The EXCO mechanic system
GAMEX is EXCO Game Studio's own family of slot mechanics. Wrapper Stacks. Power Bar. Power Fields. Boss Fights. Swimmer Reel. Doubling Dial. Six mechanics across five games — designed here, named here, and found in EXCO titles only.
Most mechanic brands you recognise are licensed to half the industry. GAMEX isn't licensed to anyone. This page is the whole system, written out: what each mechanic actually does, spin by spin, and the numbers behind it.
6
GAMEX mechanics
5
Games shipped
0
Licensed in
0
Licensed out
"Innovative mechanics" is the cheapest sentence in this industry. It costs nothing to write and nobody can check it. So here is the list — every mechanic, how the loop actually runs, the values, the ceilings, and the rules that don't flatter us.
Read it as a player and you'll know what you're chasing. Read it as an operator and you'll know what you're carrying.
| Mechanic | In one line | Game |
|---|---|---|
| Wrapper Stacks | Mystery stacks nudge up, lock the reel and re-spin — every re-spin adds a multiplier, and every locked stack reveals the same symbol at once. | VEGASCALINE |
| Power Bar | A separate multiplier above every reel. A win is multiplied by the sum of the bars it covers. | The Robbin' Goblins |
| Power Fields | Shapes cast onto the grid, each covered cell carrying x1–x25. Values on a winning line are added. | LUNA X |
| Boss Fights | Free Spins with no Scatters. The four High Pays become Bosses with three lives, and killing them is the only way to buy more spins. | LUNA X |
| Swimmer Reel | A 5×1 reel above the grid. Wilds swim up, take the value above their own reel, and multiple values on a line multiply. | Piranha Bite Club |
| Doubling Dial | Wilds are not landed, they are won. Every win injects one and doubles the dial — x1 to x2,048, with checkpoints that never fall back. | Apex Dregs |
Every title also runs the shared layer: a tiered Bonus Buy, an Ante Bet, and one Super Hack at the top of the ladder. Prices and ceilings are further down. Game names link to a free demo — Apex Dregs links to its game sheet until it goes live on 28 August.
Mechanic 01
VEGASCALINE · Live 12 Sep 2025
A stack that fills its reel stops being a symbol and becomes a lock. Lock enough reels and the whole screen resolves as one payout instead of five separate ones.
How the loop runs
The bit that's different
Three or more revealed stacks pay scatter-style — anywhere on the grid, regardless of lines. Fewer than three and you're back to ordinary line wins. So the tension isn't "will I win", it's "will a third reel lock".
The Progressive Multiplier resets at the end of each paid base round. Inside Free Spins it does not — it carries across the entire round, so a slow start still funds a big finish.
What the Super Hack changes
At 777× you don't get a bigger bonus, you get a choice of two. Super Hack I removes the low-pay symbols entirely and starts the multiplier at ×1. Super Hack II adds random Wilds and doubles the increment — it starts at ×2 and climbs in ×2 steps. Same price, two different games.
Mechanic 02
The Robbin' Goblins · Live 22 Dec 2025
Most games give you one multiplier. The Robbin' Goblins gives you five — one above each reel — and then makes the length of your win line decide how many of them count.
How the loop runs
The bit that's different
It adds, it doesn't compound. That sounds like a downgrade until you notice what it does to your reading of the screen: a five-symbol win is worth chasing not because it pays more per symbol, but because it unlocks a fifth multiplier that a four-symbol win never touches. The reels stop being one shape and start being five separate bets.
LockSpin
The sticky re-spin chain inside the bonus. Landing goblins stick, and you're given two or three Extra Lives — one spent per re-spin, the chain running until they're gone. Every mode awards seven free spins; the Scatters that start them land on reels one, three and five. Golden Bet raises the stake 1.5× for a higher trigger rate.
Mechanic 03
LUNA X · Live 27 Apr 2026
Charged zones are cast onto the grid before the reels resolve. Land a win inside one and every covered cell contributes.
How the loop runs
The bit that's different
Added, not multiplied — and we're saying so on our own website. A line through cells worth x25, x13 and x10 pays x48. If those values multiplied it would pay x3,250, and the game would be unshippable at any sane RTP.
Every studio that runs a grid-multiplier mechanic has made this same choice. Most just let the screen imply otherwise.
Mechanic 04
LUNA X · Live 27 Apr 2026
Free Spins where the symbols fight back. The four High Pays stop being symbols and become targets, and the only currency that buys more spins is a kill.
How the loop runs
The bit that's different
There are no Scatters in Free Spins. You cannot retrigger. The round has exactly the length you were given, plus whatever you take by killing something — which turns a bonus that is usually a waiting game into a hunt with a scoreboard.
Getting in
Ante Bet raises the stake 1.5× and takes the Free Spins rate from roughly one spin in 143 to one in 51. Buying is the other route — 50×, 100×, 250×, or the 500× Super Hack, which starts the round with stacked modifiers running: Boosted Power Fields, a Sticky Power Field for the whole round, and Bosses that can begin already dead. Up to three modifiers run at once, never the same one twice.
Mechanic 05
Piranha Bite Club · Live 29 Jun 2026
A sixth reel, one row tall, sitting above the grid. It doesn't pay anything on its own — it decides what everything underneath it is worth.
How the loop runs
The bit that's different
Piranha multiplies where LUNA X adds. x5 and x10 on one line is x50, not x15. That is a deliberate distance between two of our own games — same studio, opposite maths, and you should be able to feel which one you're playing within a minute.
Inside the Free Spins
Three, four or five Scatters award five, seven or nine spins. The regular symbols leave entirely. The Swimmer Reel switches to cash prizes with no blanks, and only full 1×5 Sticky Wilds — the School of Piranha — land. Overlay Multipliers add to a sticky's existing value and hand back a free re-spin. Every new Piranha and every Overlay adds a spin. Fill all five reels and you Unlock: +2 spins, and from then on all five stickies collect on every spin.
Rebuy
If the free spins run out before every reel is stickied, Rebuy lets you buy one more push toward the Unlock — a side bet, not a bigger stake on the round in progress. Price is recalculated fresh off the board each time and climbs as your multipliers build. It's charged from your balance, not skimmed off any win, and there's no built-in cap on how many times you can buy back in.
Mechanic 06
Apex Dregs · Releases 28 Aug 2026
In most cascade games you wait for Wilds to land. Here you can't — the only way to get a Wild is to have already won.
How the loop runs
The bit that's different
The Escape Bonus. At the terminal point of a Free Spin — the moment the round would end — the game can reach in, and the odds of it doing so are weighted by how close you were to the next checkpoint. Smoke rolls across the grid and swaps symbols to manufacture a winning line.
It never adds Wilds. It only buys you the cascade you were one symbol short of.
Spin Extender
Lands on reel five, once per session. It awards two extra spins and guarantees Free Climbing: paid wins keep advancing the dial without updating the checkpoints, and spins without a win stop resetting it. The 600× Super Hack opens with seventeen spins and one weighted triplet of modifiers drawn from twenty.
Every EXCO game ships with a tiered Bonus Buy and one top tier — the Super Hack. A Super Hack doesn't buy a bigger number. It buys a different set of rules: modifiers that stack, ceilings that move, and in some games a bonus that starts partly won.
Five games, five prices — 777×, 777×, 500×, 500×, 600×. That inconsistency is the proof. A system invented in marketing would have picked one heroic number and repeated it across the portfolio. These were priced individually, against each game's own math.
| Game | Buy tiers | Super Hack | What the top tier changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| VEGASCALINE | 75× · 150× · 300× | 777× | A choice of two rule sets at the same price: strip out the low pays, or add random Wilds and double the multiplier increment. |
| The Robbin' Goblins | 80× · 120× · 250× | 777× | The Power Bar ceiling moves from x99 to x999 and the bar persists across the whole round. |
| LUNA X | 50× · 100× · 250× | 500× | Up to three stacked modifiers: Boosted Power Fields at x3–x75, a Sticky Power Field for the round, and Bosses that can start already dead. |
| Piranha Bite Club | 50× · 100× · 200× | 500× | Sticky Piranhas land harder and start higher, with the Swimmer Reel already on cash values. |
| Apex Dregs | 60× · 125× · 300× | 600× | Seventeen spins and one weighted triplet of modifiers drawn from twenty — raised ceilings, guaranteed levels, extra Wild injection. |
Ante Bet is the alternative to buying: a 1.5× stake for a higher trigger rate. On LUNA X it takes Free Spins from roughly 1-in-143 to 1-in-51, and disables the buys while it's active.
Certified RNG via Tequity. RTP ships in configurable tiers and caps are set per market. Max win is a ceiling, not a forecast.
| Game | Release | Grid | RTP | Volatility | Max win | GAMEX mechanic | Game sheet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VEGASCALINE | 12 Sep 2025 | 5×5 · 35 lines | 96.10% / 94.04% | High | 10,000× | Wrapper Stacks | Open |
| The Robbin' Goblins | 22 Dec 2025 | 5×5 · 35 lines | 96.15% | High | 10,000× | Power Bar | Open |
| LUNA X | 27 Apr 2026 | 5×5 · 35 lines | 95.93% / 94.12% | High | 25,000×* | Power Fields · Boss Fights | Open |
| Piranha Bite Club | 29 Jun 2026 | 5×5 + 5×1 · 35 lines | 96.04% / 94.05% | High | 15,000× | Swimmer Reel | Open |
| Apex Dregs | 28 Aug 2026 | 5×5 · 35 lines | 96.06% / 94.14% | Very High | 25,000× | Doubling Dial | Open |
Retention
A player who understands the Power Bar arrives at the Doubling Dial already fluent in how an EXCO bonus behaves — and still has to learn a genuinely different game. Familiar system, unfamiliar maths. That is the opposite of a reskin, and it is the whole reason to carry more than one of our titles.
Liability
Every max win above is a hard ceiling written into the build, not a marketing number. RTP ships in configurable tiers, bet limits and max exposure are set per wallet, and the full spec sheet reaches you before integration, not after.
Differentiation
No GAMEX mechanic is licensed out. If a lobby carries Wrapper Stacks or Boss Fights, it carries them because it carries EXCO. That is a hard thing to claim in this category and an easy thing for you to verify.
GAMEX is EXCO Game Studio's proprietary family of slot mechanics — Wrapper Stacks, Power Bar, Power Fields, Boss Fights, Swimmer Reel and the Doubling Dial. Six mechanics across five games, each designed in-house, named, and built into specific EXCO titles. None are licensed from another supplier.
No. GAMEX mechanics run in EXCO games only. That exclusivity is the point of the system — an operator carrying EXCO carries mechanics that are not available anywhere else.
The Super Hack is the top tier of the EXCO HACKS buy ladder. It does not simply award a bonus — it changes the rules of that bonus, activating stacked modifiers, lifting multiplier ceilings, or starting the round partly resolved. The price differs per game because it is set against each game's own math: 777× on VEGASCALINE and The Robbin' Goblins, 500× on LUNA X and Piranha Bite Club, 600× on Apex Dregs.
It depends on the mechanic, and we publish which. Power Fields on LUNA X are added — a line through cells worth x25, x13 and x10 pays x48. The Swimmer Reel on Piranha Bite Club multiplies — x5 and x10 on one line pays x50. The Power Bar on The Robbin' Goblins sums the bars up to the length of the winning line.
Five: VEGASCALINE (September 2025), The Robbin' Goblins (December 2025), LUNA X (April 2026) and Piranha Bite Club (June 2026) are live, with Apex Dregs releasing 28 August 2026. More ship through the rest of 2026.
It varies by title and is a hard cap, not an expectation: 10,000× on VEGASCALINE and The Robbin' Goblins, 15,000× on Piranha Bite Club, and 25,000× on LUNA X and Apex Dregs. On LUNA X the 25,000× ceiling applies to the bought Super Hack; reached through the upgrade wheel the same feature caps at 10,000×.
EXCO Game Studio — an independent slot studio founded by Fredrik Elmqvist, formerly of Yggdrasil. Every game is built from scratch. If we wouldn't play it, we don't ship it.
All games are intended for players aged 18 or over, or the legal minimum age in the relevant jurisdiction. Please play responsibly.
