Fruit Smash

Fruit Smash: Slot Overview

As far as first impressions go, a name like Fruit Smash is unlikely to get too many players hot with anticipation – unless they are hardcore fruities. However, Slotmill's Fruit Smash is far from being a run-of-the-mill old school slot machine. Instead, Fruit Smash serves up solid, if slightly copy-cat, scatter paying action in an Avalanche-style slot with big potential multipliers that just happens to use fruit for most of its imagery.

It wouldn't be a major surprise to find out Slotmill had been playing one or two Hacksaw Gaming slots when they developed Fruit Smash. The game just has that feel to it. When its natural delights load, players find themselves in a glowing green bush next to a 6x6 sized panel, covered in all manner of healthy snacks. Initially, Fruit Smash gave off a sort of coy innocence through its disarming visuals and extremely chipper soundtrack, though it can be anything but once the fruit starts tumbling. One nice touch is the interesting facts that pop up on the home screen. For example, did you know strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside? You do now.

One reason for Fruit Smash's capricious mood swings is a highly volatile math model, which generates a theoretical return to player value of 96.19%. The game is available on any device and lets players select stakes of 10 p/c to $/€50 per spin - that is if you choose to play Fruit Smash in regular mode (or don't have a choice) because it may also come with Burst Mode and three Fast Track options, covered below.

Landing eight or more matching symbols anywhere on the grid creates a win, which then gets removed from the grid by the Avalanche mechanic. New or remaining symbols fall down into the gaps, and if a new win is created, another Avalanche is triggered. Normal pay symbols are all fruit (coconuts are technically fruit despite their name) and include blueberries, plums, apples, watermelons, coconuts, spiky yellow fruit, spiky purple fruit, strawberries, pineapples, and dragon fruit. Eight symbol scatter wins are worth 0.3 to 0.8x the bet, rising to 15 to 60 times the stake for a 16+ sized scatter payout. There are no wilds used in this system at any time.

Fruit Smash: Slot Features

As well as the Avalanche feature, other extras of note are Giant Fruit symbols, win multipliers, free spins, Fruit Frenzy Free Spins, Fast Track, and Burst Mode.

Win Multiplier

A win multiplier is used in all phases of the game. Following each Avalanche, it increases by +1. The win multiplier reset between paid spins, yet not between free spins.

Giant Fruit Symbols

On each spin, a 2x2, 3x3, or 4x4 sized Giant Fruit Symbol can randomly appear on the reels. Giant Fruit Symbols aren't just big; they can also carry win multipliers of up to x100, which is applied to any win they are part of. If two Giant Fruit Symbols of the same type appear, their values are added together.

Free Spins

Landing 3 scatter symbols in the base game awards 10 free spins. If 3 scatter symbols hit in the bonus game, +5 spins are awarded. As mentioned, the win multiplier does not reset in free spins, and the active win multiplier is added to Giant Fruit Multipliers before being applied to scatter symbol wins.

Fruit Frenzy Free Spins

This feature can randomly be awarded instead of regular free spins when 3 scatter symbols land. During this bonus, Giant Fruit symbols are guaranteed to land on each new free spin.

Fast Track

If the Fast Track menu is present, players can play Fruit Smash in the following three modes:

• Giant Fruit – costs 5x the bet for a spin with guaranteed Giant Fruit, RTP is 96.28%.
• Free Spins – buy a regular round of free spins for 100x the bet, RTP is 96.45%.
• Fruit Frenzy Free Spins – buy a round of Fruit Frenzy Free Spins for 500x the bet, RTP is 96.53%.

Burst Mode

In Burst Mode, players select a stake level and a number of spins which is then played out without the game grid being present. Any wins are simply displayed on the screen if and when they happen.

Fruit Smash: Slot Verdict

After glancing back through Slotmill's catalogue, the studio shows encouraging signs of creating steadily better games. Despite the general progression, there is, at times, a slight lack of the major individuality required to really make their games pop from the bunch. This was more pronounced in Fruit Smash, which felt like something Hacksaw Gaming would have produced. We've noticed a similar phenomenon while testing other games they've done, but perhaps the use of such common items as fruit exacerbated this impression.

Familiarity hasn't damaged Fruit Smash's chances of being a fun slot to play, though, it must be said. Scatter paying slots aren't hugely numerous, so they possess an inherent desirability factor, and the use of massive multipliers is always a plus. When adding both of these elements together, Fruit Smash also caused memories of Sweet Bonanza to come bubbling to the surface. It's like Slotmill is going through an adolescence stage and hasn't quite found the conviction or self-confidence to completely follow its inner voice and is looking at the cool kids for cues.

Still, any player after a scatter paying fruit slot with masses of multipliers and a decent max win could do a lot worse than pick Fruit Smash for some grid-based entertainment. There are no major faults we can point at to say otherwise. To push the point home, while Slotmill is good at crafting polished slots, to really make a mark, they might want to dig deeper into their personalities or bravely go where no one's been before. So far, though, the studio is ticking along nicely, and Fruit Smash is a smartly designed scatter paying slot, which might not be a long-term classic, but has everything it needs for short term success.