NRVNA – The NXT Experience Slot
The oddly-named NRVNA – The NXT Experience is a 5-reel max 30-pay line online slots game from NetEnt. We're assuming the loss of two vowels from 'NIRVANA' is so the game is not confused as being linked to the Kurt Curbain-led grunge band from the 90s – after all, NetEnt have already released a Jimi Hendrix slot in 2016, and a Motörhead-themed game is due for release any moment now.
NRVNA is a very different experience from either of those games, even though it does come with a marvellous synth-based soundtrack that alone makes this game worth playing. If you've been on these pages before, then you'll know that we rank NetEnt's Starburst as our favourite slot of all time (as do many others). NRVNA seems a spiritual successor to Starburst, in the sense at least that the movie '10 Cloverfield Lane' was a spiritual successor to 'Cloverfield'.
The symbols used in this cool-looking game are glowing playing cards symbols from ten to ace, plus a cherry, a lucky seven, a bell, a four-leaf clover and a horseshoe. There are thirty possible pay lines and all are selectable. You can also select your coin value from 0.01 to 0.50, and your playing level from one to ten. Your final 'wager per spin' will be these three values mutliplied together. When you're ready to smell like teen spirit, hit the 'spin' button.
Payout & bonus rounds
The lowest winning payout in this game is for two cherries in sequence on an active pay line, which will win you five times your line bet. The top prize of two thousand times your bet-per-line is won by landing five cherries.
An orange diamond acts as the scatter symbol in this game – three or more scatters triggers a number of free spins. Five scatters wins thirty free spins, four scatters win fifteen and three scatters win ten. You cannot win more freebies during your free spins.
During free spins, the NRVNA wheel it activated. This will display a random multiplier of up to 10x, or additional free spins up to a maximum of two.
A purple star is the wild symbol here. It substitutes for all other symbols aside from the scatter. All wins that contain a wild are multiplied by three.
While NetEnt does graphic-heavy and gameplay-intense slots very well, it is just as adept at making slots that are simple to play yet are just as enthralling. This is one of NetEnt's best – no clumsy messing around or pointless preamble. Just reels, symbols, wilds and scatters, but in the best way possible. Another winner from NetEnt – why are we not surprised?