Concrete Cowboys Slot Review
"Lunch atop a Skyscraper" might be the most famous lunch break in history. It depicts eleven iron-workers eating sandwiches and socializing, while perched on an elevated steel beam hundreds of feet over Manhattan. 🏗️
Sadly, it was staged and not an actual lunch break. The photo was part of a promotional campaign for the construction of the Rockefeller Center. 🏢
These were the actual working iron-workers, though, and they spent all day on the beams, so having a sandwich at that height wasn't too difficult.
The crew 👷 in Concrete Cowboys slot by ELK Studios has a much less relaxing shift ahead of it.
Gameplay
The game gives you a bird's-eye view of a city rooftop, with the reels laid out on top of the building and ivy crawling up the walls around it. A wrecking ball and its meter hang above the grid.
HR Karen stands on a platform dangling from a crane on the left, and judging by her face, she'd rather be anywhere else.
There are no paylines on the 5x5 grid. Instead, the Collector mechanic does the work, with 4 Collectors on the board, each one tied to a gem color: red, purple, green, or blue.
Each Collector gets one move before the next refill, and it uses it to walk over to a touching cluster of gems in its own color and pick them all up, along with any feature symbols it can reach. It can cross empty spaces, but it can't walk through gems of another Collector's color.
Everything that gets collected disappears, the symbols above drop down, and new ones fill the gaps. The Collectors stay put, and the CascadeOtherwise known as a Tumble, Avalanche, or whatever a studio sees fit to name it. The idea is the same, though; winning symbols get removed, and new ones take their place. This action could result in additional wins, in which case the action continues. keeps going as long as 1 of them still has something to collect.
At the top of the paytable, each gem color has 7 payout levels. Max them out and the Red, Purple, Green, and Blue Gem symbols pay 12.5x, 10x, 7.5x, and 5x per gem, respectively.
Down at level 1, the Red and Purple Gems pay 0.1x each, while the Green and Blue Gems are worth 0.05x.
The Wild symbol replaces any colored paying symbol. The Coin symbol pays 1x, 2x, 5x, or 10x when a Collector grabs it, and the Tunnel symbol lets a Collector reach a cluster in its color that it couldn't get to otherwise.
A quick look at the stats reveals a 94% RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate., medium/high volatility, a 10,000x max multiplier, and a $200,000 max win. The game only accepts fiat currencies.
Features
UPGRADE SYMBOLS
When a Collector picks up an Upgrade symbol, its own gem color moves up 1, 2, or 3 payout levels. The Upgrade All symbol does the same for all 4 colors at once, and level 7 is as high as any gem goes.
LEVEL UP
Collect the Level Up symbol and the grid grows by 1 row and 1 column, all the way up to 8x8. Every symbol and Collector then drops back in on the bigger board.
WALKIE TALKIE
The Walkie Talkie symbol calls in HR Karen, and she's here to fire people. She replaces a random Collector, lands on a cluster of that Collector's color, and collects it.
If she ends up standing next to another Collector afterward, that one gets fired too, and she collects its color as well.
DYNAMITE AND TRANSFORM
Dynamite waits until right before the next refill, then blows up a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line, taking out any Collectors standing in it.
The Transform symbol turns a neighboring cluster into the Collector's color. If there's nothing next to it to turn, it becomes Dynamite instead.
WRECKING BALL
Every gem and Wild the Collectors pick up fills the meter above the grid. It takes 20 symbols to fill the first time, then 30, then 40. A full meter swings the Wrecking Ball across the grid, smashing paying symbols and any Collectors in its path.
Any Collector killed by the Wrecking Ball, Dynamite, or an exploding Transform leaves the rest of its gems behind as Wilds.
FREE SPINS
Collect 3 Bonus symbols in one game round and you get 5 Free Spins (the game calls them bonus drops) on whatever grid size you're on. Every Bonus symbol collected during the round adds 1 more Free Spin.
Super Bonus
If one of those 3 Bonus symbols is a Super Bonus symbol, you get the Super Bonus round instead, where every Upgrade symbol is an Upgrade All.
EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH
Clear every paying symbol off the grid and you're sent to a 6x7 grid with a single Collector in the bottom-left corner. Coins, Walkie Talkies, Ladders, and Accumulators keep landing until a spin brings nothing new.
Then the Collector walks its row and collects everything on it. Ladders allow it to climb up a level, and each Walkie Talkie adds another Collector to the queue for 1 more re-spin.
The Accumulator turns into a Coin that’s worth as much as all the other Coins on the grid combined.
If HR Karen is the one who triggers the round, only Coins, Accumulators, and blank symbols land, and the Ladders are already in place from the start.
BUILDING TIME
Collecting the Building Time symbol sends you to a 5x6 grid where every row has its own multiplier. Each of the 4 Collectors triggers a drop of Gems, Coins, Upgrade All, and Spreader symbols.
Spreaders copy themselves into every empty space next to them in their row or column. A filled row pays the total of its Gem and Coin values times that row's multiplier.
The round ends as soon as the drops fail to fill a row.
HEAVEN
If you lose all 4 Collectors, they end up in Heaven, which is an 8x8 grid where every gem pays at level 7. Only gems, Coins, and Tunnels land up there, and the round lasts until the end of the game round or the next bonus drop.
BUY BONUS
The X-iter menu is only available in the base game and offers multiple options. Bonus Hunt (2.5x) gives you more than 3x the chance to trigger Free Spins, while Mega Hunt (5x) gives you more than 6x the chance.
You can also buy a random minigame (50x), Free Spins (100x), or the Super Bonus round (250x).
Performance
HR Karen kept a close eye on my whole session, and she couldn't find a single glitch to write the game up for.
Maximum Win
The $200,000 max win is yours to keep when you land the 10,000x max multiplier on a $20 top bet. Players who prefer smaller bets can go as low as $0.20.
Conclusion
The game's cartoon construction crew is cute, but the real money is in the Upgrade All symbols. A level-7 Red Gem pays 125x what it does at level 1, so every upgrade you collect makes the next cluster worth a lot more.
Reaching the max multiplier is a challenge, but a fun one, because even a full 8x8 board of level-7 Red Gems only adds up to 800x. You'd need Cascades chaining for a long time inside upgraded Free Spins.
The RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate. points to shorter sessions, so don't plan on parking yourself on this rooftop all evening. What I do like is a 10,000x max multiplier on medium/high volatility, which is a lot of reward for that level of risk.
Bonus Hunt and Mega Hunt cost exactly the same for each bit of extra trigger chance, so Mega Hunt is just Bonus Hunt ordered in bulk.
The Minigame buy is a coin toss between 3 rounds, and only Heaven comes with maxed-out gems.
The Super Bonus costs 2.5x the regular Free Spins buy, but turning every Upgrade into an Upgrade All is the quickest route to level 7, so it's the one to go for if your bankroll can take it.
Patient players with a decent bankroll who like a busy, puzzle-style board will have a good time on this job site. Anyone who wants simple line wins or long sessions on a small budget should clock out early.
Slot Details
Game Provider: ELK Studios
Game Type: Video Slots
PaylinesPaylines are preset lines that run across the reels, and when you land matching symbols on them, that will result in a payout. The more paylines, the more ways you can win, but also the higher your bet per spin.: Collector
RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate.: 94%
Volatility RateSlot games can have low, medium, high, or extremely high volatility rates (or a combination thereof).
The less volatile the game, the more often it should pay out, but the lower the amount, the less the payout, as this is in keeping with the risk you’re taking. Volatility rate should be considered in conjunction with a game’s RTP.: Medium/High
Bonus Round: Yes
Progressive: No
Free Rounds: Free Spins, Re-spins
Max Multiplier: 10,000x
Max Win: $200,000
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