Carnival Queen 2

Carnival Queen 2: Slot Overview

It must have been one heckuva party because six years have passed between developer Thunderkick releasing Carnival Queen in 2019 and its sequel, Carnival Queen 2. True, Covid and social distancing occurred during the intervening years, but that's a long time to hibernate between parties. Never mind, that's all behind us now as we preload for the street party which is Carnival Queen 2, a slot which lumps a variable gaming grid, firework wilds and many more ways to win on top of the original's combo of cascades, increasing multiplier, and free spins.

Despite the carnival setting, the previous slot kind of felt more as if players were standing in a crowd watching a show rather than taking direct part in the festivities. In Carnival Queen 2, participants are the show, matching or dancing down a street as spectators watch from buildings on either side of the screen and fireworks pop overhead. Some window resizing or flipping to portrait mode might help evoke a stronger partying atmosphere if you are not totally feeling the mood. Even then, Carnival Queen 2 didn't provoke Rio Carnival levels of ecstasy, but it is celebratory.

Where the original was played on a static 6x4 grid, Carnival Queen 2 is hosted on a dynamic 6-reel grid, landing up to 7 symbols on each reel. By default, there are 5,040 ways to win, and in random order, reels land 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 symbols to make up this number. On the betting side, it is possible to wager 10 c to $/€100 in what is a highly volatile slot, while the RTP comes in at 94.18%, which is a notch or two lower than the return value in the first game.

Carnival font 9-A card ranks are the low pays, while four characters and a crown are the high pays. Royal combinations pay up to 1x to 1.5x the bet, whereas players collect 2x to 10x their stake when a 6 OAK premium combination hits. Winning combinations begin from the leftmost reel, and winning symbols are removed and replaced by the avalanche mechanic, which repeats till no new wins appear.

Carnival Queen 2: Slot Features

Floating down Carnival Queen 2's street are features such as exploding wild symbols, an unlimited instant multiplier, a bonus game, Bet+ and feature buys.

Exploding Wild Symbol

The wild substitutes for all symbols except the scatter. The wild symbol always explodes (after wins if there are any), destroying all symbols on its reel and one random symbol on each other reel, unless blocked by winning or protected symbols. The reel with the exploding wild increases its height by +1 up to 7, also increasing the ways to win up to 117,649. A maximum of 2 wilds may appear.

Instant Multiplier

The multiplier has a starting value of x1, and every avalanche increases it by +1. The multiplier applies to wins and persists throughout cascades but resets at the end of a base game spin. There is no limit on how high the multiplier can go.

Bonus Game

Hitting 3 scatters triggers 12 free spins, plus 4 extra spins are granted for each additional scatter. Free spins start with the current multiplier, which does not reset till the feature ends. In the bonus round, 2 landed scatters award +3 free spins with 2 more free spins per each additional scatter.

Bet+ & Feature Buy

The Bet+ menu provides four betting options. They are 1.5x or 3x the bet for Bonus Boost, or Bonus Boost Plus, where each spin is 2 or 5 times more likely to trigger the bonus game, respectively. Bonus Boost Extreme costs 10x the bet and triggers the bonus game once every 10 spins on average, while Firework Frenzy guarantees one wild on the initial drop for 5x the bet. From the feature buy, players can trigger free spins for 100x the bet or the bonus game with a minimum of 10,000 ways for 175x the bet.

Carnival Queen 2: Slot Verdict

Thunderkick is one of the few major providers that hasn't jumped on the Megaways fad, yet. And why bother, when you can make a slot like Carnival Queen 2 that functions very similarly, without having to fork out for a license to add the attention-grabbing word 'Megaways' to a game title. Carnival Queen 2 acts a bit differently, since it has a minimum of 5,040 ways to win, but other than that, gamblers who have tried their fair share of Megaways slots will quickly spot the likenesses.

Moving on, and as a sequel, Carnival Queen 2 ticks just about all of the right boxes, with the exception of the RTP drop, keeping in mind that circa 94% values are Thunderkick's preferred return to player range now. Carnival Queen 2 looks like it parties harder than the original slot, though the music could have been more energetic to really stoke the celebration. The gameplay has been stepped up, but could it have stepped up even higher? Few to no one is going to begrudge the return of the rising multiplier, persistent in free spins, and wild symbol rockets make a nice replacement for the previous row and reel destroying wilds of before. Interestingly, the max win isn't much greater than Carnival Queen's, at 25,000x the bet, making one wonder how achievable the original's top prize was. Makes you wonder how achievable Carnival Queen 2's max win is, too, but anyway.

All in all, the changes that have occurred between Carnival Queen and the follow-up are, for the most part, positive ones. However, the Megaways connotations are unusual, let's say, and some may have been hoping for an even bigger firecracker of a sequel given how much time has passed since the original was released.