Idol Pop Fever

Idol Pop Fever: Slot Overview

Tickets at the ready, players, we're going to a concert with casino game maker Pragmatic Play in the online slot Idol Pop Fever. Initially, despite the different name, some of the first thoughts were of Pop Idol, or X-Factor, music competitions made for TV where nobodies can compete for the chance to become real-life pop idols, maybe sign recording contracts, garner millions of fans, get rich, and famous, you know, live the dream. A group of nobodies front Idol Pop Fever, too; this is no branded music slot, belting out pop tunes and a highlighted symbols to wild/wild multiplier feature to their adoring fans.

With a bit of mental gymnastics, players of Idol Pop Fever can pretend they're there, in the crowd, hands waving in the air as a group of pop stars move about the stage, possibly lip-syncing to a backing track, possibly singing live, let's not judge. This is the sort of gig that is all glitz, flashing lights, massive production values, which are equal to, if not more important than, the actual music booming from the towering speakers. A made-up pretend group with certain K-pop connotations is doing the onstage entertaining rather than a real musical act, which gives the show a somewhat cheaper, home-brand feel. No one's expecting Pragmatic Play to fork out the bucks to use a genuine big-name act in a middle-of-the-road, non-flagship release, but doing it this way does make it harder to really lose yourself in the moment.

A 5x5 matrix is where the symbols land, and there are 20 paylines used to evaluate winning combinations. A maximum theoretical RTP of 96.5% is produced when betting $/€0.20 to$/€240 per spin in what is a highly volatile game.

Of Idol Pop Fever's ten pay symbols, four of them are J-A card ranks, followed by microphones, headphones, and four character symbols - Liza, Rimin, Alisa, and Kristi. When 5-of-a-kind wins hit, they pay 5x-12x the stake for the character symbols, or 1x-3x for the rest of the paying symbols.

Idol Pop Fever: Slot Features

Idol Pop Fever's principal feature is a random wild effect, which is available in the base game and in free spins. It also has special bets and feature buys.

Random Wild Feature

The wild symbol is present on all reels and substitutes for all symbols except the scatter. At random, after a spin, symbols may be highlighted. All instances of the highlighted symbol type on screen transform into wilds. The wild symbol can have a random multiplier of x2, x3, or x5, which applies to all wins passing through it and can be combined. Wild winning combinations have the same value as the top pay symbol.

Free Spins

Hitting 3 or more scatters triggers 10 free spins. At random in the base game, when 2 scatters hit, the reels without scatters may respin, and the third scatter may hit. If the feature is triggered by 4 scatters, wilds are guaranteed to have a multiplier of x2, x3 or x5. If triggered by 5 scatters, wilds are guaranteed to have a multiplier of x3 or x5. For each landed scatter during the round, +1 free spin is awarded.

Special Bets & Feature Buys

Idol Pop Fever has two special bets and two feature buys. The ante bet costs 3x to make the chance of triggering free spins close to 5 times higher, while the Super Spin, costing 20x, guarantees at least 1 symbol is highlighted on each spin. Free spins cannot trigger from a Super Spin. For 100x, players can buy free spins triggered by 3-5 scatters, or 500x buys Super Free Spins, where at least 1 symbol is guaranteed to be highlighted on each spin, and all wilds from highlights have a multiplier of x2, x3, or x5.

Idol Pop Fever: Slot Verdict

Don't want to sound like an over the hill music critic who is held together by bourbon for breakfast and chain smoking, who keeps mumbling about how music was so much better in the day, but Idol Pop Fever is the sort of slot which would might well cause someone like that to think yeah, music really was better back in the day. Though let's take a moment to acknowledge that not all tunes from the past were great, just as not all songs from the now are garbage. However, if the world of modern pop music is criticised for being a conveyor belt production machine where big labels are trying to create hits rather than great music, then Idol Pop Fever is something of an online gambling equivalent.

In this case, the game's lead vocalist is its random wild feature, and Idol Pop Fever is a classic example of Pragmatic Play's tendency to tease out the core mechanic in the base game, while dialling it up for free spins. It's not the most innovative feature the studio has ever come up with, but random wild conversions have potential, especially since they can come with multipliers attached. What helps make them so is that all instances of the highlighted type convert to wilds, not just the specific chosen positions. At this show, winning potential tops out at 5,000x the bet, attesting to the power of the wild multiplier combo, and again, since every instance of the highlighted symbol converts into a wild rather than just those initially selected, a lucky conversion may end up reshaping the grid into a much stronger result.

It's funny, and a bit scary, when taking a look at top 100 charts from a decade or decades ago, from your 'yoof' and discovering how many of the songs you'd completely forgotten about. Idol Pop Fever is a bit like that. It's got a few hooks and jingles that may make it fun at the time, but nowhere near enough magic to make it really stick around long term in the collective pop culture unconsciousness as a chart-topping classic.