Pop

Overview Pop

Would you like all the fun and entertainment of a fair but from the comfort of your own home? Because that is exactly what the online slot game Pop, made by Big Time Gaming provides. In this refreshingly brightly coloured game, players are transported to a sunny coastal pier where the fair has come to town. The premise for this game is that it is an online slot version of the traditional balloon pop fair game which attracts so much attention whenever the carnival rolls around.

Instead of popping the balloons with darts though, this game gets you to pop them by making matching combinations on the board. Due to the reactions feature, every win or ‘big pop’ triggers more symbols to fall into the space of the previous winning symbols. In this way players can pop to the top, creating a string of successive wins with lucrative consequences. Pop has a massive 256 ways to win and a payout of 66,960 x your stake, that is not to be missed.

Theme and Symbols

The theme of Pop, as you will instantly recognise when you begin playing the game, is a day at the carnival. Big Time Gaming set the scene with a detailed background. This is of a boardwalk stretching out into the sea at dusk. Surrounding the board are other carnival game stalls, giving the impression of a large event, of which Pop is one game amongst many. The designers have set the game just at that golden hour of dusk as the sun is about to set, creating gorgeous reds and purples in the sky.

In terms of the symbols, the low-paying symbols are a collection of playing card numbers and letters comprising A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9 royals. The more valuable symbols on the other hand are represented as a quartet of different coloured balloons. The one that players should be most on the lookout for being the purple balloon. This balloon pays 2x your stake if you manage to land 3 or 4 of them in a matching combination. The wild for this game is the easy to spot multi-coloured balloon. It can only appear on reels 2, 3 and 4, however. It can replace any symbol on the board bar the scatter.

Game Play

Big Time Gaming’s Pop is played on a 4-reel, 4-row board with 256 possible pay lines. To generate wins in this game, players must match a minimum of 3 symbols across the board from the left-most reel. This is a slot with the reactions game dynamic at play, meaning that when a player creates a win, the winning symbols will be destroyed and replaced with new symbols from above, giving players more chances at forming wins.

The betting range for Pop is 10p to £10 per spin. Changing your stake is easy with the controls located on the right-hand side of the screen. The autospins options are also located here. The RTP (return to player percentage) for Pop is 96.54%, a little over average. The most a player can win with one spin in this game is an unbelievable 66,960 x your total stake.

Features

There are two main features when it comes to this carnival ride of a game. The first feature we have already covered – this is the reactions feature. Every time you land a winning combination in this game, the reactions feature will be activated. Every symbol which formed that initial win will be swapped out for a fresh set of symbols, which can either be a scatter, balloon symbol or if you are lucky, a wild. These consecutive wins give you a greater chance at racking up coins without spending your spins. There is no upper limit for the number of times this feature can play out.

The second feature and the one that requires a bit more explaining, is the Free Spins feature. This feature all starts with the landing of the Big Time Gaming logo coins which are represented in the game in gold. Landing 3 or more of these logo icons will activate the feature. At the start of the bonus round, the player is granted 12 free spins.
This is where it gets a little more complex. At the start of the feature, 1 or more positions on the reels which previously contained the triggering scatters will start with a variety of multipliers attached to them. These are either 2x, 3x or 4x. Every other position on the reels starts with a 1x multiplier.

Every position on the reels from the beginning of the free spins feature has an attached multiplier value which is liable to increase throughout the duration of the feature. Landing a win in the free spins means 1 or more of the winning positions on the reels will benefit from a multiplier increase. This increase is dictated at random and can grow by 1, 2 or 3 each time. These growth rates also inflate by one with every trigger of this feature. This means the exponential position multiplier increases.

However, the multipliers only apply to balloon or wild symbols. This is how players come by that 66,960x top payout.
Additionally, landing 3 or more supplementary scatters when within the free spins round will add to your tally of free spins by three. If that wasn’t enough, the scatter positions will benefit from an extra 1x multiplier boost. The additional free spins dynamic has no upper limit, theoretically giving players the chance of getting unlimited free spins.

Conclusion

Although some might be put off by the slightly high volatility, this slot still has a lot to offer both from an entertainment perspective and in terms of winning potential. The theme is also one that you don’t see that often. The big payout, the satisfying balloon popping experience and a progressive multiplier bonus, make this slot one of the top creations by Big Time Gaming.