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18 June 2024 
Papaya Pop Slot Overview
The PopWins series from AvatarUX returns yet again with something a little more sophisticated in the art department with an Art Deco style moderne theme.
PapayaPop is now the 8th in the PopWins series, which started not so long ago with PopRocks. The PopWins series has evolved more in theme than it has in gameplay since its inception with slots that have adopted many different styles, while the gameplay has been tweaked slightly to give it a sense of individuality.
CherryPop gave us that tried and true fruity theme, and BountyPop took us on a daring adventure with rogue pirates. Both TikiPop and HippoPop took us to a jungle setting in search of illustrious treasure, but now, we’re ready to swap out the life of adventure in favour of this Gatsby inspired slot where we’ll experience the Roaring Twenties in all its glory.
AvatarUX is part of Yggdrasil’s YGS Masters programme, which allows them to concentrate on what they do best with the benefit of Yggdrasi’ls distribution knowledge to send their games out into the world. The only game so far to have not been a PopWins game is AvatarUX’s Lilleths Inferno. Could we see something entirely different from AvatarUX in the future? Thankfully for AvatarUX, the PopWins series continues to impress despite many different adaptations.
Can Papaya Pop and its sophisticated debonair continue this successful campaign?
In this Papaya Slot Review, we’ll be breaking down all of the features and statistics to see if Papaya Pop is better or worse than other slots in the series.
Papaya Pop Slot Theme
Papaya Pop has made the PopWins series a little more dapper than usual with an elegant Art Deco style.
Art Deco is a visual style of art that was adopted early in the 20th century as a design sensibility that manifested through art, architecture, fashion and every day items. Some of the most famous buildings like the Chrysler Building modelled itself with this style in mind.
This syle is still a beloved influence even today, so it’s unsurprising to see that despite its age, we still see it in slot format from time to time.
Papaya Pop brilliantly captures the essence of this prominent decorative era in both visuals and audio. The music for Papaya Pop is a Jazz/Swing style song that serves to create a very uplifting and immersive 1920’s experience.
AvatarUX have done well with the theme of Papaya Pop. It’s not as over the top visually as some of the other pop games, but it does great in capturing the essence of the intended style.
Papaya Pop Slot: Betting and Symbols
Papaya Pop has extensive betting options for those who fancy a bit of the 20’s.
The lowest option here is £/€0.20 per spin, and the highest option is £/€40 per spin. There are a lot of different options in between the two, so everyone can get involved with this one.
When it comes to the symbols, AvatarUX have once again separated their symbols into Super High, High and Low Paying Symbols.
The Super High Paying Symbol is the Papaya, and the high paying symbols start with the Silver Pineapple. Other high paying symbol involve some very exotic fruits, like the Cucumis Meuliferus, or Horned Melon for short. We also have Star Fruits, Dragon Fruits, Mangos and Figs. Our decorum levels must be a little low because it took a fair amount of googling to figure out what these exotic fruits actually were.
Thankfully the low paying symbols don’t require a level of sophistication that we obviously don’t possess. These symbols are Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10 & 9.
There is no Wild symbol in Papaya Pop.
Papaya Pop: The Base Game and Features
Papaya Pop is a 5 reel slot with 486 ways to win as standard.
Wins pay both ways in this slot, so you need to connect at least symbols from left to right or right to left to connect a win.
When a win occurs, the winning symbols will disappear from their respective reels and the row height will increase, which improves the ways to win and your chance of connecting any subsequent hits. New symbols will ‘pop’ into play to fill the spaces of the old symbols.
In the Base Game the reels may reach up to 6 high, but this can increase up to 9 symbols high in the Free Spins which means that the maximum number of ways to win can reach 118,098. If the reels expand and no new winning combinations occur, then the reels will reset back to the original height for the next spin.
Some of the AvatarUX pop games rely on Scatters to get you through to the Free Spins round, but Papaya Pop reverts to another method seen in other PopWins slots where you’ll need the reels to reach their maximum height.
Papaya Pop: Free Spins
Reels that have all reached a height of 6 will award Free Spins with a starting x2 multiplier.
Before the round commences, you’ll have the choice on whether to gamble your bonus for a better set up, or start the round.
You can gamble for 2048 ways and an x3 multiplier, and you can gamble again for 3250 ways with either a 4x multiplier or a 5x multiplier.
Losing any of the gambles will forfeit the Free Spins altogether, so be careful if you’re looking to gamble this one!
Papaya Pop does something a little bit different in the way that there are no set number of spins. 3 lives are given, and hitting a combination of symbols will reset the lives to 3.
3 spins without any winning symbols will end the bonus.
As mentioned, the symbols can now reach up to 9 high and 10,542x ways to win, and the super high paying symbol Papaya is now in play. Just like in other Pop Games, the reels will reset to the height of the shortest reel on the next spin if you did not manage to expand all reels.
The multiplier in Papaya Pop will increase with every spin by +1, but this will change to increase by +2 if the reel height reaches the maximum height.
Papaya Pop: Bonus Buy
Those outside of the UK will be able to benefit from a Bonus Buy option.
This will cost a rather reasonable 75x your stake. You’ll be taken to the screen where you can choose either the minimum set up, or gamble for better multipliers and more winning ways.
Papaya Pop Slot: Our Verdict
AvatarUX have made 8 of these slots so far, so differing them from each other in a significant way will surely prove to be a difficult task if they decide to continue with the series.
Papaya Pop definitely gives you that PopWins experience, but the potential of this slot is lacking compared to other PopWins slots with a capability of 10,542x. To contextualise how dumbed down the win potential is, HippoPop is capable of 48,150x, TikiPop is capable of 32,000x and BountyPop is able to reach 55,000x.
We’re not quite sure why AvatarUX decided to cap Papaya Pop to what could be considered a low value if you take into account the other slots, maybe they decided to be more realistic. Despite the maximum win capabilities of some of their other slots, we haven’t actually seen anyone hit the highest possible win amount yet.
Other than the gripe with the nerfed potential, Papaya Pop is a great looking slot, and it can perform brilliantly. Players will undoubtedly be divided on whether they prefer the maximum reel height bonus trigger or the scatters, but we don’t suppose this will matter too much to players outside of the UK who may just buy the bonus.
Things can get very exciting within the bonus. Frequent hits will reset your spin count back to 3 and as the reels increase in height the liklihood of more wins to keep the party going is definitely there, and the excitement you feel when the multiplier starts climbing is a memorable experience.
We can see Papaya Pop both disappointing players and pleasing them. We think that AvatarUX did much better with the likes of BountyPop, and once again AvatarUX have just slightly changed the formula to make it a slightly different game.
We love the PopWins slots and hope to see more innovation from them in the future, but if innovation means abandoning the series altogether in favour of newer ideas, then so be it.
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