Pile ‘Em Up

Pile 'em Up: Slot Overview

Pile 'em Up is an online slot from Microgaming partner Snowborn Games that give players keen on piling things up a chance to express their interest. Amongst the things you can stack are a growing Coin Booster multiplier, instant cash win Coin Symbols, a fairly basic Link&Win feature, and free spins where Coin Symbols are collected. If all this has you frothing to get your pile on, let's dive in.

Remember The Vault - Snowborn's debut release that was part online slot part Mission Impossible? Well, the studio has either come a long way from there or regressed, depending on your point of view. Pile 'em Up, and The Vault are poles apart, this one looking like the sort of cutely innocuous game NetEnt might have released back in the day. Looking at the game area, transparent reels of symbols spin between pipes in a forest location where bulbous green things line the bottom of the screen like watermelon trees. Various beeps and bleeps complete the scene in a game which looks like there might be a non-money version for Nintendo users floating around somewhere.

Unlike SEGA's Alex the Kidd, Pile 'em Up isn't out to make friends and is actually a highly volatile game with several interlinking features. The game has a hit rate of 25.78% and three RTP settings of 96.22% (the standard), 94.18%, plus a 92.35% version. Any device may be used to play Pile 'em Up on, where stakes of 20 p/c to $/€30 per game round may be chosen.

The first rule of Pile 'em Up is three or more matching symbols in adjacent reels from the left side constitute a winning combination. The board is made up of 5-reels, 3-rows, and 20 fixed paylines. Pay symbols suit Pile 'em Up's vibe, consisting of low-value plums, watermelons, lemons, and strawberries worth 1-3.75 times the stake for five of a kind, and high value blue, green, yellow, and red gems, worth up to 12 to 20 times the bet. The wilds have strangely high values, peaking at 111x the bet for five on a payline, while also replacing any regular paying symbols to complete a win.

Pile 'em Up: Slot Features

Till now, there hasn't really been much piling up, but that is all about to change. The first thing players can stack up is the Coin Booster. This is a multiplier which starts at x1 and increases by +1 whenever a 1UP symbol lands, up to a maximum of x10. The multiplier is stored per bet, so it changes when altering the stake.

Coin Symbols & Collect

Coin Symbols land with values of 0.2 to 50 times the total bet. When Coin Symbols land at the same time as the magnet Collect Symbol, the Coin values are multiplied by the Coin Booster and awarded. Once this occurs, the Coin Booster multiplier returns to x1.

Free Spins

Flower free spins symbols appear on reels 1, 3, and 5, and landing all three of them at once awards 9 free spins plus a cash payout of 1.5x the bet. The current Coin Booster multiplier is carried over. During free spins, landing 2 or 3 scatters awards an additional +3 or +9 free spins, respectively. Whenever Coin Symbols hit, they are collected by the Coin Respin counter. When free spins end, players get the chance to win the total value of the Coin Respin counter multiplied by the Coin Booster.

Heart Bonus

Whenever a Purple Heart symbol lands, it is collected on its respective reel. When 1 heart has been collected on all five reels, the Heart Bonus is activated - again, the Coin Booster multiplier is carried over. This is the Link&Win part of the game, which starts with 3 bonus spins and resets whenever a symbol lands on the reels. If a Coin Symbol lands, it sticks, while 1UP symbols do not. The round ends when all spins have been used or every position on the grid has been filled. If filled, each Coin Symbol turns into a 50x symbol. However the round ends, the values of all Coin Symbols in view are multiplied by the Coin Booster and paid out.

Pile 'em Up: Slot Verdict

Snowborn Games has made a real course correction lately. What started off with thrillers on the reels like The Vault or The Bounty has seen the studio shift into more adorable territory with games like this one, Coin Bash and Cat Clans. The feel-good approach fits the studio like a glove, and it's nice to see them move away from the scatter jackpot thing of previous slots to do something more their own.

On paper, there probably isn't much about Pile 'em Up, which comes across as overly original, though, such as the Fishin' Frenzy style Coin Symbol collection and the Link&Win Heart Bonus. However, Snowborn has put a personal spin on most aspects of the game, so there is an element of individualism. One plus is the progressive Coin Booster, multiplying Coin Symbols when they are collected in the base game, or at the end of the Heart Bonus or free spins.

Speaking of free spins, they did prove to be rather difficult to trigger. Not that the Heart Bonus was a frequent event either, but it's in the Heart Bonus where players presumably have the best chance of hitting Pile 'em Up's max win of 7,500 times the bet. This is the precise amount you'd get for filling the grid with 50x Coin Symbols and having an x10 Coin Booster multiplier in your pocket.

After the last few Snowborn releases, you get the impression the studio has figured out who their target audience is and is now honing in on them. Those in Snowborn's crosshairs, that is, players looking for a cute game with comfy features and one or two personal touches, then Pile 'em Up would very likely be a match.