Willy Wonka Pure Imagination

Willy Wonka Pure Imagination: Slot Overview

Back in 1971, a musical rendition of Roald Dahl's classic 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' hit the screens, starring Gene Wilder as Willy. Titled 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory', it tells the story of a poor boy who finds one of five golden tickets hidden in chocolate bars, giving him the chance to tour Willy Wonka's chocolate factory with Grandpa Joe. While the other four winners fell to the wayside through personal vices, Charlie stuck it out till the end, where he became the heir to Willy's empire, lifting himself and his family out of poverty into riches. Prepare to be bamboozled, folks, because software provider and Light & Wonder partner Playzido has hit us with Willy Wonka Pure Imagination, a slot based on the 50+ year-old movie.

Not trying to be snarky or anything, but Willy Wonka Pure Imagination, the slot kind of looks like it's 50+ years old, too. Okay, not so old, but some slots manage to appear older than their time, of which this is one. After Gene Wilder surprises at the load screen, the base game surprises with its garish yet uninspiring graphics, which somehow get even less inspiring when free spins are active. Willy Wonka was famous for having a rich imagination that could lead both children and adults down the most mind-blowing rabbit holes. The psychedelic boat scene in the film is a classic example. Willy Wonka Pure Imagination, by contrast, looks like it was slapped together in moments, like a mass-produced candy bar.

Some may argue Willy was a volatile man, in his way, and Playzido have matched this with a medium-high volatile math model in its slot. The RTP is a bit of a downer at 94.03%, perhaps on account of the licensing. When picking a stake, the options are 25 c to $/€50, and the action is held on a expandable game grid, which spends most of the time in a 5x5 state with 40 paylines.

Oranges, plums, strawberries and bananas begin our look over the paytable (maybe they are candied versions), followed by a sweet, a lollipop, and an Everlasting Gobstopper. Then comes Grandpa Joe, Charlie Bucket, and Willy Wonka. The rewards of landing a 5 OAK winning line range from 0.2x to 1 times the bet, so yeah, not much. Wilds with an Oompa Loompa on them substitute for all regular pay symbols. They land on all reels and pay 4 times the bet for a line of 5 wilds.

Willy Wonka Pure Imagination: Slot Features

In this section, we've got film-related extras such as the Oompa Loompa feature, free spins, and the Golden Ticket.

Oompa Loompa Feature

The Oompa Loompa feature may trigger on any spin, causing one of the following to occur:

• May add 1 to 5 columns of wild symbols.
• May increase the reels to 8 or 10 rows high, increasing paylines to 61 and 75, respectively.
• May multiply pays by 2, 3, 5, or 10.

Golden Egg scatters do not appear on the reels during the Oompa Loompa feature. Now, once underway, each reel holds a number of positions that are replaced with symbols from the paytable, not scatters, before the spin initiates. All reels may switch to a randomly determined symbol. The Oompa Loompa is guaranteed to award at least 5x the bet. If it does not, the win is increased to 5x.

Free Spins

Free spins are triggered when at least 5 Golden Egg scatters land in view. The number of spins awarded is equal to the number of landed scatters. On each free spin, 1 to 3 oversized symbol overlays spin with the reels. Oversized symbols may land on, off, or partly on the reels. Oversized symbols can be anything except scatters. Each reel has a number of positions that, before the spin initiates, are randomly replaced with the same symbol as the oversized symbol overlays. Free spins are guaranteed to award at least 10x the bet. If they do not, the win is increased to 10x.

Golden Ticket

At the end of free spins, a Wonka bar is unwrapped on the screen. It either contains nothing or a 5,000x the bet Golden Ticket prize.

Willy Wonka Pure Imagination: Slot Verdict

Who could have foreseen waking up today and reviewing a Willy Wonka slot based on the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie starring Gene Wilder from 1971? The world is indeed full of surprises. Kudos to Playzido for adding a splash of randomness to life. However, apart from the thematic surprise factor, there sadly isn't much else to thank the game's makers for. Willy Wonka Pure Imagination itself looks like a throwback from the 1970s, and the features are nothing to write home about, either.

As mentioned, one of the biggest turn-offs was the shonkily retro (by accident or design) looks and execution. Maybe Willy Wonka Pure Imagination was made this way on purpose to reflect the age of the film? Maybe, but this feels like a generous presumption. The base game is bad enough, but the free spins round, instead of piling on sensorial inputs to amplify excitement, does the opposite, looking even more drab and boring. Why? No idea. It doesn't help that the features are also on the dull side, compounded by the worrying minimum win guarantees for both the Oompa Loompa feature and the free spins round.

Instead of being a creative tour de force that tugs at the edges of reality, throwing players into a world where up means down, and sanity is a mood, Willy Wonka Pure Imagination is like a generic no-brand chocolate bar with very little flavour. Once the novelty of seeing an old-school classic film light up the screen wore off, almost instantly, so did any further desire to keep playing Willy Wonka Pure Imagination. It's funny, Playzido could have used the inspired decision of putting the original Willy Wonka film into a slot to create something memorably, shockingly, wild. Instead, like Augustus Gloop, Willy Wonka Pure Imagination gurgles about in a warm, brown, gooey mess of its own making.