Tropical Slots Deluxe, by Battery Acid Games, is a cute little indie game for iOS devices. While the game costs a mere $0.99, I often wished that it had a bit more oomph.
I love slot machines, and I love it when slot machines give me money. Sadly, Tropical Slots Deluxe can only fulfill one of my loves, although I wouldn’t object to them giving me money should I line up my limes and coconuts just right.
Upon starting Tropical Slots Deluxe I noticed one thing; there wasn’t any annoying background music. It was such a delight to know that I wouldn’t have to sit through a repetitive track, and instead got to hear the clanks and tinkering of the machine itself. On the subject of the slot machine, it looks like one of the classic machines that only consists of three sections. While I appreciate simplicity sometimes, I feel that in this case it hurt the game rather than compliment it.
With how advanced and interactive modern day slot machines are, I would’ve liked to have seen more options. Perhaps it could’ve been designed after the ones where you can have a maximum of 15 lines, and the ability to choose which ones you want to bet on. As it stands, there is just the option to have your bet at a minimum of $5, raising it to whatever you can afford, and then either stopping the lines one-by-one or altogether.
One common slot machine function that was missing was how the machine will line up on its own. The only way to get the machine to stop is by selecting either of the stop button options. Since there is no menu or anything you can interact with to gain some insight about the functionality of the game (although how difficult can it be to pull a lever and hope you win coins?), I had to find out about that the hard way.
In addition to all of that, I would’ve liked it if there had been a bonus/mini-game aspect to the slots. Whenever I step foot in a casino (which is rare, I assure you), I tend to gravitate towards the games that have that feature. Not only does it make it more exciting when you activate it, the winnings you can get from it are sometimes far greater than what you normally would get by simply playing the game.
There was one thing that slightly irked me a bit and it was the placement of the “Reset” option. In the upper-right corner, an option will occasionally appear asking you if you want to reset the amount of credits you have. In the beginning it would only appear when I had run out, but when I reached over 1,000 it would sometimes flash at random. When everything lines up properly and you do get a win, the position of the lever ends up right behind the reset option and you have to sit and wait through the animation for it to pass, or risk accidentally losing all of your winnings. Hopefully, if Battery Acid Games release future slot machine titles, they can find a different place to have that option.
Like most slot machines out there, the top of the machine is where you see what combos award what amount. Since there are only three panels to line up, the combinations are limited. The only way you can win anything is if you either get three of a kind, or if you get two wilds and whatever fruit takes up the third slot. The overall animation of the machine is very fluid, and if you choose to stop each row individually, future rows spin faster, making it more difficult for you to get a combination.
Aside from my nit-picking, Tropical Slots Deluxe is fun and proves to be addicting, much like a real slot machine. I appreciated how, if you have to close out of the app or are taken away from it by a telephone call, your credits remain when you start up the app again. That, for me, was a huge plus.
Tropical Slots Deluxe is available now in the iTunes App Store for only $0.99, so give it a go and let us know in a comment below how much “money” you win!
