Many a slot series has been spawned by an initial hit release, and in this case that honor went toDonuts. The follow-up title,Chocolatesfailed to spark the same enthusiasm, but that hardly scared the bold Aussies in Big Time Gaming from releasing a third installment, simply called Pop. The reel expanding mystery boxes are long gone, as this one is all about floating balloon symbols and position multipliers.
The premium balloon symbols, and the multiplier rainbow balloon, float up from below, while regular low-value royals spin normally. This creates an interesting dynamic, where Reaction Wins increase the number of balloons progressively. The big highlight is the bonus round, where balloon/wild wins increase both the number, and the value, of the sticky background position multipliers.
TheReactions mechanickicks in whenever you land a winning combo, and this removes the winning symbols from the reels. New symbols will not drop down to fill the gaps however. Instead, only the higher value balloons will float up to fill the empty spaces, and the process goes on as long as you keep landing new winning combos.
Therainbow balloon wildsteps in for all regular pay symbols, and they can come with a multiplier up to 4x in the base game. Eachmultiplier wildinvolved in a win will boost the total, but wilds can only float up on reels 2 and 4.
TheBTG coin scatterscan land anywhere, and you need at least 3 in sight to trigger the bonus round. This gives you12 free spinsfor starters, and at least 1 of the scatter positions get asticky background multiplierof either2x, 3x or 4x. All 16 positions on the grid now have a multiplier that starts at 1x, but the background multipliers only become visible when they are increased.
You increase the background multipliers by landing balloon and/or wild wins. You will then see at least 1 multiplier between 2x and 4x appear in the background position of the removed winning symbols. Only balloon symbols are subject to the multiplier boosts. This is neatly illustrated by the fact that you can see the multiplier values through the balloons, while the royal symbols cover them up.
You get3 extra spinswhen you land3 scattersanywhere in sight, and this also increases themultiplier by +1on one of the involved positions. Each time you retrigger the bonus round however, that amount increases by +1 also. This means that the multiplier increases by +2 on the second retrigger, and so forth.
Scatter coins tend to be minted in the vacuum created by the popping winning balloons. We had a lengthy Reactions sequence towards the middle of the 4-minute highlights video, and this led us directly into the bonus round. You can see how it all played out by hitting the play button.
The biggest difference between Pop and the 2 previous installments in BTG’s 4-reel series, Donuts and Chocolates, is the lack of any reel expansion mechanics. There are no mystery boxes dishing out up to 4 symbols each here, but the floating balloon mechanic is kind of neat. Thebase gameholds a theoretical potential of14,407xyour stake, but we’re not holding our breath.
Per usual, everything is cranked up in the bonus round, which comes with the highest potential in the series so far.66,960xyour stake sounds amazing, but the series is known for underdelivering when it comes to the max win. The key to big wins is removing as many royal “blockers” as possible, which allows for waves of balloons to boost up the sticky bonus round multipliers. It’s fun when you hit a solid winning streak, but don’t expect that to happen all that often.
Pros
Cons
Donuts- was the initial hit game that started the whole 4-reels series from BTG. Mystery donut boxes can reveal up to 4 symbols, increasing the number of win ways up to 2,401. They can also reveal wild multipliers up to 4x, and multipliers can go as high as 50x in the bonus round. This can lead to payouts up to 40,000x your stake.
Chocolates- followed in Donuts footsteps, and it comes with very neat animations inspired by the cuckoo clock reel set. The mystery box feature is the same in the base game, but they become sticky in the bonus round. This can lead to payouts as high as 65,536x your stake, which is right below what the game at hand offers.
The Incredible Balloon- is a different kind of balloon slot from Crazy Tooth Gaming. It’s all about inflating balloons as long as you dare to increase your win up to 3,083x. The balloon can pop at any time though, so it’s a battle between greed and fear of missing out on bigger wins.