Hot Chilli

First off I’d like to say that Hot Chilli’s graphics and animations are excellent. But, after the first ten times you watch chopsticks picking winning combinations out of the bubbling liquid the fun starts to wear off. The problem is that aside from the ritual fishing for ingredients, nothing else really happens. And after starting too long at mushrooms, beef and corn, I simply began looking forward to my lunch break. Not the effect Pragmatic Play was gunning for, I’m sure.

Everything about this slot is designed to appeal the Asian market. From the symmetrical multiples of nine in the betting options, the deep red color scheme, the hot pot theme, and the 888 x maximum win (8 being the luckiest of numbers in Chinese culture), every aspect has been created to pander toward superstitions and ideations of luck. But players from several parts of the world are free to give this slightly off beat Pragmatic Play slot a go.

The hot pot is prepared in a rather opulent golden dragon pot, and the ingredient symbols are made up of tofu, tomatoes, beef, salmon and mushrooms. Instead of the usual spinning reels, symbols bob up and down in the surface of the spicy soup, forming winning combinations across 9 fixed paylines. The modern, vaguely Chinese, music is paired with the pleasant noise of bubbling liquid. But listen to it too long and you might find yourself in need of a bathroom break more often than is strictly necessary.

Forget any particularly exciting special features with this slot. It seems Pragmatic Play poured all its creativity into the design and forgot all about developing the actual gameplay. Of course there are a couple things to look out for, so I’ve run through them quickly below.

All symbols pay left to right on adjacent reels, starting from the leftmost reel. Take note, though, because there’s an exemption to this pay system. The highest value symbol is the Scatter, represented by a cube of tofu, and if you land 1, 2 or 3 tofu symbols then you’ll receive the corresponding win, regardless of where they landed across the entire grid. That makes the tofu symbol your best bet for big wins in the base game. The biggest profits, however, will be unlocked by the chilli symbols (our Wilds) marked by multipliers. These could come boosted by a 2 x, 3 x, 4 x or 5 x multiplier.

The top reward will come from a 2x-5x-2x wild combination which will give you 555.55 x your bet on a winning payline, and up to 888.88 x your bet when it hits in combination with other symbols. While it’s not exactly the most impressive win potential for most modern slots, it’s not all that bad for a 3 reel game either. Out of the standard symbols, the salmon is the most rewarding, offering players 11.11 x your bet for 3 on a winning payline. And there’s no room for uncertainty with Hot Chilli, because the paytable is laid out on the left side of the grid at all times, making it easy for players to calculate their wins as they spin.