Light & Wonder's Lock It Link Diamonds (2022) is the glammed-up cousin of the original Lock It Link Nightlife cabinet. Same purple-velvet cabaret room, same four jewel-toned jackpot plaques (MINI, MINOR, MAJOR, GRAND) parked above the 5×3 grid, but with a sparklier diamond logo and a slightly more upmarket symbol set: cocktail lady, martini, dice, gold watch, diamond ring, plus those iconic red and gold HEART cash tiles. Fifty paylines, RTP of 96.02%, bets from a single cent up to $45. Standard L&W kit, dressed for a champagne room.
The mechanic that matters lives behind three BONUS scatters on reels 2, 3, and 4. Land them, collect 5x bet, and the game stops to ask you a question: hold-and-win, or free spins? It's a real fork, not a fake one. Lock It guarantees 3, 4, or 5 hearts on a random row, seeds each gold heart with 1x total bet, then turns it into a respin chase. Hearts touching the bordered cluster get absorbed, the border expands, every surrounded heart picks up an extra 1x, and the respin counter resets every time the cluster grows. Fill all 15 spots and every heart pockets a +2x bump before the round ends. And here's a sneaky detail tucked in the rules: GRAND and MAJOR jackpots only sit on reel 3 hearts. Reels 1, 2, 4, and 5 cap out at MINI or MINOR.
Free Spins is the calmer route. Six spins on an alternate reel set, no hearts at all, and every win gets multiplied based on how many wilds are visible: 3x with none, climbing up to 8x with all five. Three scatters trigger another six spins plus another 5x bet. Steadier than Lock It, fewer fireworks, but the math has its moments when wilds stack.
One quirk worth flagging. The wild doubles winning combos in the base game, which is generous, but that double does not carry into free spins. Stingy. And the 5,000x max win feels modest for a HIGH volatility 2022 release. Is it dealbreaking? Not really, since most of the drama happens inside Lock It anyway, and reel-3 GRAND hits scale with your stake. Just don't expect a 20,000x screenshot here. Also worth knowing: jackpots only pay when Lock It triggers that spin. A gold heart landing on a regular base spin is decoration.
If you've played Nightlife and want a glitzier reskin with the same DNA, this scratches that itch. The feature choice is the headline. The diamonds are just dressing.