if three Gold 7s land on the reels.
As the main game goes on and the clock counts down, you’ll see the top fifteen players according to the points they’ve amassed. Obviously that list will shift and change depending on how many points different players accumulate. When the clock strikes zero, the top three players will earn the largest percentage of the jackpot, with players in positions four to ten receiving slightly less. Anyone outside of the top ten will not receive any share of the Community Jackpot. You’ll know from looking at the leaderboard where you are and what the maximum amount you can win will be, presuming that three Gold 7s land when the reels finish spinning.
The final thing worth mentioning here is that you’ll see next to the Community Reels what the various combinations of 7s are and how much money can be won if they land. This isn’t expressed in terms of percentage, but in pure cash amounts. That means that you’ll know what the least amount of money that you’ll be able to win a share of will be, should the Community Jackpot be released and you find yourself on the leaderboard when it is.
Gameplay & RTP
Let’s begin by talking about that Return To Player average, not least because it’s quite a complicated aspect of Marine Mayhem. There are, in essence, two games going on here. One is the base game that you play for the majority of the time and is similar in how it works to pretty much any other slot on the Virtue Fusion network. The other is the Multiplayer Slot that kicks in when the Community Reels become active and the normal game is put on pause temporarily. The base game has an RTP average of 75%, whilst the Multiplayer aspect of the game sits at 95%. That’s an incredible difference and, to be absolutely clear, the base game’s RTP is very, very poor. Even some of the worst standard slots around have RTPs in the low nineties, meaning that 75% is poor enough to make you think long and hard about whether or not you want to play the game. The higher RTP average of the Multiplayer slot will tempt you, no doubt, but it’s worth remembering that you’re not guarantee to win much money in Multiplayer mode for numerous reasons. For starters you need to be high up the leader board, then you also need to hope that three Gold 7s land for the full Community Jackpot to be active. In other words, you’re unlikely to play this game because of the Return To Player average.
What, then, of the gameplay? Is that good enough to entice you in and keep you playing in spite of the poor RTP average? The short answer is ‘no’. The graphics in this game aren’t exactly rich and deeply composed, yet the ‘under-the-hood’ mechanics simply can’t cope with them and the reels seem to blur more than usual when they spin. It’s to the point that you might well give yourself a headache if you watch them for too long, which isn’t great. The dependence on the Multiplayer aspect of the slot in terms of additional mini-games and features means that it’s really disappointing on that front, too. Wilds can be good fun when you land them, but when that doesn’t happen very often and there’s nothing else to the game, such as Exploding Reels for example, then they’re just a bit naff. The entire game is built around the idea of playing it in order to trigger the Community Reels, but if you don’t do that you just end up playing a mediocre game with nothing exciting happening in it and a really poor RTP average. You’re likely to get bored of that very quickly indeed.
The one thing that the game does have going for it is the theme. The font of the game’s name is reminiscent of Sea World’s font, though without the questionable ethics attached to it. You’ll also see a large cartoon whale as part of the game’s title, which is fun. The Community Jackpot total is also to be found within a shimmering silver whale, meaning that the whale is something of a totem for the game. The reels sit in front of a busy looking reef, complete with schools of fish swimming by. Even the countdown timer for the Community Reels is made up of red and white stripes, looking like a lifebuoy rescue flight, such as you’d find by the seaside. The reels themselves are filled with symbols of life under the ocean waves, such as a Seahorse, a Clown Fish, a Turtle, a Jelly Fish and more. A real indication of the sort of thing that they’ve done with the theme is shown in the way that the Q, K and A symbol rest gently on a sandy sea bed. Certain symbols, like the Killer Whale, will swim and swish their fins around if they’re part of a winning line. Ultimately, though, the poor RTP average and the lack of interesting and exciting gameplay killed this game before it really got going. You might disagree, of course, but there’s not much that we think rescues this game enough to make it worth playing for more than a few minutes.