Wild Pops Free Play in Demo Mode by Yggdrasil Gaming

Wild Pops review

Theme and Storyline

Wild Pops is set in a Kung Fu Panda style world where animals and Eastern mythology meet. As you might expect from an Yggdrasil Gaming slot, the detail put into the world is remarkable, and care has been taken to create a set of interesting and unique characters rendered in a style that is wholly particular to this one slot.

The characters include a pig in imperial garb, a cheeky crow with a coin in his mouth, and a furious green dragon. Each is rendered in an art style that echoes both Chinese statuary and Pixar animations.

It is a beautiful fantasy world.

Graphics, Sounds and Animations

Wild Pops is a visual delight. The characters are absolutely brimming with character, but all conform to the visual style of the slot.

The animations are detailed and relatively long. Each one gives the character a little more individuality and helps build a world that immerses the player as they spin the reels.

The music is a little off-putting. It sounds like the kind of thing a spa might play in their massage room to relax the customers. There are a few East Asian instruments that creep in and out of the musical track, but it doesn’t quite fit the visual style in the way one imagines the composer was hoping.

It feels especially weird as the sound effects are bright and upbeat in striking contrast with the soothing musical track. Unfortunately, you can’t mute the music without muting the sound effects on this slot. It is the one weak point of an otherwise delightful set of audio-visual elements.

Gameplay

Wild Pops starts out as a five reel, three row slot. It uses an any way wins system to determine payouts. This means winning combinations start in reel one or reel five and are made up of matching symbols appearing anywhere in adjacent reels going in either direction.

When the player hits a winning combination, they trigger the Pops feature. The winning symbols are removed and replaced by two new random symbols. This increases the size of the reels and, because of the any way wins system, it also increases the number of ways to win. This continues until there are no new winning combinations.

Three cascades in a row has two Wilds added to the reels at random. Every 7th Pop increases the multiplier for that spin by one.

The reels return to three rows tall at the end of each spin.

It is a fun variation on the usual cascade system and marks out Wild Pops as especially interesting to play.

Wilds, Bonuses and Free Spins

The Wild symbol substitutes for all symbols.

If a reel gets to be seven symbols high thanks to the Pop reactions, then the play triggers the Bonus game.

The Bonus game begins with the player receiving three "lives". Each life triggers a respin when the respins would otherwise have ended. When the three lives are gone, the spin ends.

Bet Sizes, RTP and Variance

The return to player of this game is 96.2%, a little over our yardstick for average of roughly 96%.

The range of bets on the site we tested ran from a minimum bet per spin of $/£/€0.20 up to a maximum of $/£/€50.00 per spin.

The volatility of this game is medium, which makes it a rather weak match for our preferred slot machine strategies. Our slot strategies target the highest possible volatility.

Conclusion

Wild Pops is an example of excellent slot design. The visuals are gorgeous and the gameplay fast paced and varied.

Our main gripe with the slot is that the volatility isn’t high enough to work with our preferred strategies and the RTP is only a little over average and so doesn’t make up for this fact.

If volatility is less of a worry for you as a slot-player, you will probably find this charming and fun slot well worth recommending.