Candy Jar

It seems like developer Pragmatic Play has gotten caught with their hand in the candy jar this time. Well, not really, but the team has gone and released Candy Jar Clusters, an online slot overflowing in sweets up front while a cluster-paying win mechanic helps run the show. Those two things and the fact Candy Jar Clusters has bonus rounds powered by up to three modifiers pretty much sums up what the game is all about, so without any further do, let’s leap in and take a look.

Pragmatic Play is no stranger to candy, having two of the biggest titles in the genre, namely Sweet Bonanza and Sugar Rush, under its belt. These are two slots that went on to spawn a host of follow-ups, clones and imitations. Candy Jar Clusters isn’t as candylicious as they come, yet it still looks and sounds pretty sweet. The game world is one of those pastel wonderlands with sweets littering the joint, and the music sounds like a stock track from an app budding musicians can use to jam along to. Not the most enticing of candy lands then, but enticing enough to maybe dip a hand in for a try.

Candy Jar Clusters is played on a 7×7 game grid where winning clusters are created when blocks of at least 6 matching symbols are connected vertically and/or horizontally. The tumble mechanic removes winning symbols from the reels, and other symbols drop down to replace them. When no new win hits, a tumble run comes to an end. Chugging away behind all that pastel is a highly volatile math model with a default 96.08% RTP when betting 20 c to $/€240 per spin, or 96.04% when buying free spins.

Fruits and sweets make up the paytable’s mix of paying symbols. From lowest value to high, we find lemons, kiwifruit, oranges, plums, watermelons, macaroons, jelly, doughnuts, and ice cream. For hitting a 6 OAK cluster, players get 0.2 to 0.5 times their bet, while at the top of the paytable, a 49 OAK hit is worth 125 to 500x the stake. The chocolatey crown thing is Candy Jar Clusters’ wild symbol. It is used to substitute for any regular paying symbol, and it appears on all reels.

Candy Jar Clusters: Slot Features

Candy Jar Clusters’ list of features is random multipliers, bonus candies, free spins with up to three different modifiers, and the bonus buy.

Random Multipliers

Randomly, if a spin would result in a win, there is a chance a random multiplier appears. The possible values are x2 to x100, and this is applied to all wins from that spin and any subsequent winning tumbles.

Random Free Spins

In the base game, 3 types of bonus candies may appear. When the yellow candy hits, it is collected in the jar marked Wild, the red candy is collected by the jar marked Free Spins, and the green candy is collected in the jar marked Jackpots. Whenever a candy is collected, it may randomly trigger 10 free spins – 1, 2, or 3 modifiers may trigger with free spins at the same time:

• Wild Modifier Free Spins – at the start of the round, 6 to 12 wild symbols are selected to land on the grid in a random position on each free spin. Hitting a new Golden Wild during the round adds +1 to the wild multiplier, which applies to all wins. When a random multiplier hits while a wild multiplier exists, they multiply each other.
• Free Spins Modifier – at the start of the round, 1, 2, 3, or 4 extra free spins are awarded. Also, a new Extra Free Spins symbol may hit, awarding +1 free spin when it hits and is collected on a meter. Every 5 of these symbols collected awards a Super Spin. Super Spins are extra free spins played when normal free spins run out where only high pay symbols are present, alongside other available modifiers as well as random multipliers.
• Jackpot Free Spins – during this round, 5 fixed Jackpots are available via respective Jackpot symbols. For every collected 2 Mini, 3 Minor, 4 Major, 5 Maxi, or 6 Grand symbols, 10x, 25x, 50x, 100x, or 2,000x the bet is awarded, respectively. Wild multipliers and random multipliers apply to Jackpot wins when they are active.

Buy Free Spins

For 100x the bet, players can buy a round of free spins with 1, 2 or 3 of the modifiers randomly won.

Candy Jar Clusters: Slot Verdict

For a sugared hit of online gambling, Candy Jar Clusters could be the pick-n-mix some are looking for. Although, the candy sector of the online gambling market is fair bursting at the seams with pastel coated teeth busting junk food, which makes reviewing or playing another one as tempting as shovelling down the last piece of Toblerone when the triangle devoured back at the halfway point of the bar already tasted bad. Not saying Candy Jar Clusters is junk, but you know, another generic-looking sweet game might be hard to stomach.

If approaching Candy Jar Clusters as if slots like Sugar Rush or Sweet Bonanza don’t exist, then, yeah, there’s some pretty sweet stuff going on here. Collecting different bonus candy symbols, then having up to three modifiers active in free spins provides extra anticipation, a bit of added tension, compared to having a straight base game to bonus round transition, knowing what you are going to get. A bit like an All For One Studios POWER COMBO game. There is probably no need to say it, but the more modifiers on the board, the more likely the round is to get the adrenal gland pumping. Arguably a better chance of churning out a better financial result at the end, too, and at 10,000x the bet, Candy Jar Clusters is no stingy, tasteless, hard-boiled piece of nothing.

Hey up, Candy Jar Clusters is another candy slot, but you know, it’s from Pragmatic Play, one casino game designer that knows a thing or two about making these sorts of games. It might be hard to stifle a yawn over the theme choice and execution, yet the gameplay isn’t bad, making Candy Jar Clusters a viable option for players up for a bit of candy time.