Chilli Pop Slot Review: pop the piñatas for real $$$ wins

Have you every smashed a piñata? Here’s your chance to do it over and over again on the Chilli Pop slot from BetSoft Gaming. A smiling bunch of Mexican chillies and their vegetable compadres are having a reel party with cascading symbols, exploding wins and, of course, smashing colorful piñatas. Let the mules join the fun as they will trigger the free spins round with an expanded game window that can lead to scorching hot wins of up to 2,200 times the bet.

Whilst most prominent in Mexican culture, the ritual of smashing a piñata is actually a worldwide tradition that can be found among other places in Spain, Italy, Denmark, India, and as far as China and Japan. History records credit the beginnings of the colorful creations to the Chinese, the Aztec, and the Mayan people.

At its roots, the ceremony symbolized an offering to the gods at special occasions but over time lost its religious character. Today, piñata busting plays a major part in celebrations such as birthday parties, Christmas, and Cinco De Mayo.

Overview and Design

Chilli Pop is a further addition to the cinematic 3D slots series from BetSoft. The quirky party chillies will welcome you on a hot and sunny day to their Mexican village with bodegas and cantinas on each side of the main road. They feature prominently on the reels together with their vegetable friends creating a bustling and colorful gaming experience. The soundtrack could come straight from a Quinceañera and will have you tip-toeing throughout your session.

Chilli Pop Video Slot

The piñata party goes down on a reel set in a 5x3 format, featuring cascading symbols and cluster pays. You will need to hit a minimum of three matching symbols in a connected cluster to score a pay.

The game window increases to a giant 8x8 size in the free spins, providing the room for bigger clusters and spicy-hot wins. You can join in on the piñata smashing from $0.50 to $50 per spin. A medium volatility and a default RTP of 95.38% will make sure that the party does not end in a quick bust.

Open the game to be greeted by the smiling bunch of vegetables which will be your compadres on the reels. In ascending order of value, they are leeks, tomatoes, green, red, and orange bell peppers, garlic heads as well as yellow and orange chillies. Payouts are calculated per symbol, which we will explain in more detail in the next paragraph.

Base Symbols Payout Chart

As expected, a colorful piñata acts as the wild symbol with the added benefit that it can appear super stacked at all times and substitutes for all regular pay symbols. Plus, any wins with a piñata will be multiplied by the number of piñatas in the cluster plus 1. For example, two piñatas in cluster will award a x3 multiplier.

Wins for clusters of piñatas are only paid for a full screen. For all other times, the win for the substituted symbol is awarded. In the base game, the payout for 15 piñatas comes in at 50x your stake. It will increase to a huge 1,000x your bet on the extended 8x8 grid in the free spins.

Last but not least, a laughing mule with a sombrero is the scatter symbol.

Cascading Symbols and Cluster Pays Explained

Instead of spinning reels, Chilli Pop uses a cascading mechanic that will drop symbols onto the reels at the start of a spin sequence. A minimum of three matching symbols or in combination with piñata wilds need to land directly connected, either vertically or horizontally, to score a win. All symbols from a winning cluster will explode to make room for new symbols to cascade into place, leading potentially to more clusters which will allow you to win again and again. A spin sequence ends when no winning clusters land after a cascade.

Mule scatters will not be removed, instead, they stay on the screen until the end of the spin sequence. The free spins will be triggered when minimum of three are in view.

Matching Symbols Explode and New Ones Drop From Above

Pays are calculated per symbol and multiplied by your coin denomination for the bet. For example, landing a cluster with four orange chillies will pay 48 coins, 12 coins for each symbol, equaling 4 x 12 coins = 48 coins. If your coin denomination is at 0.50 (corresponding to a total bet of $25), then it will convert to 4 x 12 x $0.50 = $24 credits.

The maximum you can hit in the base game with the 5×3 grid are clusters of 15 symbols, which can increase up to 64 symbols in the free spins with the 8×8 grid. Not to forget, any wild symbol in the cluster will multiply the win accordingly.

Chili Pop Free Spins Feature

The piñata party is about to heat up as we approach the highlight of the reel celebration. The game will award between 5 and 26 free spins for 3 to 15 scatters in view at the end of a spin sequence, and the free spins cannot be retriggered once active. However, the scatters will play a key role in creating big win potential.

The Game Field Can Expand During Free Spins

The bonus round starts off on the default 5x3 game window and will increase in stages to the maximum 8x8 size. On the left, you will see a mule trail with eight collectors. Any mule scatter from the triggering spin and those landing on a free spin will be added to the meters. The game grid will increase progressively with each completed meter.

• Collect a total of 5 scatters - game window increases to 5×4
• Collect a total of 10 scatters - game window increases to 6×4
• Collect a total of 17 scatters - game window increases to 6×5
• Collect a total of 25 scatters - game window increases to 6×6
• Collect a total of 35 scatters - game window increases to 6×7
• Collect a total of 45 scatters - game window increases to 6×8
• Collect a total of 55 scatters - game window increases to 7×8
• Collect a total of 70 scatters - game window increases to 8×8

Naturally, you want to increase the grid as early as possible as the free spins cannot be retriggered, and the potential for bigger winning clusters grows with the size of the game window. We tested the game extensively and regularly managed to reach a 6x8 size; the latter two expansions seemed more difficult to achieve.

Buy Feature Option Explained

Tired of waiting for an organic feature trigger? Lately, an increasing number of slots offer the opportunity to buy a bonus feature at a fixed cost. A rather convenient option, but bear in mind that it does not come cheap, and there is no guarantee that the free spins round will pay sufficient to cover the cost.

You Can Pay for a Free Spins Round If You Don't Want to Wait to Trigger One

On Chilli Pop, it will cost you 49 times your standard bet to instantly trigger 10 free spins. Simply hit the “Buy Feature” button and confirm to start the free spins. The total amount will be deducted from your balance before the round starts.

Chilli Pop Mobile

BetSoft Gaming was one of the first developers to convert their games to the latest HTML5 format, which means they can be played on virtually any device across all OS platforms. This includes desktop PCs, Android smartphones, and of course iPad, Mac, and iPhones. The game will automatically detect the device you are playing on and load the correct version accordingly.

Conclusion

Chasing big wins is always part of our gaming sessions. But that is not all, we also want the slots to be entertaining, and it's even better when they make us smile or sway to some quirky tune. Chilli Pop does all of it really well while keeping the suspense for a big win elevated. Hitting multiple winning clusters in a row can lead quickly to a mega win in the base game and free spins.

Where to Play Chilli Pop

Chilli Pop was released in November 2018, and in the intervening time, it has spread to most of the casinos that utilize Betsoft's gaming platform. Yet, if you don't quite feel ready to play with your own cash on the line, then you can try out the game for free below:

When you believe the time is right to start to play Chilli Pop for real money, you can check it out at one of these fine internet casinos depending on your geographic region:

• BetOnline [USA, Canada, most countries apart from Australia]
• Sportsbetting.ag [USA, Canada, most countries apart from Australia]
• TigerGaming [Canada and most other countries apart from Australia and the United States]
• Everygame [USA, Canada, most countries apart from Australia]
• Juicy Stakes [USA, Canada, Australia, most countries]
• Wild Casino [USA, Canada, most countries apart from Australia]