Fruitopolis Fortune Play

Fruitopolis Fortune Play: Slot Overview

Adding to the countless number of fruit slots available pretty much everywhere comes another one from Blueprint Gaming titled Fruitopolis. It's the sort of name which may well elicit frissons of delight amongst fans of the format, or fearful cold sweats, depending on your thoughts on these sorts of games. As the name suggests, Fruitopolis is an online slot dripping with fruity icons that splits itself into two game modes. One is Standard Play; the other is Fortune Play, which is radically different in terms of rules and spin cost. As well as two game modes, players can enjoy a pay adjacent system, Golden Chip mystery symbols, and Money Spins.

Typical, boring, magnificently traditional, all are terms that could be used to describe Fruitopolis depending on the sort of mood you are in. In Standard Mode, a single 5-reel, 4-row game grid sits front and centre before a crimson, diamond-patterned background, like a thickly padded wall in a club. There's not much to say about Fruitopolis from an aesthetic standpoint. It's a seen one you've seen them all type deal.

Fruitopolis is playable on any device, and when it comes to bet selection, there are a few considerations to make. The first is whether you wish to play the game in Standard Play mode, where bets range from 10 p/c to $/€100 per spin. Or flip it over to Fortune Play mode by clicking the colourful square button sitting below the reels. This is a big bet style option, ratcheting stakes up to $/€2 to $/€200, and the exact details of what it entails are covered in the following section. Before we go, be aware that Fruitopolis is a highly volatile slot, while RTP swings between 95.06% and 95.38%.

In total, 20 fixed paylines are attached to the game grid, creating winning combinations when at least three matching symbols land in adjacent reels across them. However, unlike most games, winning combinations can begin from any reel, not just the first. In ascending order from the least valuable side of the paytable, we find 10-A playing card symbols, cherries, lemons, plums, and 7s. Card rank wins are worth 5-10 times the stake for five of a kind, rising to 15-25 times the bet for the remaining premium symbols. Fruitopolis might have plenty of fruit, but it does not use wild symbols at any time.

Fruitopolis Fortune Play: Slot Features

There are a couple of other special symbols to look out for, though; these are diamond scatters which trigger Money Spins and Golden Chip mystery symbols.

Money Spins

The Money Spins bonus round is triggered when any number of diamond scatter symbols hit. Once in, 3 respins are awarded in what is a rather basic hold and win game. Diamond scatters are sticky, so they lock into position and reveal a cash prize. When new diamonds hit, they reset the spin counter back to three. At the end of the round, all cash prizes in view are added up and awarded.

Golden Chips

When Golden Chip symbols land, they all transform into the same pay symbol type. Then a win evaluation takes place. Golden Chips can also transform into Money Spins symbols.

Fortune Play

Fortune Play is possibly the most intriguing thing about Fruitopolis as, so far, it has been pretty standard. Flicking the switch below the grid activates this game mode. Roughly speaking, Fortune Spins cost 20 times what regular spins cost. So, on a €20 Fortune Play spin, pay symbols have the same value they would have at a €1 Standard Play spin. So what do you get for the extra cash? For one, this mode is played on four grid sets rather than just one. Each grid has a turn of spinning before the next one does. Once all four matrices have been activated, the Fortune Play spin is over.

Where Fortune Play gets interesting is when Golden Chip mystery symbols land, they are transferred to the remaining grids. For example, mystery symbols landing on reel set 1 are added to the same position on reel sets 2, 3, and 4. If on the same spin, more mystery symbols land on reel set 2, they are added to reel sets 3 and 4.

Fruitopolis Fortune Play: Slot Verdict

For much of the test round, playing Fruitopolis was a tug of war battle between trying to stay focused on the reel-based action and the desire to do pretty much anything else. Maybe action is too strong a word. Anyway, the adjacent pays system is something, and it works with mystery symbols to create the odd thrill. For instance, a bunch of mystery symbols might land stacked on reels 3, 4, and 5 to create a win, which it wouldn't ordinarily do with a regular pay from the first reel setup. That's something, we guess.

What made the struggle real is the fact Fruitopolis is basically a straight clone of Luck o' the Irish 2 Fortune Spins. Why the transition from one generic-looking slot to another, you might be wondering? We're not sure either, but the impression we got is that since the quad grid system hasn't quite taken off yet, Blueprint is hesitant to squander their really good thematic ideas on it. This is conjecture, of course, and it makes things tough for the Fortune Spins concept, which has merits, yet often flounders in a sea of thematic mediocrity.

Winning potential is a funny one, too. As usual, Fruitopolis comes with the standard 50,000x or $250,000 win cap disclaimer (Blueprint really needs to be more transparent here), but it's unlikely the game will climb anywhere near such lofty levels. If the unspeakable occurred, and all four grids in a monumental Fortune Spin were covered in 7s, the result would be 2,000x the bet. Then again, not really, since 2,000x the regular bet equates to 100x the Fortune Spin cost. However you cut it, Fruitopolis isn't a massive xbet machine.

In the end, we were left with the impression that Fruitopolis was a sort of beta tester for future slots. The way adjacent pays and mystery symbols gel together could see further use somewhere down the line, as could the Fortune Pays big bet idea. Heck, what are we saying? This is Blueprint Gaming, the masters of tweak, so players are sure to get a bunch of different iterations of these concepts in the future when they're squeezed into new games or merged with previous works. Mashing them into something with a more exciting theme wouldn't hurt.