Hot Potato is a scorching, high-volatility game from the Thunderkick stable. The game, released on 8 November 2023, offers thrilling cluster pays action. Enhancing the excitement levels of the slot and its lucrativeness is the exploding wilds and rolling reels mechanic, which necessitate an avalanche of winning clusters to drop one after the other infinitely! 

The theme and concept of the game centers on food, sumptuous and tasty food, to be specific. This is necessitated by the game being set against a 5-star restaurant backdrop. Inside this restaurant, the resident chef’s favorite ingredient is the potato, which he uses to cook all sorts of dishes, from French fries to burgers.

Thunderkick went for a maximalist design when developing the Hot Potato slot. The game’s 7 x 7 grid is massive and covers a vast portion of the screen. Impressively, the slot provider went for brightness and color on the graphics front as the restaurant backdrop, and all reel symbols appearing on the grid are full of color.

Though coming with a maximalist design, a rarity in the slots industry, the steps to initiating the gaming session playing the Hot Potato slot are pretty straightforward. When the game launches, the first port of call is to set the desired bet option. The options range from a minimum of 0.10 coins to 100.00 coins per spin. From there, choose whether to spin the reels manually or automatically. 

Hot Potato is a cluster pays slot machine. To land a winning combination, or more appropriately, winning cluster, players must land at least five identical symbols adjacent to each other horizontally and/or vertically on the 7 x 7 playing grid. 

From the highest paying to the least paying, the symbols that players aim to match to scoop the game’s handsome payouts of up to 10,000x the bet include:

• The Chef.
• A burger. 
• French fries. 
• A soda can. 
• A doughnut. 
• A cucumber.

• Avalanche Feature: When winning clusters emerge, players receive their respective payouts. Immediately after, winning symbols disappear from their positions, and new ones land. This necessitates the evaluation of new winning clusters.

• Expanding Wild Symbol: The angry potato acts as the expanding wild symbol. This icon may land randomly on any spin and during the avalanche sequence. The icon can also be generated randomly on a winning cluster. Once it appears, the expanding wild symbol explodes and destroys all surrounding symbols in a 3 x 3 multiplier grid. 

• Multiplier Grid: Every cell on the playing grid carries an underlying multiplier value which starts at 2x. When expanding wild symbols land and explode on any cell, they double the underlying position multiplier up to 128x. 

• Bonus Game: The bonus game triggers when three scatters land simultaneously on the playing grid. In turn, players receive ten initial spins. New sticky multiplier grids that persist till the end of the round activate during this feature. Extra scatters that land during the round help activate more free spins.    

An impressive thing that I noted during my gaming session is that Hot Potato is an enterprising game. This aspect is further demonstrated by the slot’s high volatility and above-industry average RTP pegged at 96.16%. Moreover, the max payout of 10,000x the bet possible on any spin during both the base mode and bonus rounds, is another testament to the game’s lucrativeness.