Acorn Pixie by Bally – Slot Machine Review
Acorn Pixie is one of quite a few fantasy themed games that the market has gotten over the last decade or so, as movies made the genre a lot more popular. Bally Gaming, the company that’s responsible for this particular slot release, gives us a cute design and several features worth looking into, so keep reading to find out about everything it offers.
With the standard 5×3 reels setup of any modern slot machine, Acorn Pixie relies on 30 active lines for it, though at the same time it uses 50 coins to get them in that state. With the right symbols appearing and forming combinations, you can get wins of $5,000 in some cases. Wild and bonus symbols will guide you along the way towards the slot’s features, through which you will also discover free spins with expanded reels and lines, sticky wilds and Acorns that transform icons and give you access to a secret game area, from behind the reels.
Betting
There is quite a bit to discover and take advantage of in Acorn Pixie, and the developer made sure to ask for extra money, so there are 50 coins in use each round, even though there are only 30 active lines offered in exchange. The bets start at a minimum level of $0.50, allowing for $0.01 line bets in that case. They can reach a maximum of $250, with $5 wagered per line at that point.
If you look in the upper left corner, there will be a Buy Bonus option there. It’s a way for you to trigger the free spins feature, paying $20, $40 or $100 in exchange for 6, 8 or 12 rounds. The aim is to try and take advantage of the Wild Tree feature.
Acorn Pixie Jackpot
The slot has individual wins of up to $5,000, obtained through combinations that have just wild Pixies in them. Unfortunately, the bonus feature has a different paytable, with wins of up to $375, so you don’t get to take advantage of the Wild Tree quite in the way that you might want.
The RTP of the game is usually at 96%, at least if you go for the base game or the $100 Bonus Spins. The smaller Buy Bonus options have an RTP of 92% or 94%, so I wouldn’t recommend going for those options.
Special Features
Bally Gaming has done an excellent job designing the features for Acorn Pixie. The game gives us some regular wilds or scatters, but much of the focus will be on the bonus spins and their Wild Tree.
Wild Symbols
The Wild Pixie is going to be the main symbol of the game, the one you will rely on for the biggest paying combinations that this slot can offer. A combo of five such Wild Pixies gets you the $5,000 jackpot in the main game, but only $375 during bonus spins. With 1+ wilds in a combination, they are relied upon to act as substitutes and should result in additional combinations forming.
The game may decide to randomly add clusters of four wild symbols to the reels, in a 2×2 area. Should that happen, you could have several new wins formed.
Bonus Spins
The Acorn Pixie Bonus will come when you have the Bonus symbol on reels 2, 3 and 4, anywhere on them as long as they show up in the same round. You will get 7 free spins in exchange, along with a new game area of 5×6 reels and 50 active lines.
As the free spins progress, Acorn overlay icons will come in and land on top of existing symbols. They will remove them, to reveal an image that is hidden behind the game area. The positions behind the removed symbols are turned into wilds, which are sticky and will continue to form combinations for the duration of the bonus feature. It appears to be the slot’s highest potential feature. With so many wilds in place, you can end up with as many as 50 wins from each round, and over the course of 12 spins the potential is huge for such a game.
Design
The fantasy genre brings us yet another good looking slot machine, one that revolves around cute fairies in this case. They are shown as tiny women with wings, and they’re present in several symbols. Besides those icons, there are others which show things like flowers, toadstools, ladybugs and other insects. It’s a good design, better than average in any case.
Summary
I’m a fan of Acorn Pixie’s features, I think those give us the best reason to play the slot machine. I’d recommend using the Buy Bonus option only at its highest setting, or you’re getting an RTP that’s considerably lower.
