Flame Busters
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1 | Reels | 5 |
2. | Paylines | 243 |
3. | Progressive | No |
4. | Maximum coins | 243 |
5. | Jackpot | 1000 |
6. | Maximum jackpot in coins | 100 |
7. | Multiplier | No |
8. | Scatter symbol | Yes |
9. | Free Spins | Yes |
10. | Betting range | from $0.1 up to $100 |
11. | Coin Bet Range | from $0.01 up to $10 |
12. | Coins per line | 1 |
13. | Bonus Game | Yes |
14. | Wild symbol | Yes |
15. | Payout percent | 96.1 |
Flame Busters is a game produced by Thunderkick that uses a pixelated style of graphics that will be familiar to anyone who played 8-bit and 16-bit video games. It uses a fire fighter theme with a cast of goofy characters. While the theme seems a little all over the place, it's definitely different than what you'll normally find in a slot, and that makes it stand out quite a bit. It also has a low volatility with a high hit-rate for consistent action.
Format and Layout
The format used here has five reels and three rows of symbols, but there aren't actual physical reels that spin. Instead, symbols will randomly appear in the windows of the building, which form a 15-spot grid. You choose bet sizes based on how much you want to wager total per spin, and this ranges from $0.10 at the low end to $100 at the maximum. It's clear that there are plenty of options with the 14 different available bet sizes, so players at all stakes will have no problem getting a wager size that works for them.
Random Fire Symbols
At the beginning of each spin, you can sometimes see fires break out on the reels. All of the spots that are taken by a fire symbol will turn into the same random symbol, but it can't become a wild or a scatter. This actually gives you a bunch of the same symbol, which makes getting winning combinations easier. We think this is a clever way to include a feature that perfectly fits the theme of the game.
Wilds and Scatters
The W symbol is the wild in this game. It substitutes for anything but the scatter, though it does not get its own payouts. The fire alarm symbol is the scatter, and while it doesn't offer payouts, it does give you a chance to earn free spins. You can pick up 20 free spins for five of this scatter located anywhere on the reels. Likewise, you'll earn 15 free spins for four scatters and 10 free turns for three of them.
Free Spins Bonus Feature
During your free spins, you'll have a chance to collect fire alarm symbols. For every three of this symbol you collect, you'll get two additional free spins, and you'll move up a floor in the feature. As you move up through symbols, you'll activate the coin ignition feature.
The coin ignition feature substitutes out low-paying symbols for a flame symbol. On the first level, one of the symbols is substituted. On the second level, two of them are, and so on. You can get all five of them substituted by the fire symbol if you get to the fifth level or beyond, which makes it much easier to hit big winning combinations.
Fire Drill Feature
In the regular game, you can get a related feature called the Fire Drill. This will replace between one and five of the lowest-paying symbols into fire symbols. Again, this is essentially a free chance to hit winning combinations that you wouldn't have received otherwise.
Key Payouts
All of the payouts in this game are based on a multiple of your total bet size. The firefighter symbol gets 10x for five of a kind, and the wizard pays 5x for five. Five of the sailor with the eye patch gets you a 4.5x win, and a 3.5x payout is yours for five of the robot symbol. Adding to the weirdness of the cast of characters, you can get a 3x win for five of the smoking, blue goat symbol.
On the bottom end of the spectrum, you get five different coins in different colors. The golden A gets you a 2x win for five of a kind, and five of the purple K is worth 1.8x. A 1.7x prize is yours for five of the copper Q symbol. For the green J and blue T symbols, you'll be able to pick up 1.6x and 1.5x wins, respectively. These are some decent enough payouts considering how balanced the pay table is and how the bottom-end symbols are frequently replaced by better-paying symbols thanks to the various fire features.
Our Thoughts
Thunderkick's usage of a cast of strange characters and 8-bit/16-bit graphics is pretty neat in the Flame Busters slot. We can imagine that the setting is an apartment building of some sort with a lot of strange customers. The features are pretty solid as well, and the gameplay is action-packed with a high hit-rate. Overall, we think that this is a game that showcases how creative Thunderkick can be about the themes they come up with for their slots. Additionally, it shows how well they can mold different concepts for features in with a key motif for a game.