Slots! review

Slots! is a new Facebook-based slot machine simulator from Digital Chocolate. The game is also set to hit iOS and Android devices soon. Slots! is, at its core, a fairly conventional slot machine simulator. Seven different machines are available, each with their own unique audio-visual theme, but all operating in the same way. Increasing the bet per spin activates more potential win lines, costing more coins per spin but increasing the chances of scoring a winning combination. Spinning the reels awards the player with experience, which is used to unlock new machines and higher-stakes versions of machines that players already have access to. Betting more in one go awards larger amounts of experience, meaning that as the player levels up they will need to advance to the higher-stakes machines in order to continue progressing through the levels at a good rate. Each slot machine has its own simple bonus game that relates to its audio-visual theme -- for example, in the "Magic Woods" machine's bonus game, players are picking various food items to give to a fairy and hoping they do not pick a cursed item. The more items they successfully pick, the greater their bonus winnings. Most of the bonus games are entirely luck-based with no skill involved, but they offer a mildly entertaining diversion from endlessly clicking the "spin" button. One twist on the usual slot machine sim formula is the use of powerups. By repeatedly spinning the reels, a powerup bar at the bottom of the screen charges up, at which point a random item from the player's inventory is selected and may be deployed. Powerups range from winnings multipliers to the "Quake" item, which automatically nudges the reels to score a winning combination for several spins. These items are only available in limited quantities, however -- there is a cap on how many the player may hold at one time according to their level, and powerups may only be purchased using soft currency in "blind packs," with the specific combination of items added to the player's inventory determined randomly. As with most of Digital Chocolate's titles, Slots! is immaculately presented. It runs at a smooth frame rate and features impressive graphical effects -- the attractive particle effects when a powerup is activated are particularly noteworthy -- along with sound and music that fits well with the various machines' themes. This does little to disguise the fact that the game is a mostly-conventional slot machine simulator, however -- it's still designed to keep players compulsively clicking the "Spin" button over and over again, with bonus games cropping up very rarely. The game promises leaderboards and an achievement system, but the latter is not yet implemented and the former, if it is already included in the game, does not make itself particularly obvious. Consequently, social features are limited to a very basic "gift and collect" system, where players can collect free coins from their fellow players once per day as well as send them gifts of either coins or "mystery boxes." Ultimately, Slots! is a perfectly competent slot machine simulator -- in fact, it's a pretty good one, it just doesn't do anything particularly new and exciting beyond having excellent presentation. It'll be worth checking back on in a month or two to see if any interesting new features have been added, but at present there's relatively little beyond the impressive aesthetics to set it apart from its numerous rivals. Slots! currently has 220,000 monthly active users and 30,000 daily active users. Follow its progress with AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers. Wait Impressive presentation, but a fairly ordinary slot machine simulator at its core. Check back in a month or two to see if anything interesting has been added.

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Slots! review

Pete Davison

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Pete Davison