Chili Pop

You know, sometimes you take one look at a slot, and you know you’re in for a wild ride. It can be the theme or the art-style. Maybe you open the paytable, and find a mountain of special features, and realize you will be there for a while.

It really does not matter.

Just one look tends to be enough for you to lean back in your chair, and wonder if it’s worth it. That sense of creeping dread was what we felt when we first launched Chilli Pop and saw its.. unique symbol art.

For a 2018 Betsoft release, the visuals are decent, but not great. The upbeat strumming of the guitar pairs well with a quiet, Mexican town. The background image is quite atmospheric, and gives off a vibe of a small place lost in time.

That all falls into the water when you see the icons, however. You have a tomato, onions, and a whole bunch of peppers. And did we mention they’re all sentient, with eyes and weird-looking faces? Considering the game is called Chilli Pop, it certainly raises a question of morality. Are you murdering innocent, sentient vegetables to feed your desire for chilli? These things keep us up at night. That, and the weird faces on these symbols. Two words: uncanny valley.

The desktop layout is quite well done. The buttons are large and cleanly labelled, so you know where everything is at first glance. Their design is also better integrated compared to Yak, Yeti and Roll. Everything is carefully weaved together to fit, and you can tell Betsoft tried their best to make it work. The mobile user interface is, not as fancy, because adjustments had to be made for it to work on touch-screens.

The slot has a medium volatility, carefully balancing between frequent pays and big jackpots. It offers a balanced middle-ground. You do not have to grind until your brains turn to mush for a jackpot, which is always a plus.

A Spicy Journey

Chilli Pop is played on a 5×3 board with Cluster pays instead of regular wins. Since there are no paylines, you cannot turn some of them on or off to lower your minimum wager.

The RTP for this game is fixed at 95.38%, which is below the current industry average. Considering it was released in 2018, Betsoft really have no excuse to offer anything beneath 96%. Few releases are so good that they can get away with a higher than average house edge. And this slot is not one of them.

You change your total bet by adjusting your coin value. You can set your coin value between $0.01 to $1. This translates into bets that range from $0.50 up to $50 per single spin. This is a decent betting spread for casual, mid-range players, as well as high rollers. Though we imagine the latter category would prefer an even bigger maximum stake.

The Autoplay option offers the same functionality as other recent games by the same developer. You can set your coin, the number of spins, as well as your win and loss thresholds. It’s not the most expansive list, but it does cover all the important bases.

To win, gamblers have to collect three or more identical icons in adjacent positions. They do not have to follow any particular order – you just need as many as you can gather in one spot.

A Hot Destination

Each time a cluster pays, all participating symbols explode. This leaves empty spaces that existing icons move in to fill, while brand new ones appear from the top of the screen. If you get particularly lucky, you can connect several wins together for the price of a single spin. And when you pair cascading reels with cluster pays, you get an awesome combination.

Get three or more mules to win free spins. You can get a maximum of 26 free spins for 15 total mules. If a mule appears after the bonus has already been triggered, they do not add any more extra turns. Instead, they add to the mule trail.

The mule trail tracks how many cute, sombrero-wearing donkeys have appeared since the start of free spins. Once a certain number appears, the playing field increases in size. If you somehow collect 70 mules during free spins, you get to play on a massive 8×8 board!