Balloonies Slot Review

Innovation is becoming even harder to come by when it comes to online video slots, but IGT do manage to pull out some of the best and most unique slots these days. Balloonies is one of these games, as it introduces players to a variety of different icons which are all crafted from inflated balloons. These appear from the bottom of the screen, floating up into the sky – or rather, onto the reels – which is backed by the clear blue sky, giving the idea that they’ve been filled with helium and released into the air. Whenever you spin the reels, you’ll be greeted with the pleasant incorporated soundtrack, which almost sounds as though it has been snatched from a children’s cartoon show. On the whole, it presents a very nicely designed and crafted game, with some wonderful graphics and animations. Not only that, but the fact that it isn’t just your standard slot game with regularly spinning reels is a really appealing feature. The products which take the idea of a video slot and give it their own twist are often the most enticing to play, and where Balloonies is concerned, this is certainly not untrue.

Flying High in the Sky

As far as the interface of this game is concerned, you’ll find that while it does include a five reel and three row layout, as mentioned, the symbols float up from the bottom of the screen. And speaking of the included icons, these exist in the form of the regular A, K and Q symbols which have been created out of differently coloured balloons. There’s also three other icons added, which come in the form of animals. These are Gerry the Giraffe, Ernie the Elephant and Mia the Monkey. A fourth animal icon is also added, which is Henry the Hedgehog, although he works as one of the game’s wild symbol.

Not only does this game have a wonderful set of icons, as well as a standard reel and row interface, but it includes a set of 20 different pay lines. You can’t adjust these in any sort of way, but you do have the option of changing around the wager you place per round. This is easily changeable by using the arrows on either side of the ‘Line Bet’ box. Here, you can change it up from its minimum of $1 per line to $30 per line. This allows you to place a maximum overall wager of $600 per spin.

Don’t Burst Your Balloon!

This game has a few special features incorporated into it, with the first being recognisable in the base game, and this is the ‘Floating Reels Feature’. Any winning symbol combination will activate this in both regular game play and the freespins round. Once your winnings from the combination have been awarded, all icons incorporated in such will disappear. Empty spaces created by this will be filled with balloons that float up from below, and the floats continue until no further wins are formed.

There’s a yellow star symbol included in the game as well, and each one of these awards a two times, three times or five times multiplier. This can be activated in both the base game and freespins. If two or more of these show up during a spin or after floats, the multiplier values are added together. At the end of the spin, the total win amount is multiplied by the total multiplier value. This can only appear on reels one, two and three.

Henry the Hedgehog is this game’s wild icon, and if he shows up on the reels, he will stand in for any other icon, with the exception of the bonus symbol or the star symbol, in order to form a winning combination. And speaking of the bonus icon, this is the large pink balloon, and whenever three of these come into view, they will pay out twice your wager placed. Not only that, but three of them showing up on reels one, two and three will also trigger the aforementioned freespins round. You need to pop a balloon in order to reveal the total amount of freespins you’ll be receiving.

All Popped Out!

We actually love playing this game from IGT. It’s one of our favourites created by this developer, and that’s not only because of its many speciality inclusions, but also because of its top notch graphics, great overall game play, and wonderful soundtrack.