Tons of Suns

Tons of Suns: Slot Overview

'Welcome to the jungle…' Those are not our words, but the tagline attached to the game sheet for Tons of Suns, an online slot based around what looks like the mighty Aztec civilization, from Games Global pals High Limit Studio. Tons of Suns appears to be High Limit Studio's sixth release, and so far, the team's back catalogue has included 3 Link&Win games and an Epic Strike. Two core mechanics that get tossed around amongst the Games Global family of studios like a rag doll. Tons of Suns, by contrast, has no high-profile gaming mechanics attached, yet it still manages to run a fairly stock set of features in a fairly stock environment. We are ready to be pleasantly surprised, though, so it's time to sun up and take a closer look.

Tons of Suns' visual layout is a little bit unusual. The background is a brown stone wall, maybe the entrance to something, decorated with plants, while a step pyramid, not to scale, is plonked in a bit of spare room next to the actual gaming grid. The grid is made up of 5 reels, holding 3 rows each, and has 4 prize values displayed along the top of it. There's nothing terrible about the visuals, but they're hardly gripping, and in the wide range of Mesoamerican-inspired slots, Tons of Suns does little to nothing to stand out optically.

On Tons of Suns' 5x3, 243 ways to win gaming grid, winning combinations land left to right from the first reel at a hit rate of 33.99% on the default 96.01% RTP model. Three lower return values are available for the record. The math model is highly volatile, and as well as picking a stake of 20 c to $/€40 per spin, the chance to buy free spins is present as well.

Eleven regular pay symbols land in the base game; however, in free spins, low pays are removed from the reels. The low pays are 9 to A card ranks, awarding 0.25 times the bet for a 5-of-a-kind winning line, while the high pays are a toucan, a frog, a necklace, a character, and a two-headed snake. Hitting a 5 OAK premium win pays 0.3 to 0.75 times the bet. Wilds substitute for all symbols except scatters, Pyramids, and Sun symbols.

Tons of Suns: Slot Features

Time for features and what we've got here is Sun symbols, a Pick Bonus, free spins, and a bonus buy.

Sun Symbol Feature

Sun symbols appear on all reels. When at least 1 Sun symbol hits in the base game, each Sun symbol awards either a cash prize up to 25x the bet, 5, 10, 15, or 20 free spins, or the Pick Bonus. During free spins, Sun symbols award only cash prizes up to 25 times the bet.

Pick Bonus

When triggered by the Sun feature in the base game, matching 3 icons of the same type awards a prize. The values are 5x for the Mini, 25x for the Minor, 50x for the Major, or 250x for the Mega. These revealed special symbols act like so:

• Boost – adds 250x to the Mega, 50x to the Major, 25x to the Minor, and 5x to the Mini prize.
• Ultra Boost – adds 500x to the Mega, 100x to the Major, 50x to the Minor, and 10x to the Mini prize.
• Epic Boost - adds 750x to the Mega, 150x to the Major, 75x to the Minor, and 15x to the Mini prize.
• Win All – awards all 4 prizes at once.

Free Spins

Another way of winning free spins is by hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatters in the base game, which awards 10 free spins plus a payout of 2x, 10x, or 50x the bet, respectively. Scatters only appear in the base game. In free spins, landing a Pyramid symbol (only available in free spins) moves one position along the Feature Trail. At certain points on the trail, a win multiplier of x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, and x25 enters the round. At each multiplier point reached on the trail, +5 free spins are awarded. The extra free spins and the bigger multiplier are played after the current set of free spins has finished. Last but not least, low-pay royal symbols are removed from the reels for free spins.

Buy Feature

From the buy feature, players can buy the free spins round for 60 times the current bet.

Tons of Suns: Slot Verdict

One of the first impressions of Tons of Suns, while soaking in the generic display and fairly generic features, was wondering if High Limit Studio was attempting to imitate Pragmatic Play. Not as in copying one of its games, as such, yet the leaves animations between game modes and the multiplier trail in free spins sparked memories. Dunno, probably wrong, just feeding back one of Tons of Suns' impressions. Perhaps it's because High Limit Studio picked such a common theme that a lot of these games sort of blend together in the mind, making it hard to use the subject matter and really stand out. ELK Studios did well with Coba/Coba Reborn, and the Gonzo range sticks out like a sore thumb, of course, but there's a strong suspicion that in a few months, memories of Tons of Suns will have evaporated like early morning fog.

On the bright side, at least High Limit Studio has broken away from using the big-name mechanics from Games Global's mechanical arsenal. Instead, it's tried to be relatively original rather than rely on someone else's features to get the job done. Sun symbols might appeal to some gamblers since you only need one to land to do anything – collect cash, get free spins, or launch the Pick Bonus. Pick Bonus prizes aren't especially large, at least to start with, yet who knows, get lucky with the special symbols, and their values may receive a pep. Tons of Suns isn't a tons of potential slot in general, but at 4,556.25x the bet, there are possibilities for a level of titillation.

By the end, Tons of Suns didn't do anything extraordinary whatsoever and is likely to struggle to make itself heard in the crowded jungle of Central/South American-style slots.