Hot Potato! Slot Review

The Hot Potato! Slot Game

Hold up! Did you know that GoodLuckMate.com has the Hot Potato! free demo? As you follow this slot guide, I recommend that you play for fun and practise the gameplay without spending your cash!

Surprisingly, this video slot doesn’t take us to a kitchen setup or food truck. At least not in the base game

Instead, the base game reels rest against a cityscape, presumably an American metropolis, owing to the yellow taxi on the screen’s right.

Nonetheless, as soon as the heat turns up and you enter the free spins, the game will teleport you to a red-hot kitchen. The game’s design is enhanced by a funky tune, which suits the urban setting perfectly.

The Hot Potato! slot game controls are placed below the reels and on the top-right of the screen.

Symbols and Payouts

If you haven’t grabbed a meal yet, your hunger pangs will probably take over from this point. That’s because as part of the Hot Potato! slot symbols, you’ll see juicy burgers and french fries, among other delicacies.

The paytable has six (6) regular-paying and two (2) special symbols. While the former category helps create wins, the latter icons are your gateway into the bonuses.

Since the game adopts a Cluster Pays technique, you should aim for 5+ identical symbols in horizontal or vertical touching positions to trigger wins.

Clusters can occur anywhere on-screen, and their prizes are relative to the current bet!

The lowest-paying symbols in the Hot Potato! online slot are the Cucumber and Glazed Doughnut. For 5+ of the same, the game will pay up to 10 and 20 times respective wins. Then, the mid-win icons are the Canned Soda and French Fries worth up to 25 and 37.5 times the bet, respectively.

The Burger and Chef are the high-paying symbols, giving out up to 62.5x and 100x, respectively.

Moving on from the basic icons, we find the Potato Wild and “Hot” Scatter, which can fire up individual Hot Potato! bonus modes.

Hot Potato! Slot Bonus Features

I know you’ve been eagerly waiting to discover the game’s bonuses. Thankfully, this Hot Potato! slot review segment discusses it all!

Avalanche

After win evaluations, all the paying symbols are eliminated from the screen and the remaining icons drop to the bottom-most possible position. New icons then cascade to fill the empty spaces and this process continues as long as more wins land.

Exploding Wild

The Potato can randomly appear on-screen, detonating during the spin or an Avalanche. Or, it can automatically appear and explode within a paying cluster, even in the Hot Potato! free play. Once detonated, it removes all the icons in a 3x3 Multiplier Grid around and under itself.

Multiplier Grid

An underlying grid appears beneath the normal symbols having an x2 initial multiplier. Any new Exploding Wild that detonates above a multiplier grid position then the multiplier will double to a maximum of x128 on the cells that overlap.

Hot Potato! Free Spins

Land 3 “Hot” Scatters anywhere in the gaming area for 10 bonus spins. Any active Multiplier Grids will reset at the beginning of the bonus game and remain sticky throughout the bonus.

Bonus Buy

The game also includes a Feature Buy option, which you can use to instantly trigger the free spins for 100x the current bet size. The theoretical RTP when using Bonus Buy becomes 96.44%.

How to Win at Hot Potato! Slot

This Hot Potato! slot machine comes equipped with a 7x7 grid, featuring a Cluster Pay winning system.

According to the payout rules, players should aim for 5 or more horizontally or vertically connected identical symbols. The win amount depends on the number of connected icons.  

A game round starts when you press the Action button, playing a single game round on the selected stake value. Speaking of bets, it’s possible to gamble between €0.10 and €100 amounts, making this an ideal option for all budgets. 

Other users may opt for Autoplay which plays the game automatically for a selected number of times. However, it’s only available in specific jurisdictions.

If you’re looking for the sound and game settings, then use the Menu icon. However, the game rules and the paytable are accessible using the “i” button.

It’s that straightforward to gamble on this slot. However, if you’re a beginner, you can test the gameplay using the Hot Potato! demo play attached to this GoodLuckMate review!

Hot Potato! Slot RTP & Volatility

Most players will be impressed by the above-average Hot Potato! RTP of 96.16%. Also, the win cap is a significant 10,000x the stake! However, the slot’s high volatility might discourage other users.

The Final Thoughts

While doing some digging about this game, I discovered that it’s Thunderkick’s first cluster slot! I know the company’s fairly late since NetEnt pioneered the mechanic in 2016 through Aloha! Cluster Pays. But better late than never, they say.

Further, the Swedish developer executed the payout technique perfectly, you would hardly tell it's their first.

First, the regular prizes are decent, which you can affirm from this Hot Potato! slot review. As you go after the wins, trying to form 5+ blocks, the avalanche feature will ensure the fun never stops! Even better, there are exploding wilds that spice your gameplay, while the unique multiplier grid adds a tinge of extra heat.

However, the action gets more fun during the free spins because they are retriggerable, and the multiplier grids become sticky. If you can withstand the slot’s high volatility, you could try your luck longer and potentially secure the max 10,000x max prize.