123 Boom

Overview of 123 Boom! slot

123 Boom! may be on the top of every casino’s alphabetical list but is it all hype or will you end up deflated? The last slot from the developers at 4ThePlayer was a shark infested game which provided various types of options on the reels and in many ways 123 Boom! offers much of the same but instead of sharks the slot has a pirate theme but is still on the water whilst offering some different game play for you to try. You will either love this or hate this slot with its unorthodox play, but if you fancy throwing caution to the wind and giving it a go then read on.

Theme & Design

On either side of your reels whether above or below (dependent on your playing mode) there are two ships ready to battle things out. As there are no flags displayed on the ships this means they may belong to pirates, merchants, or navy. One of the ships must belong to the pirates if the images are anything to go by and if you are still not convinced the soundtrack most definitely conjures up the feelings of the sea and complements the pirate theme perfectly.

Game Play

Located amidst the high seas the slot plays out on 5-reels, 4-rows and offers a generous 1,024 ways to win. The developers have created a mechanic that they have called the Slot Slider, and this allows you to flip your phone or you can get your grid to rotate by hitting the spin button. There are two modes which are the Slide Spin and the Top Spin. In the Slide Spin the reels will spin and pay out from left to right whereas in the Top Spin the reels and pay top to bottom. I know this sounds quite complicated however there is no need to worry as you will soon get the idea when you have made a spin or two, the top spin is a little bit more complicated but nothing that will not soon become clear.

Once you have decided the mode that you wish to play with you need to choose the bet level that you are comfortable with which starts from a minimum of 10p per spin and goes up to a maximum of £50.00 per spin. You can play this slot on all devices which makes it very accessible even when you are on the go!

4ThePlayer shines when it comes to the statistics as everything you could want to know is listed on the pay table. There you will see that the slot has a higher than normal return to player that sits at 96.4%, has a medium to high volatility and almost everything else you could want. The hit rate which is one in about every 3.5 spins as well as a bonus that turns up about 1 in every 203 spins. There is no having to guess or any hidden surprises in this slot as you know exactly what you are getting into. The best way to sum this part of the slot up would be transparent.

Symbols

It makes no difference which mode you choose as to score a win is done by matching three or more of the same symbols on adjacent reels, the rows do not matter, providing 1,024 ways to win. There are strong nautical roots when it comes to the symbols and you can expect to come across the wheel of ship, skull and crossbones, cutlasses, telescopes, maps, pistols, treasure chests and coins. There are also a lady pirate and Blackbeard (well it looks like him) and these are worth from 5x -20x your bet.
The wild is depicted by a cannonball symbol and can land on any of your reels, if there are no wins in view and you have no wilds on the end of your reels, the wild slides in the direction of the spin. This element then blows up any symbols that are in the way, one at a time until a win is created, or it comes to the end of the reel.

Features

There are explosive wins and a bonus feature as well as the Sliding Cannonball wild. The explosive wins sees every winning combination explodes leaving room for new or existing symbols to move into the free positions, this then sets off a series of chain reactions of wins after wins from a single spin and this continues all the time you create winning combinations.
Due to the high potential that 123 Boom! offers it is the Bonus feature where you will find the best wins. This feature is activated when you land three or more of the cannon scatters in view when the explosive win sequence has ended. The number of cannon symbols are collected, and the feature then starts.

The first cannon symbol shoots a cannonball wild on your reels to begin the sliding cannonball wild feature. Once the following explosive wins have finished the next starts all over again until you have used all the scatters. I did find that there was a much higher number of explosive wins during this feature than in the main game, and you can land up to 50 per spin. However, this is not all as there is a win multiplier in play in the bonus game and this starts at 2x and then rises by one after every explosive win and get lucky and land more scatters these are collected to extend your game further.
You can play 123 Boom! for free, and for me this is an incredibly useful feature as you can really get to know the game before you have to part with any of your own money.

Final Thoughts

The developers at 4ThePlayer have created a slot that is different, so much so that it took me a while to get my head around it! The slot slider was a little hard to understand especially the top spin and therefore I think this may be a slot that players will either love or leave.

The bonus game is another unusual element that on first inspection sounds like basic standard gaming stuff as in the cascades and progressive win multipliers. The sliding cannonball wild gives the slot a new dynamic that I found turn nothing into something so a welcome addition. The wins of up to 14,727x the stake makes it a slot worth playing.
Overall, taking everything into account for me the pros outweigh the cons, but I must add that this is the kind of slot that could put you off as easily as welcoming you. This is how it could be with anything new and I take my hat off to the developers for creating something different and being brave enough to put it out there.