Win a cluster in the Stack’Em slot, and the winning symbols stay on the grid instead of paying and disappearing. They drop to the floor and stack into a lopsided tower, and a small multiplier ticks up under each column to count them. Land the next cluster on top, and it takes in every one of those numbers at once. Hacksaw’s sequel to Stick’Em turns a 5×6 grid into something closer to a building game, where the big multiplier is one you stack up yourself, a block at a time.
There are no paylines here. A cluster is 5 or more matching blocks joined up anywhere on the grid, and a wild block fills in for any standard symbol to help one connect. When a cluster pays, the losing symbols clear and the winners sink to the floor, and the count below each column rises by however many it keeps. A fresh cluster landing on that stack takes the sum of the column multipliers beneath it. Say one sits on 3 columns of 4X, 3X and 2X. They add up to 9x, so a €0.25 cluster returns €2.25, and it keeps stacking while more wins arrive, to a 30x limit in the main game.
Four columns are lit and the fifth sits padlocked, worth nothing until a win reaches it.
Three or more free spin scatters open the bonus, and it plays by very different rules. You arrive with 5 lives, shown as hearts over the reels, and the round lasts until they are gone. Symbols clear between every spin now, so nothing is held from one to the next. One total takes over up top and swells with each winning cluster, a win of 6 symbols adding 6 to it. It keeps rising all round, one win feeding the next.
Two symbols only turn up in the free spins. The total only pays out through the X. Land it as part of a winning cluster, and that win is multiplied by whatever the total has reached, while a win with no X only feeds the total and returns zero on its own.
The mystery block, represented by a ?, works on the total in another way. It hands you either 2 to 5 more lives or a boost to the total. That boost is a fixed amount added to it (1, 2, 5, 10, 25, or 50), or the total is multiplied by 2, 3, 4, or 5. One of these on a late heart is how a small total suddenly becomes a big one.
One bonus buy is on offer, and it opens the free spins at once for 129 times your stake. There’s just the one price, no cheaper route in and nothing dearer to step up to. It costs nothing in free play, which makes the demo an easy way to watch a bought round play out before you spend on one.
Stack’Em uses 5 reels, six rows tall, with no paylines. A winning group is 5 or more of the same block that touch on the grid, and only the best win; each one makes counts. Each column carries a running tally, the number of winning blocks it holds, and that count is what turns an ordinary cluster into a bigger one as the stack grows. You can play from €0.20 up to €100 a spin, turbo on or off.
The return sits at 96.2%, and holds steady whether you spin the reels or buy free spins. Volatility runs to the top of the scale, so wins land in fewer, larger bursts than a gentler game gives you. The top win is 10,000x the bet, and reaching it ends the round on the spot and forfeits any spins left to play.
| Cluster | Letters | Pictures | Thumbs-Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5–6 | €0.10 | €0.25 | €0.50 |
| 7–8 | €0.20 | €1.00 | €2.00 |
| 9–10 | €0.40 | €2.00 | €4.00 |
| 11–12 | €0.60 | €3.00 | €6.00 |
| 13–14 | €1.00 | €5.00 | €10.00 |
| 15–19 | €4.00 | €20.00 | €30.00 |
| 20–24 | €12.50 | €50.00 | €100.00 |
| 25+ | €25.00 | €100.00 | €200.00 |
Figures shown at our €1 spin. Letters cover A, G, E, R and T; the pictures are the leaf, shoe, skull and snake.
Stack'Em offers a different way to build a win. The blocks hold, the column multipliers add beneath them, and watching that tower take shape is the best thing the game does. But the payoff still rides on a cluster landing to cash it in, and across 3 bought rounds the total rose past 260x while none earned back the 129x they cost. High variance is what that idea costs you, on a total that size with nothing yet banked to show for it.
At its best, the stacking pays and pays, one win keeping the board alive for the next, so a full tower can turn a tiny cluster into a real payout. The craft is a sharp step up from Stick’Em, as well. The wooden-block symbols and painted woodland run crisp and smooth, and Canny the Can now has some company in Mona the Mouse.
Two limits blunt the design. The free-spins total only pays out when an X drops into a winning cluster, so a number in the hundreds up top can cash out for barely anything. The base stack, meanwhile, tops out at 30x, well short of the 10,000x top the free spins play toward.
In the base game, the stack is the whole show. Each winning block locks in, then tumbles down, and the count on each column ticks up as they pile in. One run turned a string of tiny wins into €10.55 as fresh blocks kept falling, the five columns finishing on 4X, 4X, 3X, 2X and 2X. It’s a satisfying watch, and that rising count gives even a thin win a reason to want the grid to keep connecting.
The free spins run on a different number. Between spins, the board wipes clean, so a win never sits on the one before, and one total runs above the reels and climbs with every win. The ? mystery block can feed it or refill your hearts. The trouble is that none of it pays unless an X lands inside a winning cluster, taking that one win up to the total on the counter. We watched it reach 263x through a full run of hearts and pay out just €50.45, because the clusters that met the X were the small ones.
That gap is what the 129x buy lays bare. We bought the round three times for this review, and not one paid its price back. One run reached 71x for €26.65, another past 160x for €83.20, both well short of the €129 it cost to get in. That is high volatility made concrete, the number over the reels growing freely while only an X on a big cluster turns it into money, and here it kept catching thin clusters. You can’t win them all, but it makes the buy a hard sell.
It helps that Stack’Em is a pleasant place to sit while the variance sorts itself out. The jump from Stick’Em shows the moment you load it, the older game’s flat reels and slow spins traded for crisp wooden blocks, painted trees and a cartoon mouse and tin-can man mugging away at the sides. The sound is worth turning up, as well. It loads muted, all gentle birdsong and a touch bare. Switch the music on, and a bright big-band tune strikes up behind the wins, and the game comes alive. Play it for the stack itself, for the quiet pleasure of a number you put together one win at a time, and take the buy only once you’ve made your peace with how rarely it lands.
