Slot Factory · Released 2024 · Low volatility
Released
May 24
Volatility
Low
Reel
5x3
Paylines
15
RTP
94.02
Min bet
0.15
Max bet
45
Max win
n/a
A Slice Of The Prizes from Slot Factory is a 2024 fruit slot that looks immediately familiar but has a couple of features you would not necessarily expect to find behind the lemons and Sevens. Released on 9 May 2024, it uses a traditional 5x3 grid with 15 fixed paylines, with fruit slices, BARs and different coloured Sevens making up most of the paytable. The headline RTP is 94.02%, with alternative configurations also available.
Visually, Slot Factory has taken the classic fruit machine and given it a much brighter finish. Lemons, oranges and limes have been sliced open and illuminated with bold neon colours, while the different Sevens provide the more valuable regular symbols. It still looks unmistakably like a fruit slot, but there is enough colour and polish to stop it feeling like something dragged out of the corner of an old amusement arcade.
The gameplay is similarly straightforward until one of the bonuses arrives. Free Spins remove some of the weaker symbols from the reels, leaving a much stronger selection behind, while a completely separate Scratch Card Bonus takes you away from the reels and gives you a choice of cards containing instant prizes worth up to 150x the stake.
There is also an unusual Mixed Wins system, where symbols do not always have to be identical to produce a payout. Different fruit slices can combine with one another, as can different coloured Sevens, giving the otherwise traditional 15 payline setup a little more flexibility.
A Slice Of The Prizes is not trying to completely reinvent the fruit machine. It just slices the old formula slightly differently, which is probably about as appropriate as a mechanic can get for a game with this title.
Mixed Wins allow certain symbols from the same group to combine on a payline even when they are not identical. Different fruit slices can work together to form a fruit win, while the different coloured Sevens can also combine.
I like this because it makes the little 15 payline grid feel less restrictive than it initially appears. You are not always waiting for exactly the same coloured Seven or fruit to line up across the reels, so screens that look slightly mismatched can still produce something useful.
It is a relatively small change to conventional payline rules, but it suits the game particularly well. Slot Factory has filled the reels with variations on the same familiar symbols, so allowing some of those variations to work together feels much more natural than insisting every slice of fruit matches perfectly.
The Scatter provides access to Free Spins, with three, four or five Scatters awarding 5, 7 or 9 Free Spins respectively.
I prefer the scaling here to simply giving everyone the same feature regardless of how strong the trigger was. Nine spins still is not an enormous allocation, but finding five Scatters at least earns something noticeably better than scraping in with three.
The relatively small number of spins also makes more sense once you see what Slot Factory does to the reels during the feature.
Free Spins are not simply another five to nine spins on the ordinary reel set. The weaker Pip and BAR symbols are removed, leaving the fruit slices and higher paying Sevens with considerably more room to appear.
This is a simple idea that works well because you understand the improvement immediately. There is not a complicated meter to fill or several modifiers to unlock before the feature becomes worthwhile. Slot Factory simply gets rid of some of the symbols you would least like to see and lets the better ones take over.
It also works particularly nicely with Mixed Wins. With more fruit and Sevens occupying the available positions, the ability for different versions of those symbols to combine becomes considerably more useful.
Five Free Spins can sound rather stingy on paper, but five spins on a much better reel set is a different proposition from five ordinary ones.
Landing three or more Bonus Symbols activates the Scratch Card Bonus, providing a completely separate feature from Free Spins.
I like having two genuinely different bonus routes in a game this straightforward. Scatters lead towards an improved version of the reels, while Bonus Symbols take you away from them altogether.
It means you are not spending every base game spin watching for one particular trigger and ignoring everything else.
The Scratch Card Bonus presents a selection of scratch cards, with the number available influenced by the triggering Bonus combination. You choose a card and reveal the panels to uncover an instant prize, with rewards reaching 150x the stake.
This is probably my favourite feature in A Slice Of The Prizes, largely because it is such a natural fit for the game.
Scratch cards and fruit machines occupy a similar corner of gambling nostalgia, so moving from one into the other does not feel like Slot Factory has randomly bolted a mini game onto the reels. It gives the slot a brief change of pace and adds a little player interaction without making the feature unnecessarily complicated.
There is also something satisfying about physically revealing the prize rather than watching another set of reels decide everything. You are still entirely at the mercy of chance, of course, but at least you get to scratch the ticket yourself before discovering whether you have picked a juicy one or another lemon.
A Slice Of The Prizes is deliberately uncomplicated, but Mixed Wins give the base game enough of a twist to stop it feeling completely ordinary.
The 5x3 grid and 15 paylines are about as traditional as online slots get, yet allowing different fruit and Seven symbols to combine makes the reels slightly more forgiving and gives you more potential combinations to follow. It is not a mechanic that transforms the experience, but it does make sense within the game rather than feeling added purely to give the feature list another bullet point.
Having two separate bonus triggers helps considerably too. You are watching for Scatters and Bonus Symbols for completely different reasons, which gives the base game a little more purpose than simply waiting for one feature to appear.
The 94.02% RTP is the obvious disappointment. That is difficult to overlook when plenty of slots offer more favourable headline configurations, particularly because A Slice Of The Prizes is not compensating with enormous volatility or spectacular win potential.
Still, the low volatility profile and straightforward mechanics give it an easy going rhythm that suits the classic fruit machine style.
Score 7.0/10
There are not dozens of features here, but the two main bonuses are different enough that both earn their place.
Free Spins take the sensible approach of improving what is already there. Removing the weaker symbols gives fruit and Sevens much more space, while Mixed Wins become more useful because those are precisely the symbol groups that can combine.
The Scratch Card Bonus provides the better change of pace for me. Instead of offering another variation on the reels, it moves into a completely different instant prize game with rewards reaching 150x.
That is a surprisingly decent package for such a traditional looking slot. Slot Factory has not tried to turn a fruit machine into a ten stage adventure, but neither has it settled for nothing more than a Wild and a few Free Spins.
I would have liked a little more development within the Free Spins themselves, particularly given the relatively small starting allocation, but what is here is well judged.
Score 7.6/10
Slot Factory has done a good job of making an old fashioned fruit machine look considerably fresher without losing what it is supposed to be.
The sliced lemons, oranges and limes are bright and colourful, while the neon like presentation of the Sevens gives the reels a much more modern appearance than the traditional pub machine symbols they are based on. The whole thing is deliberately bold rather than sophisticated, which suits the subject perfectly.
The Scratch Card Bonus also gives the presentation a useful break. Moving away from the reels for a completely different style of feature helps prevent the simple 5x3 setup becoming visually repetitive.
There is obviously a ceiling here. Fruit, BARs and Sevens are not giving an art department the same opportunities as an elaborate fantasy world or character led slot.
But if you are going to serve fruit again, you may as well make it look fresh.
Score 7.5/10
A Slice Of The Prizes gets most of its originality from the way it tweaks a deliberately familiar format rather than trying to disguise it as something completely new.
Mixed Wins are a nice touch because they change how you read the reels without changing what the game fundamentally is. Seeing several different fruit slices across a payline does not necessarily mean the combination has missed, and the same applies to the coloured Sevens.
The Scratch Card Bonus gives the game more personality. It fits the retro gambling theme naturally and provides a completely different experience from the Free Spins rather than simply offering another reel modifier.
I also like that Free Spins improve the symbol distribution instead of introducing something unrelated. Removing the weaker symbols makes the feature feel like a stronger version of the game you have already been playing.
None of this is revolutionary, but there is enough thought in the combination to give A Slice Of The Prizes an identity beyond another set of cherries and Sevens.
Score 7.1/10
Overall Rating
7.3/10
A Slice Of The Prizes is a bright, uncomplicated fruit slot that avoids overloading a simple idea with features that do not belong there.
The 5x3 grid and 15 paylines keep everything immediately accessible, while Mixed Wins make the familiar fruit and Seven symbols more flexible than they first appear. Different varieties can work together rather than every winning combination requiring identical symbols, which gives the base game a small but worthwhile twist.
Free Spins improve the experience by stripping weaker symbols from the reels, leaving the fruit and Sevens with much more room to work. The initial allocation of 5, 7 or 9 spins is not especially generous, but the improved reel composition means those spins have considerably more going for them than ordinary play.
The Scratch Card Bonus is the feature I like most. It breaks away from the reels, suits the old school gambling theme and gives you something completely different to uncover, with instant prizes reaching 150x the stake.
The 94.02% RTP is the main thing holding the game back. Mechanically, though, this is a pleasant low volatility fruit slot with more personality than the familiar symbols initially suggest.
Slot Factory has not tried to turn lemons and Sevens into something they are not. It has simply sliced them up, brightened them considerably and added a couple of bonuses that actually suit the game.
A Slice Of The Prizes may use an old recipe, but the Scratch Card Bonus and Mixed Wins add enough zest to keep the fruit from going stale.
Overall Rating: 7.3/10.
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