Pumpkin Smash

As leaves change color and Starbucks customers flock for pumpkin spice lattes, Yggdrasil has released a seasonal slot. Pumpkin Smash brings an autumnal feel to its 20 paylines, with the celebrated squash providing fodder for original bonus features. Base play, on the other hand, has a Day of the Dead feel, with skulls of different colors roaming the reels. Exploding pumpkins have a more sinister energy in this context: Halloween as portal between the dead and the living.

Theme

Base play in Pumpkin Smash belongs entirely to the realm of the dead: betting symbols include four ornately carved skulls in four different colors, as well as the four playing card suits. The reels seem to be situated in a kind of grotesque theater, with lit candles and pumpkins carved to look like gargoyle faces looking on at the game. A golden sombrero wild substitutes for other symbols to form winning combinations. The orange pumpkin in the golden sombrero triggers bonus play – whatever farm is producing these round, bad boys is likely to win more than the usual barnyard awards. A mariachi-infused soundtrack adds even more spice to the mix. Overall, the design team at Yggdrasil has created cheerful, colorful, immaculately-executed visuals.

Betting Options and Functions

Yggdrasil has kept betting the structure refreshingly simple in this title: with 20 fixed pay lines, players can simply adjust coin value (from as low as 0.005 to as high as 5.00) to their preferred level in order to determine bet size. This yields an overall per spin bet range of 0.10–100.00 times the betting currency.

Autoplay can be adjusted from ten to 1000 spins, with an option to keep the reels turning indefinitely, should players so desire. A series of menus located at the lower left of the game screen offer detailed game rules, payout information, and adjustable settings; the overall theoretical return to player is an above-average 96.2%.

Features

If bonuses were limited to the usual free spins brought on by scatter symbol, Pumpkin Smash’s gameplay would be almost exactly identical to that of any number of slots currently available. Here is where Yggdrasil’s design team distinguishes itself. Two or more of the mighty pumpkin bonus symbols sets this slot’s unique bonus feature in motion.

As soon as the Pumpkin Smash Bonus Game begins, pumpkins are taken to a new game screen in a darkened room with beautiful stained glass in the background, where they are ‘smashed’ to reveal between two and 20 prizes apiece. These include a mix of coin payouts, free spins, and multipliers applied to specific gaming symbols – the reels then resume motion with these awards in play. Once bonus play begins, each additional pumpkin symbol that turns up on the reels gets smashed to reveal additional prizes, possibly including additional free spins. In this way, it’s possible to benefit from a great deal of free spins, on reels packed with win multipliers, as well as sizable coin payouts. If this is what the afterlife is like, it will have plenty of eager volunteers.

Our Take

Rare is the slot worthy of revisiting over and over; rarer still that such a slot might have a seasonal feel. Nevertheless, Pumpkin Smash stands tall – this title offers brilliant design, a delightful theme, and thought-provoking bonus features that will keep players coming back for more. Pumpkins may soon be happily smashed in all four seasons, with none of the messy cleanup normally associated with this act.