Quackers

Quackers: Slot Overview

Those with a less than favourable view of online slots might be surprised to find out just how cute a lot of them are. A prime example is developer ELK Studios' release Quackers, which thrusts four cute ducks centre stage, each one commanding their own feature and possessing an adorable personality with which to entertain gamblers. Four ducks, four parrots, you might be thinking ELK Studios has embarked upon some sort of Pirots offshoot, but instead of floating around a pond collecting symbols, this is a cluster pays slot, where four flappy friends celebrate life poolside armed with a coin game, free Quack Drops, and more.

Rich ducks aren't something you see every other week, pigs maybe, they've tuned up in such titles as in NetEnt/Red Tiger's Piggy Riches saga, but not ducks. Quackers seeks to rectify the imbalance by holding the pool party in a rather swanky-looking back garden. Hedges have been trimmed topiary style into the shape of ducks, well-tended flowers brighten up the spot, and sitting in the middle is the pool itself. This watery area is where the symbols land, in a 6x6 grid in the base game, and a larger one for free spins, where a light show also appears. It's all very cute and cuddly, as the ducks go about acting like people, though what they squeeze while they're in the bathtub remains a mystery.

Quakers is a cluster pays game creating a win when 5 or more matching pay symbols are connected horizontally or vertically. It uses an Avalanche mechanic, too, so at the end of each spin after wins have been paid, winning clusters are removed, causing new and remaining symbols to avalanche downwards, refilling the gaps. Avalanches continue as long as new winning combinations appear. Players are able to keep the party going with stakes of $/€0.20 to $/€100 per spin, and the highest RTP version is 96%. Volatility-wise, ELK Studios rates this part of Quackers as 7 out of 10.

The four low-pay symbols are closed flowers on lily pads, while the four high-pay symbols are flowers in bloom. On lily pads. Clusters made up of 5 matching symbols pay 0.1x to 1x the bet, increasing to 30x to 200x the bet for hitting a 20+ OAK cluster. The wild symbol substitutes for any paying symbol. A winning cluster of only wilds pays the same as the highest-paying symbol.

Quackers: Slot Features

Amongst the chips 'n' dips at this party are a global multiplier, four ducks and their features, a coin game, free Quack Drops, and feature buys.

Global Multiplier

Quackers has a global multiplier that multiplies each win with its current value. The multiplier starts each new base game spin with a value of x1.

The Ducks

Four different duck characters may appear on the grid; each one has its own modifier that triggers before win evaluations. Each duck can trigger its modifier up to three times in the base game, as indicated by a meter on the symbol. After triggering three times during a spin, the duck is removed, leaving a wild behind. All four ducks can be present on the grid at the same time, but only one of each kind. When a bonus is pending, ducks do not trigger their modifiers.

• Flying Duck - Increases the global multiplier when triggered.
• Dynamite Duck - Converts pay symbols to wilds.
• Princess Duck - Converts every pay symbol of one type into a more valuable kind. The highest-paying symbol will be converted to wilds if selected.
• Marilyn Duck - Adds a symbol multiplier or increases an already existing symbol multiplier on pay symbols.

Coins & Coin Game

If a Coin lands, it is collected or discarded. A collected Coin appears in the Coin inventory, which is saved for the player, persisting even between gaming sessions. When 20 Coins have been collected, the Coin game is triggered, played on a 6x6 grid. The coins display prize values. Chest symbols collect the values of all Coins and Chest symbols on the grid. Landing the Multiplier Increase symbol adds a multiplier at the end of the Coin game to any symbol of the eight adjacent symbols that is a Chest or a Coin. If a symbol already has a multiplier, the existing multiplier value is multiplied by the new multiplier value. 3 spins are awarded, which reset when a new feature symbol lands and sticks. When spins run out or the grid is filled, the total value on the grid is awarded.

Quack Drops

Hitting 3 scatter symbols awards 5 Quack Drops, played on an 8x8 grid with four positions at the top reserved for the duck characters. During free spins, when ducks hit, they are persistent and stay on the grid in their reserved position till the round has ended. There is no limit to the number of times ducks may retrigger their feature in the bonus round. If 3 scatters hit and one of them is a super scatter, then 5 free Quack Drops in the Super Bonus are awarded. The Super Bonus starts with all four ducks on the grid in the reserved positions.

X-iter

Quackers' X-iter bonus buy menu has five options. The Bonus Hunt costs 2.5x for a game round with more than 3 times the chance of triggering a bonus, or Mega Hunt can be bought for 5x to have more than 6 times the chance. At 10x the bet, Two Ducks lands two ducks on the initial spin, or players can go straight to the bonus game for 100x or the super bonus game for 500x the bet.

Quackers: Slot Verdict

ELK Studios has a track record of building quirky, character-driven worlds, and Quackers is a game with a cheerful personality that happily sits alongside them. It's a slot that entices players in through vibrant visuals and an amiable attitude that produces a warm, inviting atmosphere. The cast of characters initially triggered comparisons to the studio's avian hit Pirots, but it won't take but a moment to deduce how different the two slots are. Instead of wandering, symbol-collecting birds, Quackers produces a nicely paced cluster pays game, which goes to show that ducks can actually throw a groovy poolside party.

The features on offer aren't the most experimental ideas ELK Studios has ever brought to the party. However, a dependable cluster pays, global multiplier, and avalanche set-up provides a strong base before the ducks can get to work modifying the place up. The individual duck features don't exactly nudge the evolutionary needle along much, if at all, but each is good to have on the board. What improves their effectiveness is the way they can trigger up to three times each in the base game, before being boosted by a limitless retrigger quality in free spins like an infinitely refillable cup. As mentioned, they are not especially mind-melting effects, but they may work well when combined, which might happen a lot in Quack Drops since ducks remain on the grid till the round ends. Duck feature retriggers are absolutely indispensable too, since you can only ever get five free un-retriggerable free spins, which isn't a huge number.

Even so, Quakers has the ability to dole out payouts up to a cap of 10,000x the bet. So, to sum up, while ELK Studios is an imaginative studio that likes to push boundaries, it's kept the experimental juices in check for Quackers, when compared to slots like, say, Sumo Sumo, Slurpy, and Jeff & Scully. As a consequence, Quakers might not be the best choice for players who want to live on the cutting edge of slot design, but it's a well-put-together cluster pays game, with a friendly feel to it and a nice flow of supporting features.