Candy Stars: Slot Overview
When keeping tabs on new slot releases, does it sometimes
seem like developers get caught up in 💯 trends, and a bunch of them release games with
similar themes, mechanical concepts, or visual cues, either together or in 💯 a short
space of time? So, it seemed when Pragmatic's Candy Stars hit the desk as we prepared
our teeth 💯 for another candy-themed battering. Candy Stars is, as the name suggests, a
sweet slot with a simple set of rules, 💯 which can nevertheless turn up the heat when its
sticky wild multiplier is firing.
At first, though, Candy Stars didn't exactly 💯 turn up
the heat from an aesthetic standpoint. Visually, Candy Stars had a half-finished,
half-unfinished feel to it. As if 💯 it was a practice slot that slipped out of the
sandbox and ended up in the wild - or it 💯 was destined to be filler. However, it got
out; Candy Stars has a disco, boogying down effect going on, while 💯 the action occurs on
a 5+1 game grid. In some ways, perhaps players should be happy the studio didn't flood
💯 the visuals with candy floss, doughnuts, and so on, as is often the case in a candy
slot. Not that 💯 there's anything wrong with the sweetness overboard approach of games
like Sweet Bonanza (also from Pragmatic Play), but it is 💯 nice to mix things up every
now and then.
Played on desktop, mobile, or tablet devices, Candy Stars comes with the
💯 dependable set of stats we've come to expect from Pragmatic Play. This means a trio of
RTP settings, from 94.31% 💯 to 96.47%, and volatility the studio has rated as high (5 out
of 5). Any device from tablets, mobiles to 💯 desktops can be used to play the game, where
players have a bet selection of 20 p/c toR$/€100 per spin.
Candy 💯 Stars looks like a
mini-Megaways game, played on a game grid with 5 reels holding 3 symbols each, plus a 💯 3
symbol horizontally spinning reel on the top. On this panel, wins are awarded when
matching symbols land left to 💯 right on adjacent reels, starting from the leftmost reel.
This system provides 576 ways to win. As for the pay 💯 symbols, they start with J-A card
royals as the low pays, worth 1-1.5x the bet for five-of-a-kind, then followed by 💯 four
candy high pays worth 2 to 7.5x the bet for five-of-a-kind. Wilds in Candy Stars are
pretty special. For 💯 one, they are able to substitute for any regular pay symbol, plus,
they have an interesting multiplier element as well, 💯 covered below.
Candy Stars: Slot
Features
Candy Stars gets its boogie on through a variety of features such as tumbles,
sticky wilds, 💯 free spins, and, where possible, a bonus buy.
Tumble Feature
Available in
the base and bonus game, the tumble mechanic removes winning 💯 symbols from the board
after a payout has been made. Symbols left on the reel strips fall down into the 💯 empty
positions. If a new win is created after the symbols have dropped, the tumble mechanic
triggers again, stopping when 💯 no new win hits.
Sticky Wilds
When a wilds lands (they
only appear on the top row), it is not removed from 💯 the board when used as part of a
winning combination. Instead, they remain on the reel until the next new 💯 base game spin
or free spin occurs. Wilds come with a starting multiplier of x1 in the base game.
After 💯 each tumble, the multiplier increases by +1, up to a maximum of x128. Wild
multipliers are applied to any win 💯 that passes through it.
Free Spins
Diamonds are
scatters, and landing 3 of them on reels 1, 3, and 5 triggers 8 💯 free spins. During this
bonus round, one wild is guaranteed to land on the top row in a random cell 💯 on every
free spin. Now, wilds land with a multiplier of x2, which is applied to any win passing
through 💯 it. After each tumble, the multiplier value is doubled, up to a maximum of
x128. Landing 3 scatters during the 💯 round awards +5 extra free spins.
Buy Free Spins
If
the opportunity is there (depending on casino and jurisdiction), players may buy 💯 free
spins for the cost of 80 times the total bet. When buying free spins, the max RTP value
is 💯 96.26%.
Candy Stars: Slot Verdict
Is it us, or has Pragmatic Play opened up the
spigot recently and increased its rate of 💯 production? Slots seem to be fair flying off
the line at the time of writing, which can be both a 💯 positive and a not-so-positive
thing. Doing things briskly can lead to slots like Candy Stars which feel like they
were 💯 rushed out the door to make up numbers rather than fulfil some sort of creative
urge. The game came across 💯 as half done, cobbled together quickly, given a polish, and
sent out into the real world to see what it 💯 can do.
Of course, we could be entirely
wrong, yet that's the impression Candy Stars gave off during testing. Initially, at
💯 least. When compared to slots which clearly have a ton of effort and creativity poured
into them, it felt a 💯 little threadbare. There's a sweetie disco thing going on that is
fun, in its way, but was it designed this 💯 way on purpose, or were a few bits and pieces
lying unused around the studio get mashed together in a 💯 hurry? Who knows, anyway, as to
playing Candy Stars, it could actually be surprisingly good. Simple, pacey, to the
point. 💯 Wild multipliers had the ability to produce eyebrow-raising moments, in part due
to the pay ways system and part to 💯 their progressive nature. Free spins are where the
game can really blast off since the multiplier values are able to 💯 grow so much quicker
than in the base game, while the max payout is governed by a 5,000x the bet 💯 win
cap.
Candy Stars might not be as interesting as a game like Raptor DoubleMax or even
its sibling Florageddon!, but 💯 it has its moments. Throughout the testing session, there
was a suspicion Candy Stars was actually a clone of a 💯 previous game, but the name of
which hovered just out of our consciousness like a dream you vaguely catch wisps 💯 of
when waking yet are unable to fully playback in your mind (there are also some slight
similarities to Euphoria). 💯 Either way, Candy Stars isn't a bad game, the sticky wild
multipliers are a source of intrigue, and there's a 💯 simplistic charm that's easy to go
along with, but it's not one likely to rock the gambling world a whole 💯 heck of a lot.
