Sugar Rush by Pragmatic Play - Online Slot Review

Upon opening the game, you stand in front of a giant candy machine unlike any you've seen in your life. There are buttons, fans, strange containers, switches, tubes, and it's nearly impossible to figure out the purpose of this entire contraption. It works kind of in reverse compared to a classic vending machine, as instead of putting in money and receiving candy, you insert cash and have a chance to take out even more cash! In the backdrop, as expected, even more sweets build up into hills and mountains coronated with jellies and lollipops - everything in endless shades of pink and blue. The jumpy, tinny tune with a lot of claps and cymbals suits the sugary atmosphere well, but it quickly becomes overwhelming, and for us, the game was more enjoyable without it.

What awaits us on the massive 7x7 playing grid? More sweets! At this point, you'd think that the title Sugar Rush is well-earned. There are 7 regular symbols in total, 3 low-paying gummy bears, jellies in the form of a star, an eggplant, and a heart, plus the top-value lollipop head. There's one special icon you'd want to watch out for - a candy-propelled rocket, which serves as Scatter and will take you on the ride to the free spins round.

How To Win On Sugar Rush Slot - Features & Mechanics

Base wins form out of at least 5 matching symbols connected vertically and horizontally. The largest paid sets consist of 15 instances, and any greater combination won't pay more, according to the pay table. The game also features a cascading (or tumbling) mechanism that removes all successful hits and adds more symbols to the empty spaces, creating opportunities to score more wins. In Sugar Rush, it's essential as there is one core feature that couldn't exist without it and is the source of the slot's maximum potential.

Multiplier Spots

Every symbol contributing to a win will mark its position with a semi-transparent yellow candy wrapper that sits on a layer underneath the main view. If more hits occur within the same cascading sequence and fall onto the previously-marked spots, they will activate the wrapper and add an x2 multiplier to it. From that point on, successive wins landing on those positions will have their values multiplied and increase the multiplier further. The situation can repeat up to 6 times, eventually producing an x128 multiplier affecting any further wins landing on that spot. Everything needs to happen within one full spin, as wrappers are cleared from the view after all cascades finish.

Sugar Rush Free Spins

You activate the bonus round with Scatter symbols and depending on their number scored, there will be more free spins waiting for you at the beginning. Land 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 special symbols to start with 10, 12, 15, 20, or 30 spins. Here, the playthrough is almost identical to what you've seen in the base game, with one game-changing difference. All wrappers you generate and their multipliers are persistent and won't disappear between individual spins. It means you can build tremendous values, especially if you have more free spins at your disposal. On many occasions, you'll see the better part of the view covered with multipliers affecting many wins simultaneously, and combinations covering several wrappers will benefit from all values added together before being applied to the base win.

If you don't feel like hunting the Scatters in regular gameplay, there's a bonus buy functionality that lets you trigger the bonus instantly for 100 times the active bet.

Sugar Rush On Mobile

Pragmatic Play offers the slot in the latest HTML5 technology on all mobile devices, so it's perfect for anyone who likes to do some spinning on a smartphone or a tablet. As expected, the landscape variant comes with an identical view to the desktop version only with the UI rearranged for more convenient access. The portrait mode looks well and is comfortable to play, even despite the unfavorable horizontal orientation of the symbol design. Having the main playing area pushed up the screen allows for the free distribution of all necessary elements in the lower half.

Final Thoughts

Sugar Rush, like the previous Pragmatic's hit - Sweet Bonanza, proves yet again that straightforward slots containing one powerful feature enhanced in the bonus are enough to achieve success. The design is what we usually expect from the studio's games, especially regarding the sweet candy themes - clear and readable symbols on a semi-transparent reel background. The tumbling reels are a perfect mechanism connecting seamlessly with the underlying multipliers, together producing loads of anticipation on every single spin. Making the primary feature persistent in the free spins is another clever move that minimizes the learning curve but distinctly maximizes the win potential. However, we're slightly surprised with the cap set at 5,000x because with multipliers growing to x128 and several instances of them being able to contribute to a single cluster, the true max win most likely goes into tens of thousands. When other studios deliver games reaching 100,000x, such a conservative approach from Pragmatic Play feels like wasting an incredible potential.