Hit It Hard

A dice-driven board game anchors Hit It Hard, the sixth release in Elk Studios' Classic Series and a fruit-machine base wrapped around a genuinely different bonus mechanic. Big-band horns and an idle soundtrack pulled from 90s gameshow television set the tone, backed by crisp, classic slot bleeps on every spin.

Reels run 3x3 with 5 paylines, and only three-symbol combinations count toward a win - there's no room for longer runs on this tighter grid. Cherries, lemons and watermelons form the low tier, coloured BARS sit in the middle, and green, blue and red sevens make up the premiums, worth 10x, 25x and 50x the stake respectively for three matching. A wild appears solely on the third reel; when it lands without contributing to a win, that reel locks in place while the other two spin again for a second shot, and the wild itself can carry a multiplier of 2x, 3x, 4x or 5x into that respin.

Stakes range from 0.20 up to 100 a spin, and four preset betting strategies can be switched on or off at will for players who prefer automated stake patterns. The maths land on a 96.3% RTP at high volatility (rated 8 out of 10), with a hit rate of 15.9% on regular spins.

The bonus is reached when the dice symbol lands in the middle spot of the third reel; that symbol converts into a x10 wild and pays out before the board game begins. A 23-space board then has players rolling the dice to move between mini-games. Several spaces deal in Stacked Wilds across one or both of the two inner reels in sequence; others hand out ten spins guaranteed to carry multiplier wilds on the third reel, or simply hand out free spins, sometimes with a multiplier attached and sometimes without one. A Quantum Leap space can jump a player further around the board than the dice alone would allow, while Power Run triggers every space passed over during a move rather than just the one landed on. Two pachinko-style spaces, Lucky Ballz and its bigger sibling Super Ballz, drop balls to collect multipliers worth up to 500x the stake, the second continuing until two balls settle on the same value. Elsewhere, key symbols can be collected and cashed in at the vault space, which awards the game's top prize once two keys are in hand. Movement around the board continues as long as each set of awarded spins lands at least one win; a space with no spins attached simply hands over another roll of the dice.

The maximum win is capped at 2,500 times the stake, and Hit It Hard released on 21 January 2020.