Powered by SlotsReach.com
Thunderkick has always had a knack for taking familiar mechanics and giving them a heavy-hitting twist. With Hammerblaze, they’ve invited us into a mythic forge for a 7×7 cluster-pays grid slot that relies heavily on a doubling multiplier mechanic.
If you’ve played games with multiplier spots before (think NetEnt’s Spice), you’ll have a good idea of what to expect here. But is Thunderkick’s trip to the forge worth your bankroll? I sat down for a few hundred spins to find out.
The Mechanics: Striking the Anvil
Hammerblaze runs on a standard avalanche engine. You need clusters of five or more matching symbols touching horizontally or vertically to trigger a win. Winning symbols pop, new ones drop in, and the chain continues until no new wins form.
But the standard symbols aren’t really the star of the show here. The entire game revolves around the Exploding Wild, a flaming hammer.
When an Exploding Wild forms part of a win, or just drops into a cleared space during an avalanche, it explodes. This blast clears a 3×3 block on the grid and leaves a pink “Multiplier Grid” in its wake, with every cell holding an x2 multiplier.
Here’s where it gets fun: if another hammer explodes over those same cells on a subsequent drop, the overlapping multipliers double to x4, then x8, all the way up to a massive x128. If a winning cluster lands on top of these pink cells, your payout is multiplied by the sum of all the grid values underneath it. When it pops off, it’s incredibly satisfying to watch.
The Reality Check: A Brutal Base Game Paytable
As a reviewer, I have to be completely fair with you: you are going to be praying for those pink multiplier cells, because the base symbols in this game carry almost no weight.
The top premium symbol, a flaming Fire God, is the only symbol that returns your stake for a minimum five-symbol cluster. The rest of the paytable (breastplates, helmets, shields, and weapons) pay absolute pennies. To put it in perspective, a cluster of daggers stays under your stake until it reaches twelve symbols.
Without multipliers, a base game win is usually a scattering of 0.2x and 0.8x returns that barely keep your balance afloat. The multiplier grid isn’t just a fun extra feature; it is the entire pay engine.
Because the grid resets after every spin in the base game, you need a long sequence of avalanches to build up decent multipliers. During my session, there were definitely some long, quiet stretches. At one point, I hit six dead boards in a row.
However, when the forge heats up, it can save your session. My best base game hit came from a lucky chain of eight avalanches where six hammers dropped in rapid succession. The overlapping blasts pushed several cells up to x8, and a decent cluster of breastplates landed on a grid sum of x10, netting me a sudden 17.9x win out of nowhere.
The Bonus Game: Where It Turns
If you can land three Anvil Scatters, you’ll trigger the Bonus Game with 10 Free Spins. This is where Hammerblaze shifts from a grind into a game with massive potential.
The base game grid clears at the start of the bonus, but from spin one, every multiplier cell placed on the board becomes persistent. They do not reset between spins. They sit there, waiting for another hammer to double them, for the entirety of the feature.
That single rule change transforms the slot. While the board and paytable remain exactly the same, a 3×3 multiplier block set on your first free spin will still be there on your tenth, doubled again by every hammer that explodes over it. Keep in mind, though, that Hammerblaze relies entirely on the Wild to place and upgrade these cells. If you get clusters but no hammers, your grid stays untouched.
Chasing the 10,000x Cap
Thunderkick has capped the max win at a very respectable 10,000x your bet. Because the grid multipliers are additive, hitting that cap requires a perfect storm: you need a large cluster of premium symbols laying across a block of cells that have been doubled into the double digits.
For context, a massive 25-symbol Fire God cluster pays 100x on its own. To hit the 10,000x cap, you’d need a grid sum of x100 underneath it.
Should you play it?
If you like low-volatility games with steady, predictable payouts, Hammerblaze will probably frustrate you. The base game can be a bit of a slog, and the low symbol values can feel thin.
However, if you are a high-volatility chaser who loves the snowball effect of doubling multipliers and doesn’t mind grinding for a bonus round that can suddenly explode, Hammerblaze is a beautifully designed, highly capable slot that deserves a few spins.
