Epic Dreams: Slot Overview
Ask someone what their favourite animal is, and you'd expect to hear things like dogs, cats, dolphins, tigers, or horses. It's surprising, then, to see how popular sloths are becoming in the online slot world. Not like, super popular, but they've shown up in games such as ELK Studios' Tropicool 2 and Hula Balua, as well as Hacksaw's Frank's Farm. Another slothy chap making waves is Relax Gaming's childish character Chip, who fronted Sloth Tumble and has returned for a second outing in the online slot Epic Dreams.
The last time we bumped into Chip, he was running a sort of stall in the jungle selling square fruit. For Epic Dreams, the industrious sloth is on a mission to build upwards and/or dig downwards. Players get to choose the direction the action flows when the bonus round is activated. In the base game, the action is downwards on the gaming grid, while behind it resides a rustic theme park in the woods. You can quickly see why sloths might be popular. Chip is a character whose mug sits beside the reels, celebrating at certain moments, helping give Epic Dreams a friendly, albeit childish, vibe.
On the business side of Epic Dreams is bet selection, where the options go as low as 10 c or as high as $/€200. Hitting spin drops active symbols and stone block symbols onto a 6-reel grid, which has up to 117,649 ways to win, paying left to right from the leftmost reel. When gambling 'normally', Epic Dreams has an RTP of 96.1%, though the return figure increases when buying the bonus rounds, while the math model is highly volatile.
Epic Dreams' lower paying symbols are clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades, slinging out 0.4x the bet for a 6 matching card suit winning way. Next are purple, green, yellow, and red gems as the mids, worth 0.8 to 1.5 times the bet for 6 OAK, capped by Chip, who pays 4x the bet for six. Should wild symbols come into play, they are used to substitute any regular paying symbol.
Epic Dreams: Slot Features
On each spin, 4 rows of stone block symbols are placed at the bottom of the gaming grid. Each row of stone block symbols contains one non-stone block position, such as coins, that award their value when destroyed. All winning symbols and stone block symbols in the same row as winning symbols get destroyed and disappear. The remaining symbols fall down, and new symbols fall into the gaps for another chance to win. This process continues until no new wins occur.
Bonus Pick
If all stone block symbols are destroyed at the end of a spin, the Bonus Pick is triggered. If on the spin, the bottom row contains Super Bonus stone block symbols - breaking them triggers the Super Bonus Pick instead. In the Bonus Pick, players choose whether to trigger the Dig Bonus or the Build Bonus. When the Super Bonus Pick is active, players pick the super version of the two choices.
Dig Bonus
This feature starts with 5 free spins, and every third stone block row destroyed reveals a level row, awarding +1 free spin. At the start of each spin, any stone block rows from the previous spin are kept. New stone block rows are added, so there are 4 for every free spin. Once 50 stone block rows have been destroyed, and the 5,000x stone block row is revealed and the max win is awarded, effectively ending the feature. Stone block rows may contain Treasure Chests, which trigger these effects when destroyed:
- Coin Add - adds 1 to 3 coins to stone blocks.
- Upgrade - upgrades the value of 1 to 3 existing coins.
- Wild Add - adds a wild symbol to the open position of 1 to 3 stone block rows.
Treasure chests may also contain up to 3 Super Orbs. Collected 3 Super Orbs upgrades the round to the Super Bonus, awarding +5 free spins and awarding +2 free spins whenever a level row is cleared. When a Treasure Chest awards the third Super Orb, it will not reveal a feature. In the Super Dig Bonus, players start with 10 free spins, and every third stone block row destroyed reveals a level row which awards +2 free spins. When the upgrade occurs, no more Super Orbs may appear.
Build Bonus
The Build Bonus starts with 3 rounds, where each round has a drop of 3 symbols. Players win by filling a row with any symbol. Each individual symbol in the row pays as a 3 OAK win. When a win occurs, the round counter resets to 3. Symbols drop onto random columns to the bottom most position. Next to the grid is a multiplier ladder. The ladder starts at x1 and increases by +1 each time a row is filled. The payout of paying symbols on a row is multiplied by the current multiplier. Coins are updated to their final value after landing. The top of the ladder is reached when 50 rows are filled, where the max win of 5,000x the bet is won. Coin symbols or Treasure Chests may drop instead of regular pay symbols. Coin symbols award their value when part of a win. Treasure Chests open immediately to reveal one of the following:
- Coin Add - initiates a drop where only coin symbols drop. This does not reduce the round counter.
- Filler - fills 1 to 3 rows with random symbols, triggering wins.
- +1 Drop - future spins drop 1 additional symbol per round.
Treasure chests may also contain up to 3 Super Orbs. Collecting 3 Super Orbs upgrades the bonus to the Super Bonus version, immediately resetting the round counter to 4, and for the rest of the bonus, the counter resets to 4 rather than 3. After an upgrade, no more Orbs appear. When a Treasure Chest awards the third Super Orb, it will not reveal a feature.
Buy Bonus
From the buy bonus, players can buy the regular Bonus Pick for 50x the bet or the Super Bonus Pick for 250x the bet. Both have an RTP of 96.5%.
Epic Dreams: Slot Verdict
As well as Chip, bashing stuff is one common trait linking the two slots together; however, in Sloth Tumble, the game busted up wooden (sometimes ice) blockers, whereas in Epic Dreams, it's all about smashing stone block symbols. In addition to using different building materials, Epic Dreams is a very different game in general from its predecessor. For the numbers people, one of the biggest changes is the cliff dive fall in winning potential from the 100,000x in Sloth Tumble to the far more down-to-earth figure of 5,000x in Epic Dreams. It would appear the two games have diverting purposes - one has quantity in mind, while the other is more concerned with dangling monster unicorn results, which has actually been achieved IRL.
Putting payout potential aside, enjoyment levels were fairly comparable between the two games, neither slot being the significantly better choice. Epic Dreams awakened memories of Relax Gaming's TNT Tumble, as well as teasing with memories of a half-forgotten rising levels game, the name of which remained just outside full remembrance. Not Steam Tower, something else… nope, it's just not coming back. Either way, if you like digging down or building upwards, Epic Dreams has you covered with the two Bonus Pick/Super Bonus Pick options, sending the action in different directions.
Some decent action can be expected when Chip is on a roll of bashing or building. The vastly different winning potential means Epic Dreams has far less headlining capabilities, and the gameplay might be a little gimmicky for some tastes whilst the childish presentation may put some gamblers off.
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