Gonzo's Quest slot by NetEnt

Learning how to play Gonzo's Quest takes about a minute: choose a stake, start the spin and read what the reels leave behind. The stake can be changed between spins at any point, and every Gonzo's Quest payout moves with it.

Gonzo's Quest pays on 20 lines: the symbols have to land next to each other from the left edge, and the line has to be one the game is running. Scatters are the exception — they pay from wherever they land.

The full table of payouts sits in the Gonzo's Quest menu, and it is worth opening before the first round rather than after a result that looks wrong: it lists every symbol, the entry for Avalanche, and the conditions each one needs.

Gonzo's Quest is laid out as 5 reels, 3 rows and 20 paylines, and it reads exactly as it looks. Wins are read left to right from the first reel, and only the highest combination on each line counts, so a second stone masks — gold, turquoise, pink, green further along the same line adds nothing. The paytable is top-heavy. Stone masks — gold, turquoise, pink, green carries the headline number, a serpent on stone the next one, and everything below is filler.

There is no conventional wild on the base grid; Gonzo's Quest does its work through the feature set instead. Top end on Gonzo's Quest is 3,750× the total bet, and nothing on the base grid gets close to it — the number assumes Avalanche lines up.

Avalanche is the part of the paytable to read twice: the blocks do not spin but fall: winners crumble and new ones arrive from above. So the honest way to read Gonzo's Quest is as two games stacked: the base grid, which ticks over, and the feature, which does not.

Gonzo's Quest carries three features, and they are where the game earns its place in the lobby rather than on the base grid.

Avalanche — the blocks do not spin but fall: winners crumble and new ones arrive from above. Everything else Gonzo's Quest does on the base grid is a preamble to Avalanche.

Multiplier: each further collapse in a run raises the multiplier. On Gonzo's Quest this is the difference between a flat session and one you remember, so it is worth knowing what Multiplier looks like before it arrives.

Free Fall (three signs open free falls with the multipliers tripled). On Gonzo's Quest this is the difference between a flat session and one you remember, so it is worth knowing what Free Fall looks like before it arrives.

The features are the game. Avalanche in particular is where the quoted ceiling of 3,750× the total bet comes from, and no amount of base-grid play approaches it.

The stake on Gonzo's Quest is 20 lines times whatever you set per line. Playing fewer than 20 is possible but rarely sensible on Gonzo's Quest — it lowers the cost and the hit rate in the same step. Note that 3,750× the total bet is a multiplier, not a rand figure. It holds at every stake, which is what makes Gonzo's Quest comparable with the games either side of it in the lobby.

Volatility on Gonzo's Quest is medium, which means it sits in the middle of the catalogue, neither a grinder nor a long-shot. An RTP you find for Gonzo's Quest on another site describes that casino's build of the game, not this one. NetEnt lets the return be set per operator, so the only binding number for Gonzo's Quest is the one in its own info panel — open it before you read anyone's table, including ours.

One practical note on staking Gonzo's Quest: changing the bet between spins changes nothing but the price, and no state carries across — each Gonzo's Quest spin is settled on its own. Autoplay handles the base grid of Gonzo's Quest perfectly well. Set it to stop on Avalanche and you get the pace without losing the event.

Size the stake on Gonzo's Quest so the balance covers a few hundred spins — that is roughly the window in which the game shows you what it does. Set the limit before the first spin of Gonzo's Quest rather than after a bad run — the deposit and self-exclusion tools are in the account area and take effect immediately.

For wagering purposes Gonzo's Quest counts as a slot, which means it contributes at the full rate, and the conditions are set out on the bonus page. Avalanche is what Gonzo's Quest is built around, and it shows itself in play rather than in a table — a few rounds say more than the specification above.

Resist the urge to raise the stake because Avalanche has not landed for a while: on Gonzo's Quest it is no closer than it was, and the wait has just become more expensive. The responsible gaming page collects the limit tools and the independent support contacts in one place, and they apply to Gonzo's Quest as to every other game here.

The player Gonzo's Quest is for is the one who wants a game that pays often enough to stay interesting without flattening out. The natural companion in our lobby is Columbus Deluxe; the theme is close, the feel is not.

Put Gonzo's Quest beside Columbus Deluxe and the shared parts fall away quickly. Start with Gonzo's Quest if you want a game that keeps showing you something. Full specifications for Gonzo's Quest — the 5 reels, 3 rows and 20 paylines, volatility, the top end (3,750× the total bet), the feature list and the release year — are in the table at the top of this page.

Columbus Deluxe