Spice

Spice: Slot Overview

When choosing an animal to personify law-breaking humans, turtles are probably fairly low on the list. They have an honest, trustworthy look and are famously slow, so they'd be hopeless at outrunning the cops. Not so, in the mind of software developer NetEnt, which has built the online slot Spice around the idea of crooked turtles ready and willing to do anything to fulfil their dreams, whether legal or not. While digesting that thought, prepare for a slot which doubles position multipliers through consecutive avalanches, while pouring features onto the grid via an up-top Feature Lane when wins have cleared space on the reels below them to drop.

Spice, presumably, is the game world's version of a highly sought-after substance, turtle sherbet, let's say, or something like that. Turtles might have a reputation for being one of the slower movers in the animal kingdom, but slow is not a word you'd use to describe the protagonists of Spice. These shelled rascals are dead set on livin' the fast life, fast cars, fast women, and have developed an appreciation for the finer things in life. A sandy beachside location is where the turtles are looking to turn dreams into reality, 'no matter how hot it gets', providing some unique imagery and lively audio effects with which to colour the game.

Played on a 6x6 grid, Spice is a 15,625 ways-to-win game where winning symbols must land on adjacent reels starting from the leftmost reel. The game has been designed for players into highly volatile math models, and of the three RTP configurations, 96.09% is the preferred value. On the betting side, players can stake a minimum of $/€0.20 to a maximum of $/€60.

Spice's pay symbols are four chilli peppers awarding 0.25x the stake for a 6 OAK combination, then hot sauce bottles, spice bags, spice bricks, and two turtle character symbols, paying 0.3x-0.75x for a 6 OAK hit. Wilds appear on the leftmost and rightmost reels as well as on the Feature Lane. Wilds substitute for all regular paying symbols and have the same value as the highest paying symbol.

Spice: Slot Features

Spice gets all spicy with avalanche wins, grid multipliers, a Feature Lane, feature symbols, free spins, super free spins, and feature buys.

Avalanche and Grid Multiplier Features

Landing a winning combination triggers an avalanche. The winning symbols vanish, causing symbols to drop down and fill the reels, repeating as long as a new winning combination is formed. Each winning position gets an x2 multiplier that doubles each time a win appears on top of it during subsequent avalanches. The total sum of all multipliers on winning positions is applied to the winning payout. Multipliers clear at the end of each base game spin.

Feature Lane & Feature Symbols

The Feature Lane runs across the top of the main reels. Feature symbols on the Feature Lane fall into the main grid when avalanches create space below them on the corresponding reels. They activate when there are no wins or no more wins, depending on the symbol. It also appears that feature symbols can land naturally on the main reels, and they act like this when activated:

• Bomb - Clears symbols in a 3x3 square around itself. Any multipliers in the affected positions are doubled.
• Row Converter - Transforms all eligible symbols across a row into one chosen symbol from that row.
• 9-Square Converter - When there are no bombs in the play area, it selects one pay symbol and transforms a 3x3 area into that symbol.
• Random Wilds- Transforms a number of regular symbols into wilds.
• Locked Wild - Remains on the reels even after being used in a win.

Free Spins & Super Free Spins

Landing 3, 4, 5, or 6 scatters in the main game awards 5, 8, 10, or 12 free spins, respectively. If at least one of the scatters is a super scatter, super free spins are awarded instead, which begin with multipliers on all grid positions. During both bonus features, grid multipliers produced by avalanches do not reset between spins. Hitting a +3 symbol awards an extra 3 free spins, or landing a golden +3 symbol grants 3 extra spins and upgrades free spins to super free spins.

Elevate Feature

From the Elevate section, players may activate various features. For 3x the bet, the Bonus Hunt increases the chance of triggering free spins. For 10x the bet, the Base Multiplier Layer starts the spin with multipliers applied to all positions, or for 50x, the Base Multiplier Layer with Bonus Hunt adds multipliers to all positions and increases the chance of triggering free spins. Otherwise, players can buy free spins for 100x (it is also possible to trigger super free spins) or directly buy super free spins for 500x the stake.

Spice: Slot Verdict

Spice is a dish containing a mixture of old and new ingredients. New goes to the theme, since turtle baddies conducting criminal activities isn't the most common subject matter in the box. It makes for a refreshing change, the game is nice to behold, and is evidence that the studio has put a deal of thought into the game's design. Less brand-spanking-new are elements of Spice's gameplay. Individual grid position multipliers that are doubled by consecutive winning avalanches are a classic Sugar Rush move, one which has popped up in other such titles as Nolimit City's Duck Hunters and Print Studios' Phantom Pulse. Less obvious is using ways to win to create winning combinations since cluster pays or even scatter pays are usually the go-to systems.

The Feature Lane was also quite familiar, too, since a similar concept was used in ELK Studios' Tropicool slots. As in Tropicool, it's a nice side mechanic that complements avalanches, dropping feature symbols on the grid when there is space to hold them. The individual modifying abilities are quite good too, ranging from converting, exploding, to wilding; all useful to have when there are so many ways to win. Spice did display a knack for being able to hold back, and while the core gameplay might not feel completely novel to seasoned players, it was also able to occasionally bring it all together to flow quite well.

Spice is a little late to a party that really kicked off in earnest when Sugar Rush appeared in 2022, but since then Pragmatic Play has released several follow-ups alongside other studios' output, proving there is still plenty of petrol in the grid multiplier tank. Spice manages to stand out through its wacky theme and as a ways to win alternative. A 15,000x max win doesn't hurt the appeal, either, and NetEnt has included a pretty interesting collection of supporting features to go with it.