Copium

Copium: Slot Overview

Gamblers were introduced to software developer Hold Your Hat by way of Cooked, a cluster pays slot, featuring a shipwrecked chef who had set out to create a dish so powerfully flavoured it threatened the world. For the studio's second release, we are actually leaving the world far behind in the cosmic explorer slot Copium. For round two, Hold Your Hat has designed a symbol-eating game in the manner of ELK Studio's Pirots range, populated by a pack of hungry characters called dudes. The dudes are a mischievous lot, and they find themselves on a space voyage filled with various rooms to explore and features to uncover, as they set about carving their own niche in the symbol munching genre.

Copium starts off with an animated intro to set the scene, which is quite exciting, but it does look suspiciously AI-generated, which may cheapen the effect for some players. Basically, we find ourselves on board Copium, which has been called the future of luxury space travel, before accidentally blasting off with a bunch of dudes that look suspiciously like Crewmates from Among Us. From there we enter the main deck, which hovers in space with tunnels branching off it to different rooms, and gaseous nebulae in the background. Like a good gobbler game, Copium can dramatically escalate, and the manic grid activity is amplified by audio which goes from chill to pumping, and visuals that shift from room to room, introducing different effects to keep the eating sequence going.

Base game drops start on the main deck with a 5x7 grid and pay symbols on level 1. Dudes move around the grid until they cannot collect any more symbols. Pay symbols are replaced by the same coloured pebbles. Pebbles are removed when no dude can move anymore, and a symbol drop occurs, refilling the grid. Avalanches continue until no dude can move. Two dudes can swap places if they end up orthogonally next to each other, and one of the dudes is able to move after the swap. With volatility rated at 7 out of 10, players may wager $/€0.10 to $/€100, while the default RTP is 96%.

There are six different pay symbols which are available in 5 payout levels. Symbols at the lowest pay level are worth 0.05x-0.25x, going up to the highest levels of 1x-10x the bet each. Dudes collect pay symbols that are the same colour as they are. They also activate features as they move around by triggering feature symbols.

Copium: Slot Features

Copium is stacked with extras including a bunch of feature symbols, various rooms with individual effects, bonus rounds, and a lengthy list of feature buys.

Feature Symbols

• Zero Gravity - Transforms all coloured pebbles on the grid into wild pebbles that all dudes can pass.
• Spawn - Spawns an extra dude.
• Rock Paper Scissors - Can start an RPS game between two dudes.
• Multiplier - The dude's current collected amount is multiplied.
• Upgrade - Upgrades all surrounding pay symbols. There are 5 pay levels.
• Teleport - Switches the dudes' places at the end of the avalanche sequence.
• Key Card - Opens all accessible doors in the current room.

Rooms

Dudes move between different rooms on the spaceship through tunnels opened by key cards. The first accessible door a dude passes over when doors are open is chosen. All dudes move into the chosen room at the end of avalanches. Rooms all have one unique feature each. There are nine rooms that are packed with rules; here are the highlights:

• Holodeck - The grid can be expanded when a dude is orthogonally adjacent to the trigger on the Holodeck. This can occur up to 6 times, but only once by each dude. The grid expands by adding additional rows and columns, one per time.
• The Club - When a dude stays on the dance floor, he gets all the symbols that the other dudes in the room collect. He also passes those symbols to the other dudes in the grid.
• Cargo Bay - An activated magnet selects one or more symbols, and dudes from the grid drop them onto the multiplier at the end of the avalanche sequence.
• Casino - Three spins are awarded in a mini slot game.
• Money Rain - Three spins are played on a grid with mini reels. A hit resets the spin count, and the triggering dude moves to collect connected coins when no spins remain.
• Laser Lounge - An activated killer beam removes symbols and dudes, triggering gravity and refills when no more dudes can collect.
• Cockpit - Pulling the handle in this room activates the fortune wheel.
• Crypto Trader's Office - An RPS game is played between the dude and a crypto dude.

Bonus Game

The bonus round is triggered by collecting 3 scatters, and it starts in the current active room with the dudes and the current payout level. Five free spins are awarded. All triggers for room-specific features except expansions are reset at the start of each new drop. Collecting 3 scatters during the feature retriggers the bonus round.

Feature Buys

Activating the Bonus Hunt, Bonus Hunt+, or Bonus Hunt++ costs 2x, 5x, or 20x to have 4x, 12x, or 40x the chance of getting free spins. The Crypto Trader Hunt can be triggered for 10x the bet, where the Crypto Trader door is always open. It is also possible to buy the 3 best results from 100 or 500 spins at a cost of 50x or 250x the bet. Starting in a random room costs 10x, or starting OMG! with 6 dudes and upgraded pay symbols costs 25x. Players can meet the Crypto Trader in his office for 100x or a loaded version of the Crypto Trader for 1,000x. Finally, there is the bonus round buy costing 100x, the super bonus round with 6 dudes and upgraded symbols for 500x, or a bonus game gamble for 80x.

Copium: Slot Verdict

Hit spin, and it will take mere nanoseconds to spot the connections to ELK Studios' mega hit Pirots range. Like Pirots, Copium is a symbol eater slot, with dudes doing the collecting as they traverse various rooms and experience their various effects. Copium is a game that draws in a number of different influences before stuffing itself with an enormous number of features. As a result, there were mixed feelings about the game, including how it came to be, the imitation factor, and the presumed AI intro. It might be enough to leave a sour taste in some players' mouths, but there is no doubt Copium is an entertaining game as well. It helps that it is built on a proven-to-be popular template, but even then, Hold Your Hat has branched off with a stack of extras to expand and bring something new to the experience.

One of Copium's biggest strengths is the sheer variety it offers. The room system means that the action can change considerably from one sequence to the next, while the different dudes, feature symbols, and escalating payout levels give the symbol-eating mechanic plenty of ways to develop. It never quite shrugs off the strong Pirots connotations, but it does a good job of fuzzing up the link through sheer number of extras. There are quite unique touches too, such as the rock, paper, scissors element, the shady crypto trader guy, and so on. The game possesses a definite personality, maybe not as wild as the bird characters from ELK Studios, but the audio is strong, and the visuals aren't bad, helping to immerse players on this symbol-consuming voyage through the stars.

Copium is a rather ambitious second release from Hold Your Hat that takes some familiar symbol-eating action and attempts to make it its own through the spaceship setting, room mechanics, and selection of extras. The resemblance to Pirots is difficult to overlook, though it also makes sense given the connection between the two studios, and there is enough going on here to give Copium its own identity. Finished off with a 10,000x the bet win cap, players looking for a busy, symbol-eater slot with a load of moving parts should find Copium has a stack of good stuff to sample.