Star Pops Slot Review, Demo Play, Payout, Free Spins & Bonuses

Star Pops Review

Electric Elephant have a somewhat interesting back catalog of releases under their belt, and they have tried their luck in many different genres. The Balloon genre is probably not the easiest niche to succeed in, as the likes of Big Time Gaming have tried and failed. Star Pops is a colorful release that can pop under the right conditions, and it comes with fairly entertaining features.

Set against an ever-changing cloudy backdrop, all the colorful balloons float upwards on the 8x8 cascading wins cluster pays grid. They all pay the same, and the balloon-specific multiplier increases per consecutive win. Star Wild Balloons may combine cluster multipliers for up to x1,000 boosts, and the multipliers never reset in the bonus round. This means that the solid 14,165x potential can be cracked in all stages of the game, and a Destroyer balloon may help you out at random times.

Star Pops Slot - Reels Screen

Star Pops Slot Features

Don’t worry if you’re confused by all the different color balloons, as they all pay the same anyway. Landing 5 to 25+ matching balloons in the same cluster pays between 0.25 and 5 x your stake, and all winning balloons pop to make room for new balloons to float up from below.

This cascading feature also comes with a balloon-specific multiplier that starts at x1, and it increases by +1 per cascading win a balloon type is part of.

Everything resets between cascading sequences though, and the balloon-specific multiplier can go no higher than x100 without combining with another balloon cluster via Wilds. The Star Balloon Wild steps in for all regular symbols to help complete winning clusters, and this also combines the respective balloon multipliers. A combined multiplier can go as high as x1,000.

The Wild is sticky for each cascading sequence, and it floats up (if possible) or moves around per cascade in one way or the other. Sometimes, on non-winning spins or at the end of a cascading sequence, a random symbol will be selected as the Destroyer Balloon. It is destroyed along with a double diagonal line of regular balloon symbols, like an ‘X’ with the chosen balloon at the center.

This triggers a new cascade, and thus a new winning chance.

The Star Balloon Wild is also the game’s scatter, and you trigger the Bonus Round if you can rack up 3 scatters in the same cascading round. This awards 7 free spins, and the triggering Star Balloon Wild/Scatters are sticky for the duration of the feature. Balloon multipliers are carried over from the base game, and the multipliers never reset during the feature. They all reset when you return to the base game though.

Finally, non-UK players, and anyone eligible, may purchase the bonus round via the Bonus Buy feature. This will set you back 100x your stake, and the RTP decreases slightly, from 96.59 % to 96.52 %, which is a bit unusual.

The 200 Spins Star Pops Slot Experience

You get a decent taste of everything the base game has to offer, before we purchase the bonus round at 1:36 into the 4-minute highlights video. We ran into a longer cascade towards the end of the feature, and you can see for yourself how we fared by hitting the play button below.

Review Summary

Although we’ve seen a similar concept before, not least in Big Time Gaming’s Pop, Star Pops still comes across as a highly original release from Electric Elephant. It gets a bit monotonous after a while with all the balloons though, something Pop avoided by also including regular royal symbols. The name of the base game is to get as many consecutive cascades as possible, cranking up the balloon multipliers and hopefully connect clusters via wilds for a more solid boost.

Most of the time you’re hitting dead spins or smaller wins though, but the Destroyer feature seemed to trigger quite often to help us out.

Everything is enhanced in the bonus round, since the multipliers are not only carried over from the base game, but also don’t reset between rounds. The 14,165x potential is solid enough, and it seems achievable given the combining balloon multipliers, but we don’t think this will be the big breakthrough release for Electric Elephant.

Pros

• Balloon-specific multipliers increase per win
• Multipliers can combine into x1,000 at the most
• Random Destroy balloon on non-winning spins
• FS w/ non-resetting balloon multipliers

Cons

• Gets a bit too monotonous after a while

If you appreciate Star Pops Slot you should also try:

Pop - is a Big Time Gaming balloon slot that plays out on a 4x4 grid with 256 win ways, and you’ll benefit from wild balloons with up to x4 multipliers. The royals spin as regular symbols, while the balloons float upwards, and the progressive sticky position multipliers in the bonus round can lead to payouts up to 66,960x your stake.

The Incredible Balloon Machine - is a Crazy Tooth Studio release that plays out like one of those burst mechanic Bitcoin games, only you don’t need cryptocurrency to play this one. Inflate balloons for as long as you dare, as it can pop at any time, and benefit from the ever-increasing bet multiplier for payouts up to 3,082x your stake.

Fly. - is a balloon-infused cluster pays Habanero release with cascading wins, and you’ll benefit from both wild and scatter balloons. You’re guaranteed to trigger the bonus round every 160 spins, and you can win balloon prizes up to 25,000x in the circus tier of the feature.

The overall max win is a very solid 36,140x your stake.

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