Icarus: Heat of Fortune

Icarus: Heat of Fortune Slot Review

Icarus fills the left edge of the screen, wings strapped on with leather and bronze, one arm reaching up out of frame towards a sun he was never supposed to touch. Mancala Gaming‘s take on the myth hides most of its money: three reels, three rows, and only one of those rows worth anything until a Collector arrives to gather the dormant Coins.

There are no paylines, and very little pays on a single spin. Wins come when a Collector lands on the middle row and sweeps up the grid’s Coin values, in a medium volatility game with a 15,000x maximum win. Mancala know this territory from Coin Fusion, Clover Vault: Progressive JP and Buffalo Goes Wild 2. Reaching the top of the ladder means filling all nine cells of the grid, one respin at a time.

How the Base Game Pays

The base game runs on a single active row. Coins, Jackpot symbols and Surprise symbols can all land anywhere on the 3×3 grid, but only the middle row counts for anything, and none of those symbols pay on their own.

The win arrives when a Collector symbol lands on that middle row and gathers up every Coin value on the grid at once. That single mechanic is the whole base game. Coins sit where they land, inert until a Collector activates.

Surprise symbols are equally passive here: they only wake up inside the bonus game. Jackpot symbols in the base game don’t pay either; they exist to help trigger the bonus round. It’s a patient structure, closer to a hold-and-coins game than a traditional spinner.

The paytable is short, and the values are multiples of the total bet:

• Coin: 1x to 50x the bet, depending on the value shown
• Major jackpot symbol: 200x the bet
• Minor jackpot symbol: 50x the bet
• Mini jackpot symbol: 10x the bet

Those jackpot figures sit on a ladder displayed beside the reels: Mini, Minor, Major and, at the top, a Grand worth 15,000x the stake. The ladder values scale with the bet, so what you see is what your stake pays.

Collector Symbols and Extra Spins

A Collector symbol can land in any position on the grid, but in the base game it only switches on when it stops on the middle row. When that happens it does two things: it collects the value of every Coin symbol on the grid, and it starts the Extra Spins feature.

Extra Spins opens with three spins, and the Collector that triggered it stays locked in its cell until the feature finishes. Each of those spins is another chance for Coins, Jackpot symbols and Surprise symbols to land, with the locked Collector waiting to sweep them up. Extra Spins runs entirely in the base game; the bonus round has its own machinery.

The Bonus Game

Three symbols across the middle row open the bonus game. It starts with three respins, and every time a new symbol lands anywhere on the grid, the respin count resets back to three. The round ends when the respins run out or the grid fills, and everything collected pays at the finish.

Inside the bonus game, the rules change for almost every symbol:

• Collector symbols become active in any position, collecting all Coin values once on landing
• Surprise symbols transform into any symbol except the Surprise Jackpot symbol
• Surprise Jackpot symbols transform into Jackpot symbols only
• More than one Jackpot of each type can be won in a single round
• Frames can appear, applying a multiplier to everything inside them at the round’s end

The reset mechanic is what gives the round its shape. As long as new symbols keep landing, the count returns to three and the round keeps breathing, which makes every empty respin feel like a small loss and every Coin feel like a stay of execution. A grid that fills cell by cell can run for a long time.

The Frame feature is the one that quietly does the heavy lifting. A Frame multiplies every symbol that lands within it, and the multiplier applies to all of them when the round closes. It won’t help you to the Grand, but a well-placed Frame across a cluster of high-value Coins can turn a modest round into a serious one.

The Grand Jackpot

Fill all nine positions of the grid with symbols of any type and the Grand Jackpot pays out at 15,000x the stake. There’s a catch worth knowing: taking the Grand forfeits every other prize collected in that round. A full grid means the Grand and nothing else.

Only a symbol that has finished transforming counts towards filling the grid: a Surprise in mid-flight never does, though its contents will. Coins caught inside a Frame when the round closes are multiplied once by the Frame’s value, then banked with everything else.

Buy Bonus

There’s a single buy option. It costs 95 bets and drops you straight into the respins game with the standard three respins. That’s a steep entry price relative to the Mini and Minor rungs of the ladder, so the buy is really a bet on Coins, Frames and the Major paying their way across a full round.

The arithmetic is worth spelling out: at 95 bets, you need the round to return close to a hundred multiples of your stake just to break even. A single Major at 200x clears that bar on its own, which tells you exactly which rung of the ladder the buy is priced against.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.1/10

Most of a session on Icarus is spent watching Coins land and hoping one row behaves. That’s the whole pitch, and it’s a good one if you like hold-and-coins games: the grid slowly stocking up with money that only pays when a Collector finally shows, which is about as close to flying towards the sun as a 3×3 grid gets.

The bonus round is the best thing here. Because every symbol wakes up inside it and the respin count keeps resetting, a good round compounds instead of just running out. The price of that is everything outside it: the base game pays through one symbol on one row, and it can feel like window-shopping the interesting part.

This is one for players who enjoy the slow accumulation of hold-and-coins slots and don’t need constant action between features. Anyone who wants something happening on every spin will find the glide too long. For the patient type, the build is the game, and the 15,000x Grand at the top of the ladder makes the patience worth holding.

Icarus: Heat of Fortune FAQs

• Is Icarus: Heat of Fortune high volatility?

  No. Icarus: Heat of Fortune is a medium volatility game, so wins should arrive at a steadier rhythm than a high volatility title, with the 15,000x Grand Jackpot as the top-end payout.
• How many paylines does Icarus: Heat of Fortune have?

  It has no paylines at all. The game is played on a 3×3 grid and only the middle row is active during the base game, with wins collected by the Collector symbol rather than paid on lines.
• How do you trigger the bonus game in Icarus: Heat of Fortune?

  Lining up any three symbols on the middle row in the base game opens the round. It begins with three respins, and each new symbol that lands resets the count back to three. The round ends when the respins run out or the grid fills.
• What does the Collector symbol do in Icarus: Heat of Fortune?

  In the base game the Collector only activates on the middle row, where it collects the values of all Coin symbols and triggers the Extra Spins feature. In the bonus game it’s active in any position and collects all Coin values once, on landing.
• What do Surprise symbols do in Icarus: Heat of Fortune?

  They do nothing in the base game. In the bonus game, Surprise symbols transform into any symbol except the Surprise Jackpot symbol, while Surprise Jackpot symbols transform into Jackpot symbols only. A Surprise can’t itself win the Grand Jackpot; only whatever it turns into can.
• Can you buy the bonus on Icarus: Heat of Fortune?

  Yes. The Buy Bonus feature costs 95 bets and buys a Respins Game starting with the standard three respins.
• When is Icarus: Heat of Fortune released?

  Icarus: Heat of Fortune’s release date is 13 October 2026.
• Who makes Icarus: Heat of Fortune?

  Icarus: Heat of Fortune is made by Mancala Gaming, the studio behind titles including Coin Fusion and Clover Vault: Progressive JP.