Cloud Princess

Cloud Princess: Slot Overview

In the popular scatter paying slot category, it can seem like if you can't beat 'em, heck, join 'em. The 'em, in this case, has to be the current top dog, Pragmatic Play's popular Gates of Olympus 1000, with Sweet Bonanza 1000 trailing not far behind. Many a time have we seen copies of Gates or slots that use the gaming concepts found within Gates as a basis to build and divert from. In the latter scenario, we bump, surprisingly, into Cloud Princess. Surprising because it was designed by scratch card to online slot wonderkids Hacksaw Gaming, a studio famous for leading the herd rather than following it. Anyway, for Cloud Princess, the studio has taken several of GOO's core parts, pushed them in different directions, and bundled the result up in a glittering anime tiara.

Regardless of your thoughts on Cloud Princess, its anime influences are undeniable. It's also a game which appears to have drawn notable inspiration from Twilight Princess 1000, not just thematically, but mechanically as well. The princess hovers to the side of the gaming grid, looking both provocative and demure at the same time, while her realm is indeed very cloudy. The reel set is housed in an icy white edifice, covered in theme-related carvings, and the music is such that if you close your eyes, lean back, you can pretend you're floating away on a cloud into a fantasy land of romance, adventure, and big-eyed characters. Put simply, Cloud Princess looks and sounds the business if a manga/anime slot is on your to-do list.

A 6x5 gaming grid is where the symbols fall, and when 8 or more identical pay symbols are in view in any position, a win is formed. Behind all those clouds is a medium volatile math model linked to four different RTP configurations. When shopping around for the best deal, that would be the 96.24% version. Stakes are the usual 10 c to $/€100 per spin, and four bonus buys are on hand.

Ten pay symbols appear in Cloud Princess. Five are jewel-type objects as the low pays, while the highs are 5 more elaborate random objects. Combined, they give off strong anime vibes. A scatter win made up of 8 matching symbols awards 0.2 to 2 times the bet, while at the upper end of the scale, a 19+ scatter win pays 50 to 400 times the bet. Cloud Princess drops no wild symbols on the reels in any game phase.

Cloud Princess: Slot Features

As well as a cascading wins system, which removes winning symbols and performs a drop to replace them, Cloud Princess has 3 types of Multiplier symbol, a Cloud Surge bonus round, a Divine Boost bonus round, and bonus buys.

Multiplier Symbols

If there has been at least one win on a spin, and a multiplier symbol is also present, the multiplier symbol applies its value to the total win at the end of the spin. If more than one multiplier symbol is present in this situation, then the values are combined. The maximum multiplier symbol value possible is x10,000. There are three types of Multiplier symbols:

• Normal multiplier symbol - lands with a visible value of x2, x3, or x4 which increases by +1 with each new cascade.
• Super multiplier symbol - lands and reveals a value of x5, x10x, x15, or x20 when it activates, increasing by +2 on each new cascade.
• Epic multiplier symbol - lands with a visible value of x5, x10, x50, or x100, and doubles on each new cascade.

Cloud Surge

Hitting 3 FS scatter symbols in the base game triggers 10 free spins in this feature. On each spin, all wins are collected above the reels as a pending win amount. This amount is updated after each cascade that produces a win. If one or more multipliers land, their values are added together and applied to the total win at the end of the spin. Hitting 2 FS scatter symbols awards +2 free spins, or 3 FS scatter symbols awards +4 free spins.

Divine Boost

Landing 4 FS scatter symbols in the base game triggers this feature with 10 free spins. This round has a progressive Divine Multiplier that collects all multiplier symbol values which are part of a win. Multiplier values are stored in the progressive Divine Multiplier, which increases with each following winning spin containing multiplier symbols. Multiplier values are first added to the Divine Multiplier before being applied to the total win at the end of a free spin.

To be clear, if there is a win but no multiplier symbol on the reels, the Divine Multiplier is not applied. If there are multipliers on the grid but no wins, the multipliers are not added to the Divine Multiplier, and it remains inactive. Hitting 2 FS scatter symbols awards +2 free spins, or 3 FS scatter symbols awards +4 free spins.

Bonus Buy

The bonus buy options in Cloud Princess include: BonusHunt FeatureSpins - 3x the bet, each spin is 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus game, Heavenly FeatureSpins - 50x the bet, each spin guarantees at least one win and one multiplier symbol, Cloud Surge - 100x the bet, and Divine Boost - 200x the bet.

Cloud Princess: Slot Verdict

Hacksaw Gaming has dabbled in scatter pays before, Dragon's Domain, for example, but it's not a mechanic the studio has extensively used. Perhaps, then, a certain timidity is why Cloud Princess borrows so many ideas from elsewhere. Then again, timid is not a word one would usually associate with a studio that has proven to boldly innovate in the past, so there is likely another reason for Cloud Princess spawning into existence. It's rare for a Hacksaw Gaming to be so derivative. Cloud Princess has Pragmatic Play written all over it, with shades of Play'n GO's Moon Princess (which kind of started the trend) in there for good measure. Okay, the theme you can kind of let slide since no developer has exclusive rights to anime or manga, but the gameplay, well, it's a little too close for comfort in many ways. Scatter pays, multiplier symbols, and a building total multiplier in the free spins round? Hmm, and the way these features interact, double hmm. Cloud Princess is very Sweet Bonanza, Gate of Olympus, etcetera, etcetera.

As said, it's rare for Hacksaw to imitate someone else so obviously. It usually doesn't need to since the studio itself brims with fantastically original ideas. To be fair, some of the supplementary ideas Hacksaw has squeezed into Cloud Princess provide a smidge of originality. One of the most striking of Cloud Princess' rules was the ridiculous maximum Multiplier symbol value of x10,000. This number incidentally is also the game's max winning potential of 10,000x the bet. Getting a multiplier of this size is bound to make the heart skip a beat should one ever reach such a level. You'd think the best chance of that occurring is hitting an x100 Epic Multiplier symbol and doubling the daylights out of it. The increasing multiplier symbol element is one of Cloud Princess' more ingenious touches, but again, we saw this already recently in 4ThePlayer's 2 Sweet 4 U. Though, Cloud Princess has more potentially potent growing powers.

Perhaps one of the most singular things about Cloud Princess is simply the way the game feels. Cloud Princess might have similar features, but they behave that little bit differently here, so Gates fans, for instance, might not instantly be turned on by Cloud Princess. You need 4 scatters to get to the progressive multiplier bonus, multiplier symbol value growth adds a new dimension; it all just feels and performs like a Hacksaw Gaming slot. So, yes, Cloud Princess fails to throw off every one of the imitation accusations, but it ultimately manages to be a fetching addition to the scatter pays/multiplier symbol slot collection.