Sweet Alchemy 100

Sweet Alchemy 100: Slot Overview

Candy and witches, outside of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, are not a combo you see used a lot. One's all sweet and nice; the other's all mean and witchy. Not so in Sweet Alchemy 100 from Swedish provider Play'n GO, though. In this slot, the three witchy characters are of the benevolent kind, like Minerva McGonagall or Cassie Nightingale, and each one possesses a unique modifying ability they can bestow on the game grid. If it's ringing a distant Moon Princess bell, the reason why is Sweet Alchemy 100 is a reskin of Moon Princess 100, using a graphical overlay in the style of Sweet Alchemy, suggesting this may be the start of a '100' series of slots.

Candy was the leading character in Sweet Alchemy, and in Sweet Alchemy 100, we meet her three sisters – Cherry, Berry, and Apple. One sister hovers next to the game grid, and when the Witch Power feature triggers, the witch in view activates her particular modifier. Much of the UI/reels part of the screen should be familiar to players of Moon Princess 100, backgrounded by clouds floating along a sky, the precise colouration depending on the active witch. Sweet Alchemy 100 isn't so obviously anime-inspired as Moon Princess 100 was, but there's a hint about it.

Beneath the active gaming area, players are able to hit left or right buttons to pick a stake of 20 p/c to $/€100 per game round. Twenty-five symbols drop into the 5x5 grid, with the aim of landing 3 or more adjacent matching symbols in horizontal or vertical lines. Wins can start from any position. With volatility rated by Play'n GO as 8 out of 10, Sweet Alchemy 100 comes in five RTP configurations, with 96.2% being the default value.

Candies make up Sweet Alchemy 100's low pay symbols – a circular sweet, a crescent moon-shaped one, a diamond sweet, and a heart one; then, Apple, Berry, and Cherry are the high pays. A line of 5 candy symbols is worth 2-3 times the bet, a combination of any 5 witches is worth 5x the bet, while a pure 5 witch win pays 10 times the bet. It's worth noting that the same symbol may be used in more than one win at the same time.

Sweet Alchemy 100: Slot Features

When a winning combo lands, Moon Princess and its many offshoots, including Sweet Alchemy 100, are able to kickstart one of the most mesmerising win sequences in online gambling. Step one, when a win hits, the respective symbols are cleared from the board. They do not get replaced by new symbols, but a wild symbol is placed in the middle empty space of a 3-symbol win. In addition, a win multiplier is increased by each new drop, which resets between paid spins. Wild symbols replace any pay symbol and are worth 50x the bet for a line of 5 of them. Wilds are removed from the grid if they are the only type of symbol in view. When the grid is cleared (except in the Trinity feature), players win 50x the total bet. This prize is affected by the win multiplier.

Witch Power

Witch Power modifiers trigger randomly on non-winning spins in the base game. When this happens, the visible witch performs her power:

• Cherry – converts one set of symbols into another symbol.
• Berry – adds 1 or 2 wild symbols to the grid.
• Apple – removes 2 sets of symbols from the grid.

A random witch starts the game, and when one witch activates, the next one takes her place, in this order; Cherry – Berry – Apple.

Trinity

Witch symbol wins fill a 3-segment meter on the screen. A 3-symbol win fills 1 segment, a 4-symbol win fills 2 segments, and a 5-symbol win fills all 3 segments. When the meter is filled, Trinity is triggered, and the multiplier is reset. Trinity awards 1 free spin where all 3 witches perform their Witch Powers, Cherry, then Berry, then Apple. If the grid is cleared during Trinity, free spins are triggered.

Free Spins

For free spins, players pick their preferred Witch Power – Cherry awards 4 free spins, Berry awards 5 free spins, or Apple awards 8 free spins. During the round, the chosen power activates on every non-winning spin. Another free spin benefit is that the win multiplier carries over from the Trinity feature and does not reset, and it has a maximum value of x100. Filling the power meter triggers extra spins, too – Cherry awards +4 free spins, Berry awards +4 free spins, and Apple awards +2 free spins. The maximum number of free spins is 100.

Sweet Alchemy 100: Slot Verdict

The Play'n GO recycling machine was shoved into overdrive for this one. Sweet Alchemy 100 reminds one of Frankenstein's monster. Not because Sweet Alchemy 100 adopts monstrous characteristics in response to a society which shunned it, but because so many bits, pieces and parts from all over the workshop went into its creation. Where to begin? The conceptual milkshake contains parts from several Play'n GO slots, as stated above, it can be summed up as Moon Princess 100's chassis within Sweet Alchemy bodywork. If that sounds appealing, then Sweet Alchemy 100 should be a right riot of fun.

If you haven't gotten around to sampling Moon Princess 100 yet, then we can nutshell it by saying it's Moon Princess on growth hormones. This assessment applies to Sweet Alchemy 100, too. The max win has spiralled to 15,000x the bet, and to trigger free spins; players have to jump through an extra hoop. No longer is it enough to clear the base game grid to muscle your way into free spins. Now, you'll have to fill the power meter, then clear the grid on a Trinity spin to do so. Help is given in the form of all three witches doing their modifier thing on the board. Once triggered, players can now win up to 100 free spins with a win multiplier of up to x100, hence the '100' in the title.

Moon Princess was a massive hit for Play'n GO and one of its iconic releases. It's funny; it's hard to think of many iconic slots the studio has released as of late (at the time of writing). The studio continues to make good stuff, and at a prodigious rate, yet it also seems rather bent on recycling a lot of its older gaming ideas. Not bad gaming ideas by any means, but the persistent merry-go-round of reskins and do-overs feels a little off for a studio with such pedigree. Anyway, rant over. Sweet Alchemy 100 is a decent game, doing everything you'd expect from a slot running Sweet Alchemy stylings over a Moon Princess 100 engine.