I Hate Fairytales

I Hate Fairytales: Slot Overview

Fairytales have been around for a long time, and the classics remain amongst us to this very day. As for personal fairytales, these change with tides, moods, and current zeitgeists. Where once it might have been the dream of many to marry a prince or princess and live happily ever after, modern fairytales often ditch all that in favour of getting big on social media to accrue truckloads of cash and clout.

Software provider Elysium Studios, as of early 2024 acquired by supplier Swintt for an undisclosed sum, has taken it upon themselves to rewrite some of the classic stories. The slot is I Hate Fairytales, which thrusts players into an enchanting world of magic and wonder, but one flipped on its head by a cast of characters fed up with the usual fairytale shtick. In this fantasy land of graffiti-ridden castles, players bump into characters such as Snow Wild, Aria, and Rapunsell, in a world that might have been designed by Walt Disney if he'd gotten fed up with the kiddie stuff, rebelled, switching from sugar, spice and all things nice, to all things… nasty. A little bit nasty.

The gambling action in I Hate Fairytales occurs on a 5x4 reelset where 1,024 ways to win are provided for calculating wins. Pulling levers and whatnot, hidden away out of sight, is a 4 out of 5 medium/high volatile math model, generating a maximum RTP of 94%. The coin+ button opens up the game's stake selection, where options range from 20 c to $/€40.

I Hate Fairytales' pay symbols are quite neat, made up of 4 low-pay cupcakes with nibbles taken out of them and four high-pay characters, including a unicorn blowing a rainbow from its rear end. Hitting 5 OAK winning combinations awards 0.3 to 0.6 times the bet for the cupcakes and 0.7 to 1 times the bet for the remaining pay symbols. Wilds assist in the formation of winning combinations by replacing any of the regular pay symbols.

I Hate Fairytales: Slot Features

I Hate Fairytales randomly drops 3 character-linked features onto its reels in the base game and in the free spins bonus round. The characters are Snow Wild, Aria, and Rapunsell.

• Snow Wild randomly shows up to place wild symbols on the screen.
• Aria randomly places wilds that cover whole reels and grant respins. On each free respin, each Mega Wild moves one reel to the left until it drops off the grid. Free respins continue until there are no more Mega Wilds in view.
• Rapunsell randomly expands the reels upwards, and a win multiplier is assigned to each expanded reel. Free respins are also awarded. On each respin the expanded reels shrink, as do the win multipliers. Free spins continue until all expanded reels return to their original size. All ways wins are multiplied by the sum of the win multipliers of participating reels.

Free Spins

Getting 3 free spins scatter symbols on the leftmost, middle, and rightmost reels awards 8 free spins. For the free spins round, all reels expand to become 6 rows high, and the 3 Princess features may randomly activate. In free spins, Rapunsell does not expand reels. Instead, the Rapunsell feature randomly places win multipliers above reels, which do not reset until the round ends. A multiplier placed on an existing multiplier adds to its value.

Smash Bonus

Hitting 3 bonus scatter symbols on the leftmost, middle, and rightmost reels triggers the Smash Bonus. In this round, players click the entities on the screen with a hammer to reveal a bet multiplier. When all entities have been beaten out of existence, the total prize amount is paid.

Bonus Buy

Both of I Hate Fairytales' bonus rounds can be bought from the bonus buy. Free spins for 150 times the bet and the Smash Bonus for 27 times the bet.

I Hate Fairytales: Slot Verdict

Not knocking all those Jack and the Beanstalk games, but it was refreshing to see non-kiddy versions of fairy tales turn up in a slot. Elysium Studios probably had a little chuckle or two to themselves when making I Hate Fairytales, and a unicorn spewing forth a rainbow from its butt cheeks is inspired. All rib-tickling stuff, and it wouldn't be the worst thing if Elysium pushed the humour angle even further in future releases. But, it is a fine line between humour and disgust, and some jokes are only funny for those who are in on the gag.

Another stand out was I Hate Fairytales' Smash Bonus. It's not every day you get to bop little beasties for cash prizes. This was not where big cash prizes eventuated, however. The most that was coaxed out of the Smash Bonus was 50x the bet. Whether big rare prizes are a possibility or not is not made clear. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. The lack of transparency was not encouraging in all honesty. What was encouraging was I Hate Fairytales' impressive (at least on paper) 33,934x winning potential, meaning that either a monster reward lurks in the Smash Bonus or, what seems more likely, the free spins combination of larger reel set, multipliers and wild features contain quite a punch.

Someone at Elysium Studios might hate fairytales, but the game they've crafted is hard to dislike. While it may not boast the highest production values in slots, it's clear that a lot of creativity and effort went into its design. Aside from the RTP, which many studios seem to be lowering themselves to these days anyway, I Hate Fairytales serves up a playful fairytale alternative, with a set of features of the odd curiosity type as well as the slap you across the cheek with a leather riding glove type.