Miles Bellhouse and The Gears of Time Slot Review

Miles and Gizmo are back at it again in Miles Bellhouse and The Gears of Time, the sequel to The Curious Machine slot from Betsoft. But is it as good as the original?

Find out in our Gears of Time slot review below. Or you can join one of our top-rated casino sites with Miles Bellhouse and The Gears of Time and find out yourself.

It doesn’t matter if they’re movies, TV shows, video games, or slot machines, sequels often suck. The reasons why they suck vary.

Sometimes the sequel fails to capture the essence of the original. Other times the creator gets captures the essence but fails to come up with something unique.

But Miles Bellhouse and The Gears of Time slot game from Betsoft doesn’t suck. This is an awesome sequel to The Curious Machine slot because it gets those two things right.

  • Essence – Gears of Time continues with both the steampunk and time machine theme.
  • Unique – The Curious Machine is your standard 5-reel, multi-payline slot, whereas Gears of Time doesn’t use paylines at all.

The result is an awesome slot machine that reminds you of the original, but gives you something new, fun, and exciting to look forward to.

We’re going to tell you all about it in our Miles Bellhouse and The Gears of Time review below.

Gears of Time Slot Overview

The Gears of Time slot machine has five reels and five rows, which is standard. What’s not standard about this slot is that it doesn’t have any paylines.

Gears of Time uses a cluster slot pay system instead. Cluster slot pay systems differ from paylines in two major ways.

  • They use a grid system instead of paylines. Gears of Time has a 5×5 grid.
  • You win when you get a group or “cluster” of three or more symbols touching each other horizontally and/or vertically.

Cluster pay slots are a unique slot feature that gives you more chances to win. But Betsoft elevated this feature even further on Gears of Time.

What Betsoft did was add a cascading feature. When you trigger a qualifying cluster, the cluster will stick to the grid. The remaining reels will re-spin to see if you can make your cluster even bigger.

This feature gives you the chance to fill the entire grid with winning clusters. This can lead to massive payouts – up to 2000x your total bet – even with the nominal 0.1-5 credit betting limits.

But filling the grid and winning a 2000x payout is easier said than done. You need a bit of luck combined with the right symbols to trigger a payout that large in the Gears of Time slot game.

Gears of Time Symbols and Payouts

There are plenty of symbols you can match in the Gears of Time online slot.

Each symbol will result in a different payout.

Here are the symbols you will find in Gears of Time.

symbols on the Gear of Time slot
  • Bronze Gear
  • Silver Gear
  • Gold Gear
  • Glasses
  • Timepiece
  • Robot
  • Miles

The Bronze Gear is the lowest paying symbol. It pays 0.2X your total bet when you hit three symbols in a cluster.

The Miles Gear is the highest-paying symbol. It pays out up to 200X if you manage to hit a cluster of twenty-five.

There are loads of payouts between those two extremes. The following table gives you an idea of what you can win playing Miles Bellhouse and The Gears of Time for real money and the combination of symbols you need to trigger those payouts.

Symbol Size of Cluster Payout
Bronze Gear 3 to 25 0.15 to 15.00
Silver Gear 3 to 25 0.30 to 22.50
Gold Gear 3 to 25 0.45 to 37.50
Glasses 3 to 25 0.60 to 52.50
Timepiece 3 to 25 0.90 to 75.00
Robot 3 to 25 1.20 to 112.50
Miles 3 to 25 1.50 to 150.00

It’s possible to hit multiple symbol clusters. This means that your payout isn’t set based on one symbol.

We also got some wild symbols during our Gears of Time slot machine review. These are time-charged balls of energy that can substitute for any other symbol on the reel to make a cluster.

Wild features aren’t the only feature we found during our review of Gears of Time, either.

Gears of Time Slot Features

There are a few features to look forward to when you play Gears of Time for real money or in practice mode.

  • Cascades
  • Time Travel Modifiers
  • Free Spins

Here is what you need to know about each feature.

Cascades Feature

The cascades feature in Gears of Time allow you to win multiple times per spin. Once you hit one cluster, the reels will automatically re-spin. This gives you a chance to win again.

What we love about this feature is that, once you hit a single cluster, that cluster becomes “sticky.” It stays in place while the reels re-spin, also giving you the chance to make that cluster bigger.

This leads to bigger wins and payouts. With this slot feature, it’s entirely possible to fill the entire grid with winning symbols.

And we came close a couple times during our Gears of Time slot game review.

You can win big playing the Gears of Time slot.

Time Travel Modifiers

Another great aspect of the Gears of Time slot machine are the time travel modifiers.

There are three modifiers that you can get.

  • Past Modifier – A replay of your last spin. Non-matching symbols will cascade at the end of the replay to increase your odds of winning. The cascade happens five times.
  • Present Modifier – This adds a random multiplier ranging anywhere from 2X to 20X your total bet on Gears of Time.
  • Future Modifier – The game selects a random symbol and gives you a free re-spin. 10 or more identical symbols will cascade down for the chance to win a big payout.

To trigger one of these modifiers in the Gears of Time online slot, you’ll need to hit a cluster in one of the five marked positions on the grid.

The more marked positions you manage to hit, the better your chance at triggering one of these time travel modifiers.

If you manage to hit all five marked positions with clusters, then you’ll unlock the free spins feature.

Free Spins

If you manage to hit five marked positions playing Gears of Time, then you’ll have the chance to choose from three different kinds of free spins bonuses.

  • Past – This gives you 12 free spins with an extra cascade after each spin.
  • Present – Get 10 free spins along with a multiplier of up to 20X for each free spin.
  • Future – This bonus gives you only 6 free spins.

Also, to make things a bit more interesting, each free spin will give you several matching symbols so that your odds of hitting multiple clusters goes up with each spin.

And that wraps it up for the features. We enjoyed triggering the different features during our Gears of Time slot review, though the cascading symbols is our favorite.

But while features and payouts are important, a slot game isn’t fun to play unless the graphics and sounds are on point. So, let’s talk about those next.

Graphics and Sounds for Gears of Time

The graphics in the Miles Bellhouse and The Gears of Time online slot machine are worth talking about

When you first launch the game, you’ll notice that there are two parts to the slot machine. On the left is Miles Bellhouse and his robot, Gizmo. On the right is the slot machine.

You’ll also notice a strange-looking contraption that resembles a time portal on the left. The portal is a glowing teal swirl that looks like it could suck you in if you got too close.

The remaining graphics are amazing, too. You can tell that each symbol was created with care. If you’re into steampunk, you’ll love them.

Music and Sound Effects

Gears of Time slot music and graphics

Graphics (and slot games) are nothing without sound effects and background music. The great news is that the Gears of Time online slot machine excels in this area.

The background music consists of higher-pitched piano keys or a xylophone, or maybe even wind chimes. It will remind you of a fantasy movie, like Harry Potter.

Periodically, you’ll hear a crackle of electricity. We love this because it makes you feel like you’re in the lab with Miles and Gizmo, taking part in their time-traveling adventures.

Then there are the sounds of the reels and symbols. We noticed that Betsoft took a different approach to Gears of Time than they did in The Curious Machine.

The Curious Machine’s reels sound like a page-turning, whereas the reels and symbols in Gears of Time sound like piecing together highly calibrated precision parts.

All in all, we enjoyed the sights and sounds during our Gears of Time slot game review. We have no doubt that they will keep you engaged throughout your entire session.

Gears of Time RTP and Volatility

Another thing we looked at during our Miles Bellhouse and the Gears of Time slot review is the RTP and volatility. We think it’s important to play slots that payout at a frequency you enjoy.

Based on what we found, we think most people will enjoy playing the Gears of Time slot for real money.

What we found is that the Gears of Time slot has a return-to-player percentage (RTP) of 96.98%.

This RTP means that for every $1,000 wagered, you can expect to win back at $969.80 in winnings.

RTP is based on the long run. In the short run, it’s possible to hit a big win that beats the 96.98% RTP. The same idea applies to losing your money, too.

We prefer to be optimistic when we play slots online.

As for volatility, Gears of Time is medium-high. This means that you won’t win as often as a low volatility machine, but your wins should be bigger. You can expect to hit more big wins, too.

Considering that most online slots have an RTP of around 96%, this puts the Gears of Time slot above other slots in terms of performance.

And it gave us another reason to give this machine high marks during our Gears of Time online slot review.

Play the Gears of Time Slot on Mobile

Gears of Time on mobile

Due to the fanbase that exists for the Miles Bellhouse slot series (why else would they create a sequel?), you shouldn’t have any problems finding a Gears of Time mobile casino.

There are generally two ways to play mobile slots online.

  • Native apps
  • Mobile (responsive) casinos

Native apps are apps built for a specific device. Many online casinos offer them. You can expect to see more in the future too, since the Google Play Store announced that they’re going to allow real money casino apps on their platform.

But odds are you won’t find Gears of Time on a native app. Most slot providers like Betsoft that focus on the American online gambling market use mobile (responsive) casinos instead.

These casinos use HTML5 and JavaScript programming. What makes this tech neat is that a gambling operator can build their casino with it, and it will adapt to fit your screen.

For example, you could create an account with one of our recommended online casinos with Gears of Time and play the game from your PC today.

You could then log into the same casino using the same credentials from your iPhone or Android device and play the Gears of Time mobile slot.

What we love about this is that you can play your favorite Betsoft slots like Gears of Time for real money from any location in the world.

All you need is an account and a compatible mobile device and internet browser.

You probably already have a compatible mobile device and browser. All that’s left is for you to create an account at one of our recommended Gears of Time online casinos.

Should You Play Gears of Time Slot Machine?

Yes, we think so.

We love the Gears of Time slot from Betsoft because Betsoft managed to capture the essence of the original (The Curious Machine) while also giving us something unique.

What they gave us is a machine that uses cluster pays instead of paylines. Then they added cascading symbols to that.

The result is an awesome slot that was easy to navigate with great graphics and immersive sound effects.

The gameplay was awesome, too. There wasn’t an instance where our team felt like things were getting repetitive. We think this is because you could form winning clusters in any way.

It was hard to ignore filling the screen with clusters, triggering the various features, and reaching for bigger and bigger payouts, too.

That’s why it’s a no-brainer for us to recommend you play Gears of Time.

It was so fun that we found it hard to close the screen during testing. But we had to write this Gears of Time slot review so that everyone could hear about how great it is.

But don’t just take our word for it – check it out for yourself.