WitchyPoppins

WitchyPoppins: Slot Overview

Pop addicts AvatarUX are letting players celebrate the Halloween season, should they so choose, with WitchyPoppins, essentially a reskin of the not-long-cold slot PixiePop. Indeed, PixiePop only came out a few or so months before WitchyPoppins, so someone at the studio must have liked the setup. This setup includes pops 'n nudges in the base game, while free spins are where WitchyPoppins dumps in a win multiplier that gets boosted by multiplicative or additive symbols and a pay anywhere symbol, as well as bags of bonus buy options.

Another thing WitchyPoppins shares with its predecessor is the fact they are both fantasy-leaning slots. Where PixiePop had fairies, WitchyPoppins has, you guessed it, witches. The witches of the tale inhabit a dimly lit part of the forest in the base game (brightly illuminated in free spins), where the main background items are trees. WitchyPoppins certainly isn't as visually hectic as DonKey & the GOATS, the last AvatarUX review was. But, it is pleasant looking in a vaguely Fantasma Games kind of way, plus the little symbol animations and whatnot are neatly done, as is the music.

Time for some numbers, starting with bet selection, which goes from 20 c to $/€100 per spin. The RTP is the same as the mould slot, at 96.04%, which appears to apply no matter how someone chooses to play the game. One way of doing so is activating the ante bet. This increases the regular stake by 25%, causing scatter symbols to hit at a higher frequency. With its highly volatile math model, WitchyPoppins is played on a stretchable game grid of 5 reels and 3 rows at the start of each base game spin.

WitchyPoppins pays left to right from the first reel and right to left from the right reel, though 5 OAK wins pay only from one side. This means ways to win from 486 to 65,536 (including both ways). Arcane 10 to A card royals are the low pays, worth 1 to 1.5 times the bet for a 5 symbol win; then there are 5 witchy character high pay symbols, worth 2 to 6 times the bet for a 5 OAK hit. Appearing on reels 2, 3, and 4 is WitchyPoppins' wild symbol, able to substitute for any regular pay symbol.

WitchyPoppins: Slot Features

If you've tried PixiePop, you'll know the score here since both games share features. These are PopWins, nudges, free spins, multiplicative multipliers, additive multipliers, a pay anywhere symbol, and a bunch of feature buys.

PopWins

The PopWins mechanic removes winning symbols from the reels and replaces them with two new ones, increasing the reel height and ways to win. In the base game, the reels can grow to 6 positions high. From then on, winning symbols are replaced by just one new symbol.

Nudge

The nudge mechanic randomly bump reels up or down, thereby improving your win. They do this by nudging a scatter symbol to trigger free spins in the base game or extra free spins in the bonus round, nudging a symbol to trigger a higher reel height, nudging a pay anywhere symbol, or nudging a wild symbol.

Free Spins

Collecting at least 3 scatter symbols grants access to free spins. When scatters land during the round, they award an extra 1, 2, or 3 extra free spins. Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatters in the base game awards 5-7, 6-8, or 7-9 free spins, and the game grid expands to 4, 5, or 6 reels high, respectively. When PopWins occur now, the reels top out at 8 positions high and reset to the lowest common reel height. If all reels reach 8 rows, then +2 free spins are awarded.

Free spins have a win multiplier that increases by +1 following each pop. Landing a multiplicative multiplier symbol as well as a win multiplies the win multiplier by 2-11, while an additive multiplier symbol (when a win occurs) adds 5-50 to the multiplier. Potential multiplier values vary between natural triggers or bought bonus rounds.

There's more, too. Before free spins start, a random high pay symbol is chosen to be the pay anywhere symbol. This symbol does not need to be adjacent to payout, but it still needs 3+ symbols on separate reels to count towards a win. Values for 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, 26-30, or 31-35 pay anywhere symbols are 12.5x, 25x, 50x, 100x, 125x, 200x, 400x, or 500x the bet, respectively.

Xpress Buy Bonus

From the Xpress feature buy menu, players have access to these:

• Buy Bonus – 5 to 7 free spins with 1,024 ways for 125x the bet.
• Buy Bonus Plus – 6 to 8 free spins with 3,125 ways for 250x the bet.
• Buy Bonus Premium – 7 to 9 free spins with 7,776 ways for 500x the bet.
• Buy Bonus Max – 8 to 10 free spins with 7,776 ways + higher multiplicative and additive multipliers for 1,000x the bet.

WitchyPoppins: Slot Verdict

Circling back to DonKey & the GOATS for a moment, the last AvatarUX review shocked, like questioning if this was real life, by not being a PopWins slot. As anyone who's been following AvatarUX will know, PopWins is the studio's bread and butter, having released a monumental number of these slots by now. If you missed the poppin' action last time, then be chilled to know WitchyPoppins keeps the mechanic alive. It keeps a bunch of other stuff alive as well since it's basically a redo of PixiePop and all (a few non-theme details have changed). That might not be the most exciting news for PopWins fans waiting for a brand new iteration of their favourite mechanic to hear. However, WitchyPoppins is a seasonal slot, and since so many other casino game makers are in the habit of dropping reskins/clones in this scenario, it should be no major jump scare to find out AvatarUX has done the same here.

It does mean if PixiePop got your pulse racing, then WitchyPoppins probably will do as well (and vice versa). Certainly, it's not lacking anything the older game had which has not been passed down. The base game isn't the most exciting at times since it's all just PopWins and nudges when you're lucky, but WitchyPoppins does have quite a lot going on in the free spins bonus round. Not to mention several ways of buying your way to them for players that way inclined. The dream result is the same as before, at 20,000 times the bet, and the slick collection of free spins features means solid hits are as entertaining here as practically any PopWins game.

Like a lot of Halloween slots, WitchyPoppins is more charming than actually scary. AvatarUX has ensured the game should be fine for punters to play on their own on a dark and stormy All Hallows' Eve night. For an edgier alternative, you might want to try Print Studios' horror fest Darkness. That's a slot jumpy players would do well to keep the lights on for. All told, WitchyPoppins might lose cool points amongst some gamblers for basically being a reskin, but it's not a bad option for players looking for some light-hearted Halloween action with a bit of popping happening on the side.