Pile ‘Em Up Frosty Sweets

Pile 'Em Up Frosty Sweets: Slot Overview

When a studio's done good in the online gambling sphere, at least two options lie before them. One, take all that was learnt from the successful project and channel it into a new endeavour, or repackage the whole thing in a new skin and send it out into the world, again. Games Global studio Snowborn has picked the second road and reskinned its 2022 slot Pile 'Em Up, by giving the whole show a snowy, sweety effect. Why is anyone's guess, but if a more frigid version of Pile 'Em Up gets your blood runnin' hot, best be joining us as we take on Pile 'Em Up Frosty Sweets.

Pile 'Em Up possessed a simplistic charm, which has translated to Pile 'Em Up Frosty Sweets, as well, yet colder, as mentioned. Instead of the green, tree-lined Duplo-like world of before, players get a frosty, snow-capped environment full of sweets. Hey, ho, neither is really more enticing visually than the other. Perhaps deciding to pick one over the other will depend on how the weather outside is doing. At first, suspicions arose that Pile 'Em Up Frosty Sweets was the first Christmas slot of the year, but no, there is virtually no reference to Xmas here. Unless it's one of those woke Xmas celebrations that does its best to erase as many Christmas references as possible, ending up bland, generic, and un-full of cheer.

In the background, a highly volatile math model chugs away, producing a default RTP of 96.22%, though be aware lower return configurations are available as well. When picking bets, the options are 20 p/c to $/€30 per spin with neither ante bet nor feature buy on hand. A transparent gaming grid is where the action occurs, and 15 symbols land on each spin in a 5-reel, 3-row formation utilising 20 paylines crisscrossing the grid.

Those symbols are made up of frozen plums, watermelons, lemons, and strawberries as the four low pays, then four frozen sweets as the four high pays. Hitting a 5 OAK winning line awards 1 to 3.75 times the bet for a lower value win, rising to 12 to 20 times the bet for a high pay win. Present on all reels is Pile 'Em Up Frosty Sweets' wild symbol. As well as replacing any regular paying symbol, wild wins are worth up to 111 times the bet when 5 of them line up just so.

Pile 'Em Up Frosty Sweets: Slot Features

Feel free to skip this section if you're already clued up on the workings of Pile 'Em Up since there's nothing new to glean her amongst the Coin Symbols & Collect, Coin Booster, free spins, and bonus round features.

Coin Symbols & Collect

Coin symbols land with values of 0.2 to 50 times the bet. When a Collect symbol lands on reel 5, it awards the total amount of all coin symbols multiplied by the value of the Coin Booster.

Coin Booster

The Coin Booster multiplier starts at x1 and increases when 1UP symbols land - up to x10. After the multiplier has been applied to coin symbols, it drops back to x1. The multiplier is stored per bet and is available in the base game, free spins, and the bonus.

Free Spins

Free spins scatter symbols are present on reels 1, 3, and 5. Hitting 3 scatters awards 1.5x the bet as well as 9 free spins. During the free spins round, landing 2 scatters awards an extra 3 free spins, or hitting 3 scatters awards an extra 9 free spins. Any Coin Booster multiplier is carried over from the base game to the free spins feature, and all coins are collected by the Coin Respin counter. Free spins end when there are no free spins left, and players get a chance to win the total amount collected by the Coin Respin counter - multiplied by the Coin Booster multiplier.

Bonus

Collecting a bonus symbol on each reel triggers the bonus feature. Bonus symbols can be collected over several spins. Bonus symbols must land on each reel at least once to trigger the feature, and the bonus symbol collection is stored per bet. When triggered, the bonus awards 3 bonus spins. Each symbol that lands resets the count. Coin symbols are sticky when they land till the feature ends, and any Coin Booster multiplier is carried over. The feature ends when spins run out or there are coins in all landing positions. If coins are in all of the positions, their values transform to 50x the bet. Wins from the feature are paid at the end with all coin values multiplied by the Coin Booster multiplier.

Pile 'Em Up Frosty Sweets: Slot Verdict

You know, it's nice going into the review process with a smile plastered on, taking each game as it comes, regardless of how it may have spawned itself onto the planet. However, after comparing the paytable and stats of Pile 'Em Up Frosty Sweets to the non-Frosty Sweets original Pile 'Em Up slot, it didn't take for any smile to melt like a spent candle into a mask of wearied tedium. Again? Really? Why? The first game was alright, not bad at all, then it reappeared in Tippy Tavern, and bits of it again in Fish 'Em Up, so by now, meh. Creating such an uninspiring, straightforward clone feels like the definition of a quota-making filler slot. Indeed, it's a common characteristic that many Games Global providers seem to share, repeatedly recycling the same mechanics with minimal variation. While this might resonate with their target audience, it doesn't around here.

And with the rant done, let's move on to more positive things. For one, Pile 'Em Up Frosty Sweets is no worse than the original from a technical perspective. It's also held in a fairly charming, cheerful place, a bit colder than before, but that could be a plus for some players. Eh, the winning potential isn't half bad at 7,500x the bet, the features are fairly varied, plus they seemed to move with a satisfying swiftness, and… Man, it feels like we are fishing hard for positives here.

Let's round off by saying Pile 'Em Up Frosty Sweets isn't majorly worse than the original game or anything, but by the same token, its pointless superfluousness was hard to throw off. It's like an AI entity coming to the realisation for the first time that it is AI rather than a living, breathing human being and questioning its very purpose and whether or not it has a soul.