Rotiki: Slot Overview
Editor's note: Rotiki is available on all Soft2Bet casinos from
June 23. The public release is set for July 14, 2024.
Software provider Play'n GO has
released a good number of grid slots over the years, some of them, like Reactoonz,
going on to attain bona fide classic status. The studio certainly knows a thing or two
about making these types of games and has filled them with all manner of math and
feature combinations. To pad out the collection, they've made a grid slot catering to a
different segment of the market. How can we put it… for players after something,
gentler? The game is called Rotiki, a Pacific Island-themed game full of cluster pays,
respins, and a bonus round Treasure Room feature.
A larger than usual game panel sits
in the middle of the screen between burning torches, and towers of mask-like items,
while hills, foliage, and a smoky volcano smoulders in the background. Rhythmical
drumming drives the soundtrack and clicking on the towers on the two sides of the grid
elicits a chanting vocal effect. The first impressions were quite good, and Rotiki's
stack of sturdy looking rock symbols had an inviting 'come smash us' look about
them.
Rotiki is playable on any device, where stakes start at 5 p/c per spin at the
lowest setting rising toR$/€100 at the highest. Hit spin, and 48 symbols drop into an
6-column, 8-row game area, creating a win when 5 or more identical symbols connect in
vertical and/or horizontal directions. In a twist, initial wins trigger a respins
feature rather than a cascade feature.
To the symbols, where normal pays include four
lower value in-theme icons and four high pay masks. Value-wise, hitting a regular five
symbol cluster is worth 0.2 to 1x the bet, while at most, a 48-symbol combo is worth 20
to 100 times the stake.
Rotiki: Slot Features
Following an initial win, 3 respins are
awarded. The winning symbols are locked in place while the rest of the symbols spin. If
winning symbols land on the respins, they are also held in place. If a row is filled
with winning symbols, +3 additional respins are awarded.
When respins end, if any wild
symbols are part of the win, they spin on their own. When they stop spinning, they may
remain as wilds or turn into Hanumi or Whakarei symbols. Hanumi merges connecting
clusters into one type of symbol cluster – always the highest value. Whereas Whakarei
upgrades the cluster to a random mask symbol. After this has happened, the win is
evaluated.
The Treasure Room
If you manage to cover all symbols on the grid with
winning symbols, the Treasure Room bonus round is opened. The point of the bonus is to
build as large a multiplier as possible. Players get a certain number of picks and then
click squares on a grid. Clicked squares reveal blanks, +5 picks, +1 to the multiplier,
or the Special symbol, which maxes the multiplier out at x10. The round ends when the
picks have been used or the Special symbol is revealed. Then, the winning total going
into the Treasure Room bonus is boosted by the multiplier accrued during the
feature.
Rotiki: Slot Verdict
While digging around online to see if there was any
real-life basis for the word Rotiki, we came across an 'article' on an alternative
tongue-in-cheek website. In it, 'Rotiki' was described as 'the poor man's Hawaii',
where visitors get free shells and may come across its strangely fierce crab. Yeah, it
felt like we were getting punked reading that, and at times in Rotiki the slot, it felt
like we were getting punked there too. At least it did at the start before we'd really
gone over the paytable with a fine-toothed comb. What's the appropriate response to
landing a winning cluster spanning more than half of an 8x6 sized game grid and only
getting 2x the bet for it?
It takes a mindset readjustment to get the most out of
Rotiki. Forget scoring hugely juicy cluster payouts or chaining together crazy long
consecutive cascading wins. Respins can be quite long in duration, but it is weird how
low payouts can be, even when almost every position on the grid is covered by winning
symbols. Usually, when so much of the board was covered, it was because more than one
winning symbol type had been used to do so. As an example, the first time we made it
through to the Treasure Room bonus, the full grid win value going in was 2.4x the
bet.
Rotiki just does things differently, and there may be players drawn to its unique
characteristics. Once we got over the shock induced by its trivial payout values,
filling the grid and moving to The Treasure Room became something of a personal
challenge. There was something oddly compelling about the mission. Perhaps part of the
compulsion is knowing the chance of achieving Rotiki's maximum payout is 1 in 21,541,
which is low for an online slot. However, reality bites after finding out the max win
is only 1,000x the bet, which on some level does feel fair enough for this sort of
game.
We know Play'n GO has a black belt in making grid slots, practically redefining
the genre on more than one occasion. That gets them off the hook to a degree for
Rotiki, and the studio must have had certain players in mind when they made it. Those
who feel drawn by Rotiki's charms should be satisfied with the unique type of
experience it has to offer. Anyone else might be as bafflingly amused as we were.
