If there's one software provider out there that has really got it in for players' teeth, it's Pragmatic Play. Their Sweet Bonanza style games are arguably the biggest tooth rotters in the studio's collection, though they release a lot of fruit stuff as well, so it kind of equals out. Anyway, here's another candy-themed online slot which goes by the name of Sugar Rush. Like Sweet Bonanza, Sugar Rush is a game based on multipliers but goes about using them in a different way.
The two games are close when it comes to visuals, though fair enough, if a studio picks a candy-themed slot, they tend to look quite similar, no matter who is waving the paintbrush. What it means is one of those Willy Wonka-esque sweet-filled lands where everything in sight looks edible. Ever seen the episode of the Simpsons when the nuclear power plant is sold to a couple of German investors for $100 million dollars, and Homer goes into a candy-coated fantasy after Hans and Fritz say they are from the land of chocolate? Sugar Rush is something like that, but pinker.
It's also a highly volatile game, despite all the frosting and gummy bears, where the highest possible RTP value is 96.5%. This figure is the same whether you play the game in a regular manner, staking 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin, or if you buy the free spins bonus round – doable on any device.
The sweety action takes place on a 7x7 grid, using a cluster pays system to forge wins. At least five or more of a kind are needed to make a winning cluster, and the symbols involved must be connected to each other in horizontal or vertical directions. Wins trigger the tumble feature. A baseline five symbol cluster is worth 0.2-0.3x the bet when made up of the three gummy bears, or 0.4-1x the bet for the four higher value candy symbols. At maximum size, winning clusters of 15+ matching symbols are worth 20-30x the bet for the bears and 40-150x the bet for the remaining candies. At no point in the game does a wild symbol appear, but multipliers can be created along the way to potentially improve winning payouts.
Tumbles are one of Sugar Rush's cornerstones, so let's start with those. How they work is when a winning cluster hits, the tumble mechanic removes the corresponding symbols, and gaps are filled with symbols dropping down from above. If a new cluster is created by the tumbling action, the process repeats until no new win appears.
Whenever a winning symbol is removed, its position is highlighted on the grid. If a winning symbol is removed from a highlighted spot, a multiplier is placed there. Multipliers have a starting value of x2, doubling every time winning symbols are removed on top of it, up to x128. Multipliers apply to all wins that land on top of them, and if more than one multiplier is involved, the values are added together before being used. In the base game, multipliers are cleared from the board between paid spins.
Landing 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 scatter symbols during a tumble sequence in the base game awards 10, 12, 15, 20, or 30 free spins, respectively. During free spins, what changes is that highlighted positions and their multipliers remain on the reels until the end of the bonus round, so it is possible to keep increasing their values. Stretching the feature out is possible when 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 scatters hit to award an additional 10, 12, 15, 20, or 30 free spins, respectively.
If you just can't wait for free spins, and the opportunity is there, players can buy them for 100x the bet. When buying free spins, you can randomly land 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 scatter symbols.
If Sweet Bonanza or Fruit Party and Fruit Party 2 were mixed in a blender, the resulting smoothie would probably turn out a lot like Sugar Rush. Sugar Rush mashes the candy looks of its predecessor with certain gameplay concepts from the Fruit Party range. It's not exactly the same, however, and the marked multiplier frame feature feels like something Hacksaw Gaming might do. The Fruit Party features were more random since wild multipliers might or might not appear in gaps left behind by winning clusters. Sugar Rush is more structured, so you know what may (or may not) be about to occur in marked positions.
So some of the ambiguity is gone, and while multipliers can grow in the base game, they get a leg up in free spins since they remain in view until the feature finishes. Having a juicy number of multipliers doubling in value in Sugar Rush is a little like the satisfaction felt when getting a good flow on while playing the puzzle game 2048. Like a lot of what Pragmatic Play releases around this time, max win in Sugar Rush tops out at 5,000x the bet – the same as the Fruit Party siblings. But here comes the potential rub - Sugar Rush has a max win frequency of 1 in 2.34 million, compared to 1 in 495,050 for Fruit Party 2, and the significantly lower 1 in 95,891 of Fruit Party. Maybe that matters, maybe it doesn't, yet stats like these might be the deciding factor for some discerning players.
Bump into Sugar Rush on the right day when it's landing winning clusters on top of big value multipliers, then thrills are bound to ensue. It's not easy to achieve by any means, though, and getting slapped around with jelly beans isn't much fun. There are better max win frequencies out there if it's a concern, but on the whole, Sugar Rush should be sweet enough to satisfy a level of craving for this style of game.
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