When the time comes to nominate the strangest games of 2019, Hot Chilli by Pragmatic Play will undoubtedly be a strong contender. Played using a 3 by 3 grid layout in combination with 9 paylines, the game has a rather odd Asian cooking theme. It's not totally unique, however, as we see a strong visual resemblance to Sizzling Spins from Play'n GO, but the gameplay itself does stand out from the traditional way of designing slots.
Medium variance, this rather simple creation is all about the wild chilli pepper symbol which can carry multipliers of up to 5x. Stacked up on a payline, these can combine to reward decent payouts. Playable from only 9 cents, Hot Chilli is a suitable alternative for low rollers. For those looking to up the ante, the game accepts bets of up to 45€ per spin.
Due to its somewhat quirky not-for-the-hardcore gambler appearance, Hot Chilli is a serving that won't be to everyone's liking. Whatever one's opinion of the theme may be, the game does earn a few points for its excellent graphics and animations. The food items cooking in the luxurious golden dragon pot look surprisingly realistic and the chopsticks appearing to pluck out your winning combinations is a fun addition. Occupying the left area of the screen you also have the paytable permanently available to you. On it you will see 1x, 2x and 3x tofu dice, various tomatoes, rolls of ham and salmon. The latter is the most rewarding of the standard symbols, giving you 11,11 times your stake for 3 on a payline.
The wild symbol is of central importance in this game and to land any meaningful wins, you're going to need its help. Represented by flaming red chilli, the wild substitutes for all symbols except the tofu. It also comes with 2x, 3x, 4x and 5x multipliers. As you can see in the paytable, you cannot land three of a kind 5x chilli wilds as the 3x, 4x and 5x wilds only appear in the middle reel.
The top reward will come from the 2x-5x-2x wild combo which will give you 555.55 times your stake for the line hit and up to 888.88 times your stake in combination with other symbols. While it's not exactly the most impressive potential we've seen in a slot, it's not all that bad for a 3 reel slot either.
The slightly odd appearance of the slot is intriguing at first, but once the novelty runs out, it struggles to retain the interest of the player. The reason for this mostly comes down to the lack of features, the scratch-card type gameplay, relatively low payouts and the limitations of the layout. The intensity is there if you want it to be, but anyone looking for a slot with over-the-top features or nail-biting potential should probably avoid Hot Chilli altogether. Things are not made any better by the fact that the game has a tendency to eat your whole balance faster than it takes to cook a bowl of instant noodles.
It's disappointing that Hot Chilli doesn't hold up over time, as it does make a decent first impression, but once you settle into the repetitious nature of it, you'll find yourself wondering when Hot Chilli is going to graduate to something more interesting.
Not hot enough? Then we suggest trying Pragmatic Play's Chilli Heat Megaways instead which makes use of Big Time Gaming's celebrated Megaways mechanic.
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