Hawaiian Christmas

Overview of Hawaiian Christmas slot

The first thing I would say about this slot is that it is not the type of game you would associate or expect to see released for the festive season. The tropical setting and Tiki theme in Hawaiian Christmas will possibly appear to be familiar if you are au fait with the development team at GameArt, in the same vein that has seen people missing out on things during the lockdown periods this year, the developers have taken the time to overhaul their successful Hawaiian Fruits slot to use their time in a constructive way.

Whist this slot may not have you thinking about Christmas in a traditional way, it is fun to look at a different perspective at times. I know I did not experience a warm and cosy feel inside that I do with most Christmas slots there is no doubt that this one sticks out from the crowd with its totally unique style.

Theme & Design

The developers are not the first to take players on a trip to the foreign climes of Hawaii for their winter celebrations. After all, NetEnt has remade their Tiki-styled slot, Aloha! Cluster Pays however this slot has nothing to do with Aloha! Christmas, apart from the Cluster pays mechanic and theme. Aloha! Christmas is almost identical to this slot regarding game play and the only real difference with this new game is the completely reworked design.

When you first load the game, you are taken to what could be a familiar setting, but the scene is snow covered with Christmas decorations and gifts that are all over the place. The soundtrack has also changed and instead of a hip swaying Hawaiian beat, there is an up-tempo Christmas style musical score, but this is about the only way the slot differs from the previous version.

Game Play

Hawaiian Christmas can be played on all devices which is ideal if you wish to play on the go, and when it comes to placing your bets they start from a minimum of $0.40 per spin to $200 per spin and with such a good bet range that will appeal to a wide array of players. The developers have labelled the volatility in this slot as extremely high, with the return to player being just above average sitting at 96.08%. It is not doom and gloom though as the returns when I trialled the game were reasonably frequent and the slot boasts a hit rate that equates to 32.67% which in theory should see you landing a win on every third spin. Currently there is no information that outlines the slots maximum potential, but I think that this should come in at somewhere around 10,000x your bet.

This slot makes use of the Cluster Pays win system with the game play spreading across a huge 5x5 grid. Wins are scored by landing at least five instances vertically or horizontally. The reels are populated by various exotic fruits which have pay out values that range from 0.37x to 1.5x your bet when you manage to land a cluster of 12 or more symbols.

Features

When it comes to the features on offer in Hawaiian Christmas there is nothing new and this is completely obvious if you have played the original slot. The slot relies heavily on the wild symbols which provide useful multiplier boost as well as being able to substitute for all the regular symbols to create winning combinations. The best thing though is that you can benefit from the Cascading Wins mechanic, Tiki Pop feature and free spins. I will now put the features in order.

During any spin in both the base game and the bonus game the cascading wins mechanic will come into play when you land a win. The winning clusters disappear from your win grid which then allows for new tumbles to fall onto your play screen to fill the empty positions. This feature then status in play for the entire time you land a win and comes to an end when there are no more winning combinations.

You cannot help but notice the Tiki guy who sits to the left-hand side of the screen, and this cheeky chap dances around announcing the features as they come up. When you are in the base game this chap can randomly activate the Tiki Pop feature and remove all the random low paying symbols off your reels whilst also triggering the cascade feature. The cheerful Tiki is the games meter and each symbol removed fills the meter to activate the respective feature. If you collect 6, 11 or 16 symbols this adds up to three wilds added to your reels, whereas landing 40 will trigger the free spin feature. If you land big and collect 55, 85, or 145 symbols there will be a lot more wilds added.

When you have a wild symbol that is actively involved in a winning combination it will float randomly to an empty adjacent position whilst increasing the symbols multiplier by 1x, with there being no limits. The good thing is that every wild and the multipliers that they have accumulated are then carried over into the free spins feature. The feature plays out on a larger 7x7 grid and you are rewarded with five free spins to take into the bonus game.

Final Thoughts

Although I think it is great to have something unexpected such as a Hawaiian themed slot that is dedicated purely to the wintery festive season. However, some player may feel that this slot is a lazy way to create a new out of old slot with only limited changes, but for me nothing could be further from the truth. The slot had me smiling from beginning to end, it is quirky, and I could honestly see players mesmerized, clapping along! The game play is hugely entertaining and straightforward and as so I would give the slot a rating of 8/10 and recommend everyone to give it at least one spin!