"Candy Stars" is an engaging and visually appealing video slot game developed by Pragmatic Play, featuring a vibrant grid of 5 reels and 3 rows. This sweet-themed game offers players 20 distinct ways to achieve victory, adorned with an array of colourful candy symbols and exciting gameplay mechanics.
The game's symbols begin with the lower-value icons, represented by the traditional card royals J through A. These symbols offer players payouts ranging from 1 to 1.5 times the bet for securing a sequence of five of the same symbol. Ascending the paytable, players encounter the more lucrative symbols: a variety of delicious candies that can sweeten the deal with payouts worth between 2 to 7.5 times the bet for a five-of-a-kind match. One of the standout features of "Candy Stars" is the dynamic role played by wild symbols. Wilds not only have the power to substitute for any of the regular paying symbols, enhancing the chances of forming winning combinations, but they also introduce an intriguing multiplier feature that adds an extra layer of excitement to the gameplay.
The game incorporates a tumble mechanic that is active both during the base game and the bonus rounds. This feature ensures that symbols part of winning combinations are removed from the reels, allowing symbols above to fall into the vacated spaces. This cascade can potentially create new winning combinations, with the process repeating until no new wins are formed. Wild symbols, which exclusively appear on the top row, possess a unique trait where they remain in place through subsequent tumbles within the same spin, contributing to the potential for multiple wins. Initially, these wilds carry a x1 multiplier, which increases by one with each tumble, potentially reaching up to a staggering x128 multiplier.
Scatter symbols, depicted as shimmering diamonds, play a crucial role in unlocking the game's free spins feature. Landing three scatters on reels 1, 3, and 5 simultaneously awards players with 8 free spins, introducing an even sweeter layer to the gameplay. During the free spins round, the game guarantees that at least one wild symbol will make an appearance on the top row in a random position at the start of each spin. Notably, during this bonus feature, wilds start with a x2 multiplier, which doubles after every tumble, maintaining the potential to escalate up to the maximum x128 multiplier.