Grand Melee: Slot Overview

Spend any time with fantasy video games or RPGs and you’ll know most heroes carry either a ranged weapon, a melee weapon, or both. A bow and similar ranged tools let you thin out foes before they get close—unless they can out-range you first. Still, there’s something satisfying about wading in with a chunky axe or mace and smashing a few pixelated skulls up close. Here, we’re diving into Grand Melee, an online slot from software designer Thunderkick. It’s a sticky winning symbol respins-style game that tweaks the usual rules these slots follow. With something a little different(ish) on the menu, let’s suit up for some melee action and see what it delivers.

Visually, the opening impression felt unusually understated for a Thunderkick release. That’s not to say Grand Melee looks or sounds bad—it just doesn’t immediately pop in the way Thunderkick slots often do. Along the bottom sits a crowd of onlookers, while the action plays out on a reel matrix that looks like it’s set on a raised platform, flanked by striped tents and trees. In the distance, a castle towers over everything, selling the idea that players have been whisked back to somewhere like medieval Europe to take on Grand Melee.

Its creator labels Grand Melee as a highly volatile slot, and it comes with a default theoretical return to player of 96.17%. The layout uses 5 reels with 4 symbols on each, paired with an unusual connected pay ways mechanic. In short, wins start on the leftmost reel and must link together across at least 3 adjacent reels, either edge-to-edge or corner-to-corner. If that sounds a bit tricky, the paytable includes a helpful diagram showing exactly how the connections work.

That same paytable also lists the values for the 10 standard paying symbols. The lower 5 are 10-A card ranks, paying 1 to 1.5 times the bet for 5 OAK. The higher 5 are character symbols in different colours and styles. A 5-of-a-kind win with premium symbols returns 3 to 10 times the bet.

Grand Melee: Slot Features

Grand Melee does not have wild symbols, though it does include a scatter, and multiple special symbols can appear during the respins feature. The other main mechanic to keep an eye on is free spins.

Sticky Respin Feature

When randomly triggered, the Sticky Respin feature picks an arbitrary symbol (though not Symbol Upgrade, Symbol Expansion, or Game Area Expansion symbols) and displays it above the reels. If at least 5 of these chosen symbols land anywhere on the grid, they turn sticky and lock into position. During the respin feature, landing new chosen symbols also locks them in place, while the other positions respin. When no new chosen symbols hit, a win evaluation of the sticky symbols takes place and the feature ends. During respins, special symbols may also land:

• Symbol Upgrade feature – this symbol may appear to transform all instances of the sticky symbols into more valuable sticky symbols.
• Symbol Expansion feature – this symbol may appear to transform into the sticky symbol type then expand to vertically cover the whole reel.
• Game Area Expansion feature – this symbol may land to transform into the sticky symbol type and add a new row to the top of the grid. At most, the grid can be 7 rows high.

Bonus Game

Landing 5 or more scatter symbols triggers the bonus game. This may also occur during the Sticky Respin feature if the scatter symbol is shown in the area above the reels, meaning it is sticking during respins. Respins continue in this case until no new scatter symbols land. The number of free spins awarded is equal to the number of scatter symbols in view when the round is triggered, and the bonus game can be retriggered. The bonus meter below the reels can be used to track progress. The meter resets between each spin and free spin. It seems likely symbols are selected to be sticky more frequently, but this isn’t stated in the game information.

Grand Melee: Slot Verdict

Credit to Thunderkick for putting a fresh spin on the sticky winning symbol respin concept, though it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Versus something like NetEnt’s Jack Hammer, one of the early examples of the mechanic, Grand Melee asks for more patience—sometimes a lot more. Because respin-style games can erupt when the feature hits, it can feel like there are more dead spins than in a more ‘standard’ slot. Grand Melee seemed to lean into that even harder than usual, serving up plenty of spins where nothing much happened. As Homer Simpson sort of put it: welcome to dead spin city, population you. Or something close to that.

So yes, it’s worth stressing that not every win sets off the respins feature—players really need to understand that before jumping into Grand Melee. First, the game has to randomly select a symbol, and then you must land at least five of that symbol. Even then, having sticky symbols doesn’t automatically mean you’ll end up with a win. Still, patience can be rewarded if luck turns your way, since Sticky Respins can stitch together a run that gives the bankroll a much-needed lift. Oddly, even though the gameplay often felt fairly low-energy, the balance stayed surprisingly steady. That’s not to say Grand Melee can’t swing the other way, of course. The special symbols help a lot too, and they’re a neat way to push the respins feature further. Free spins are also included, though curiously nothing officially new happens there that isn’t already in the base game. Even so, Grand Melee supports wins of up to 5,000x the bet.

Grand Melee offers an unusual and fairly distinctive take on the winning respin mechanic—one that shows up now and then but isn’t used all that often. However, after watching Grand Melee’s version play out a few times, noticing the “nothing new” angle in free spins, and taking in the generally pleasant but muted atmosphere, it wasn’t a slot that had us sprinting back in the way charging into a virtual melee with a level 9000 bastard sword might.