Wildfire Wins: Slot Overview
Microgaming partner Just For The Win turns up the heat in a fiery themed online slot called Wildfire Wins. The name gives a pretty good indicator of what to expect, namely, plenty of wilds, plenty of flames, and a few wins along the way if you're lucky. The game climaxes in a three-tier bonus wheel round, though most of the time, you'll probably be benefiting from respins with sticky wilds and multipliers while waiting for the main money wheel feature to trigger.
Close your eyes when Wildfire Wins loads, and the banging soundtrack might bring to mind images of the swinging sixties, gangsters movies, bank heists, something uber-cool like that. Open them again, and you're reminded that instead of being anything particularly exciting, Wildfire Wins is a lot more run of the mill. The gaming occurs on a 5x5 grid before a flaming sun, supernova, glowing thing, as a prize wheel spins silently at the top left side of the screen. It's all a bit Hot Spin, but without any of the visual gloss that iSoftBet poured into their games. Aside from the top prize, the wheel isn't hugely exciting either. All in all, without the groovy tunes, it would have been difficult to muster up much enthusiasm for hitting the spin button to see what Wildfire Wins could do.
Should you tap the play button, 25 symbols fall onto the board, lining up into winning combinations across 50 fixed paylines from the leftmost side. Wildfire Wins continues Just For The Win's tendency to push out volatile slots, this one having been rated as 'Very High' in terms of volatility. RTP is variable, coming in three forms, with 96.1% being the most desirable. Around a quarter of the time, players can theoretically count on a win occurring, the hit rate valued at 24.45%, regardless of the RTP version. Playable across all devices, stakes range from 20 p/c to $/€25 per spin.
On to the pay symbols where we find 10-A card royals as the lower value tiles, worth 0.5 to 1x your stake for five of a kind. Next are higher value four-leaf clovers, horseshoes, sevens, bells, and diamonds. Landing a five of a kind premium line win will get you a payout of 1.5 to 5 times your stake. Also, worth 5x the bet is a line of five wild symbols. Wilds land anywhere to substitute all pay symbols, or they may be created via one of the features.
Wildfire Wins: Slot Features
Wildfire Wins is capable of producing a pretty hefty top prize, winnable if its prize wheels are spinning your way. In the meantime, the majority of the white-knuckle moments, if they can be called that, are produced by the Wildfire Respin feature.
Wildfire Respin
The first thing to know is the low pay symbols land in regular form or a special fiery form. Any win with at least one special fiery symbol triggers a Wildfire Respin. For the respin, any instance of the special fiery symbol in view is transformed into a sticky wild. If a new special fire symbol type lands, it becomes a sticky wild as well, and another respin is awarded. This feature continues if at least one more of the special symbols is used in a win. If all low pay special symbols are activated, one final Wildfire Respin is awarded. All wins from it are multiplied by a random multiplier with a value of x2, x3, x5, or x10.
Wildfire Wheels
In the base game, or in respins, landing 3 bonus symbols triggers Wildfire Wheels. This feature comprises three spinning bonus wheels, starting at level 1. Each wheel has eight segments, displaying cash prizes, level up segments, or collect. When wheels land on a prize, the value is awarded, and the wheel spins again. If it lands on collect, the feature ends and the total prize won is collected. If it stops on level up, players move to the next wheel up. The third wheel has only prizes or collect segments. The level 1 wheel has prize values of 1x to 15x the bet, level 2 has 3x to 100x the bet, and level 3 has x5 to 10,000x the bet. Win the 10k and a cash prize worth 10,000x the bet is awarded, and the feature ends.
Wildfire Wins: Slot Verdict
Wildfire Wins is one of those slots that you sort of assume a studio has already got one or two of under their belt already, like a rite of passage type game. However, gazing through Just For The Win's back catalogue, the studio has largely avoided the generic lucky 7, horseshoes, flames everywhere thing. It's not exactly what you would call a JFTW go to. For the most part, they pull it off in Wildfire Wins, and players into this style are sure to find value. Especially if chasing down jackpot style wins appeal. Jackpot chasing is something Just For The Win are more accustomed to, having used it extensively in their Gold range and others.
The studio is no stranger to multi-wheel prize wheels, either; Deco Diamonds Deluxe is one example that springs to mind. Wildfire Wins' prize wheel has been pepped up since then, packing a solid top prize. However, if you don't manage to score the 10,000x, there is a massive drop between there and second place. It is nice how consecutive prizes from the wheels add up when the wheels reveal them, rather than just win one prize. That's something, plus the music's neat. For the vast majority of the time, players are unlikely to be anywhere near the Wildfire Wheels, which is where the respins feature comes in to keep your engagement fired. It does an okay job of this, too; there are sticky wilds, multipliers if you are really lucky. It gets the job done.
And so, if you're not into these sorts of games, they can come across as cheap and nasty, not to mention a little pointless, since the market is saturated with them. To be fair, Wildfire Wins is guilty of this very thing. On the flip side, though, it also does everything an enthusiast could ask for, plus there is a decent 10k pot at the end of the rainbow should the guardians of old school gaming deem you worthy.
Wildfire Wins is a decent distraction, but not much more.
