Delicious Candy PopWins

Delicious Candy PopWins: Slot Overview

Get your toothbrushes ready, folks, software provider Stakelogic is dipping its choppers into a sugar-coated world named Delicious Candy PopWins - its third slot powered by the PopWins mechanic. Arguably the fourth if you count Mystery Drop. So far, Stakelogic has failed to really wow with its use of the mechanic, which is on licence from AvatarUX. While AvatarUX has gone on a creative bender, Stakelogic has been content bolting PopWins to games which go through the motions yet have lacked that hard-to-articulate 'I don't know what' quality, which might make them really stand out. When picking a theme as well used as candy, Delicious Candy PopWins has to do something pretty special to really pop, too. Does it? Let's find out.

Visually, Delicious Candy PopWins crosses the necessary visual ingredients off the list, but little more than that. The action takes place in a sweetie paradise full of cotton candy clouds, swirling lollipops, and various other belt-busting delights. It's a view players who are familiar with the style will be well acquainted with, being neither an exemplary entry nor a drab mood spoiler. Plonked in the middle is a grid which starts the base game at 5-reels, and 3-rows in size, with a default 486 ways to win. This number is achieved because winning combinations pay both left to right from the leftmost side, and right to left, from the rightmost side.

Digging deeper into this cavity-threatening world, we find a highly volatile math model, cranking out a default return to player value of 96.50%. Regular bets can be selected from the lowest setting of 20 p/c to a max bet level of $/€10, or when activating the Super Stake, stakes are doubled. The benefit of doing so is that multiplier symbols are added to the base game with values of x2 to x100. Multipliers are applied to the win of the spin they appear on, and if more than one is in view, the values are added first.

No second guesses for the sort of symbols used in Delicious Candy PopWins. All look like hard candies in various shapes, with values ranging from 1.5x the bet for five of the orange oval one up to 12.5x the bet for the golden crown. Note that five-of-a-kind wins count just once. Not assisting players this time is any form of wild symbols; they are entirely absent from Delicious Candy PopWins.

Delicious Candy PopWins: Slot Features

The first feature to get a handle on is the PopWins mechanic. When a winning way hits, the symbols involved in it pop from the board and are replaced by 2 new ones. If a new win is formed, the process is repeated again. In the base game, each reel has a maximum height of 6 positions high, while in free spins, they can grow to 9 high. When at full height, winning symbols are replaced by just 1 new symbol.

Free Spins

Should all reels reach 6 rows high in the base game, then free spins are triggered. Before they begin, a number of free spins of 5 to 15 is awarded, and 1 of 3 bonus wheels spins to award the starting win multiplier. The precise wheel is randomly selected. Wheel 1 awards multipliers of x2 to x10, wheel 2 has x5 to x15, and wheel 3 has x10 to x25. During free spins, the grid has a starting size of 6 reels high and a win multiplier, which increases by +1 following each win or +2 if all the reels reach 9 positions in height. Whilst not stated in the rules, it appears if all reels reach 7, 8, or 9 positions high on the same free spin, they start the next spin and onwards from that height. In other words, if all reels make it to 9 rows high, they stay like that for the remainder of the feature, for example.

Bonus Buy

Depending on the jurisdiction, some players may be able to buy the free spins bonus round. There are four possible options, where 80x the bet buys up to 15 free spins with up to an x10 starting multiplier, 150x the bet buys up to 15 free spins with up to an x15 starting multiplier, and 400x the bet buys up to 15 free spins with up to an x25 starting multiplier. The fourth option costs 200x the bet to get a totally random outcome within the usual parameters.

Gamble Feature

Lastly, when winning combinations are awarded, players may be able to gamble the winnings. To do so, picking the correct colour or suit of a face-down card pays x2 or x4 the amount, respectively. Getting the pick wrong loses the lot.

Delicious Candy PopWins: Slot Verdict

Around the time of this review, there'd been a number of candy-related releases, as if some game makers could not get sweet stuff off their minds. Naturally, there's no issue with fads and preferences, but repeated use of the same imagery and atmosphere can blunt the impact after a while. So it was with Delicious Candy PopWins. It didn't help that the game also came across as somewhat half-baked. Closed-door meetings between Stakelogic and AvatarUX sparked by the copycat slot Mystery Drop resulted in Stakelogic licensing the PopWins mechanic. With Delicious Candy PopWins, it felt like Stakelogic phoned it in due to some sort of contractual obligation rather than desiring to pour its heart and soul into a sugar-coated PopWins wonderland. To be sure, this is pure conjecture, just thinking out loud why Delicious Candy PopWins failed to provoke much excitement.

Along with the run-of-the-mill visuals, the studio has done little with the features as well. The PopWins mechanic is there popping away, doing its thing, building rows and ways, but not much else apart from the basics. Free spins benefit from the win multiplier, though it's pretty safe stuff. Add a multiplier to the bonus round, and increase it after wins or reaching max reel height. Job done, paint by numbers, whatever you want to call it. No one's questioning the power this combo of mechanics has; max win tops out at 10,000x the bet, after all, it's just that, in the world of PopWins, there are a number of more enthralling choices to go for.

And so concludes Stakelogic's third official PopWins outing, and so far, the results have been fairly uninspiring, paling in comparison to what the originator of the mechanic is doing. This really is AvatarUX's baby, and the studio has clearly fallen for the mechanic, pushing it out with just about every new release, testing new themes, twisting features, and just getting straight-up experimental with the whole concept, so far overshadowing Stakelogic's utilisation of it.