Though the theme doesn’t make this game seem like it’s got much about it, there’s actually a few things you’ll want to bear in mind when you play it. Reading our review will help you to know that it entails before you start playing.
Special Features
Fluffy Favourites boasts several interesting features that make the game a bit more fun to play. We’ll tell you here how they all work and what you need to do to take advantage of them:
Pink Elephant Wilds
If we told you not to think about a Pink Elephant, what pops into your mind? A Pink Elephant, obviously. When it comes to playing Fluffy Favourites you won’t mind that at all, given that the Pink Elephant acts as a Wild and will substitute in for any symbol except for Scatters. Not only can they turn a losing line into a winning one, if prizes are awarded thanks to the presence of a Pink Elephant in the line then you’ll find that your winning amount is doubled.
Pink Elephant Free Spins
It’s not just the fact that they become Wilds that make Pink Elephant symbols so exciting when you see them on your board. The symbol is also responsible for the launching of some Free Spins, should you land three or more of them on your reels. The amount that you get will dictate how many Free Spins you’re rewarded with, as three Pink Elephants will give you fifteen Free Spins, four will mean twenty Free Spins and if all five reels have a Pink Elephant then you’ll get twenty-five Free Spins.
Claw Toy Box Feature
Another symbol to keep your eye out for is one that’s a little bit less ostentatious than the Pink Elephant. If you see three or more Claw symbols on your reel then the Toy Box Feature will be triggered. You’ll see a Toy Box with a Claw hovering above it. Pick a toy out of the pile and the Claw will dip down and grab it, dropping it in front of you. Once it’s been dropped the associated prize will be revealed and added to your total winnings. You’ll be able to pick up to five toys and could receive up to one-hundred times your original wager.
The Gamble Bonus
How does the Gamble Bonus start? Nobody knows, with a random number of goes seemingly being needed to trigger it. You’ll see the ‘Gamble’ symbol on the bottom of the game, next to ‘Auto Play’ two over from the ‘Spin’ button. If it’s triggered then it could pay double or pay nothing on your last win. You’ll need to correctly guess which choice will be revealed in order to win, with the game going on until either you guess incorrectly or five correct choices have been selected. Each time the Gamble Bonus is triggered is an independent event and the most you’ll be able to win from it is £32,000. Not that that’s a disappointing amount, obviously.
Gameplay & RTP
It’s difficult to really tell what the theme of Fluffy Favourites is, to be honest. On the one hand you’d think it was quite clear, given the presence of so many fluffy toys and a ‘Claw’ feature that allows you to pick said toys out of their Toy Box. Yet when you load the game up you’ll see a circus Big Top sitting on top of a luscious green field, suggesting that it might have some sort of link to that kind of world. There’s also a bright sun with large rays bursting from behind the field, as well as a rainbow off to one side. It’s rather muddled, truth be told, leaving you with the impression that the game’s makers weren’t totally sure what they were aiming for. One bit of credit that you have to give them is that they’ve at least made the theme consistently muddled, with the line numbers found on what look to be differently coloured candy floss sticks, or perhaps reels of cotton. There are fluffy toys located next to the ‘Bet’ and ‘Win’ amounts at the top of the screen, though they’re missing from the ‘Options’, ‘Change Bet’ and other symbols at the bottom. The ‘Spin’ button, meanwhile, has hearts on it for no particular reason.
The reels are at least consistent in every sense, with all sorts of fun fluffy toys featured on them. You’ll find the likes of a large Duck, a Panda and some Clownfish. In terms of the actual gameplay, there’s plenty to like about Fluffy Favourites. It’s one of the more modern games out there, meaning that the under-the-hood workings can cope with the graphics; though it’s fair to say that the graphics aren’t exactly intensive. About the most exciting thing that happens is that winning symbols flash and a rainbow appears behind the Elephant when it acts as a Wild. In terms of the different special features, they’re fun enough to keep you interested. The fact that Pink Elephant Wilds pay double is a nice addition, meaning that your joy of hitting a winning line is increased by the size of the payout. The Claw Toy Box Feature is exactly what you’d want from a game of this type, allowing you to interact with it enough to make it slightly more interesting than those games that just tell you what you’ve won. Rather than being passive, you can at least feel as though you’re having some influence over the winnings. The same is true of the Gamble Feature, though it’s a shame that you can’t do anything to trigger that.
Is Fluffy Favourites’s gameplay good enough to keep you coming back time and again? Probably not, to be perfectly honest. It’s fine, but you’d be reluctant to say that it’s all that exciting and the lack of a decent theme throughout means that it’s a bit confused in what it’s trying to do. With that in mind, then, you have to look at the Return To Player percentage and wonder if it couldn’t be a little bit higher. 95.3% is decent enough, of course, but it’s not high enough to make up for a muddled theme and lack of particularly gripping gameplay. If it was closer to the 98% that Virtue Fusion’s very best games offer then that might be enough to encourage those players that care more about the RTP than anything else to return on a regular basis. As it is, it’s a little higher than the 94% you’ll find with the majority of games but not by much. Overall, it’s not a disappointing game but it’s certainly lacking a degree of pizazz to elevate it above ‘mediocre’. The ‘Gamble’ Feature might have been able to do that, but the fact that there’s no knowing when, if or why it starts makes even that a little bit uninspiring. You might disagree, but we were left wanting more from Fluffy Favourites.